Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 31 Aug, 21:31, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 31 Aug 2009, at 19:31, Flammarion wrote: On 28 Aug, 16:08, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 28 Aug 2009, at 14:46, Flammarion wrote: On 22 Aug, 08:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 10:28, Flammarion wrote: 1. Something that ontologically exists can only be caused or generated by something else that does 2. I ontologically exist 3. According to you, I am generated by the UD 4. Therefore the UD must ontologically exist. Step 4 is really step 0 which I have worked backwards to here 5. But the UD exists only mathematically. Thus, ontological existence = mathematical existence. There is no usual one, since there is no one agreed ontology of mathematics. For sets and functions, you may be right. For numbers, there is a general mathematical agreement. No there isn't. What is the disagreement? The age old debate about whether numbers exist You confuse the use of number in physics, and in cognitive science, and in computer science, with metaphysical discussion I do avoid. When I say that there is no disagreement about the numbers, I mean that most scientist agree on the use of the classical tautologies in arithmetic. Nothing more. Or show me where. tautologies don't buy you a UD. Unicorns=unicorns doesn;t mean there are any unicorns. There may be no philosophical argument, but this is not relevant to undersatnd the non philosophical reasoning. Ontology is philosophy. You can't settle ontological quesitons with mathematical proofs. Philosophy, or theology. OK. But comp is an assumption in cognitive- science/philosophy/theology. No. *CTM* is. Comp* is your own fusion of CTM with Platonism Comp is CTM + 2+2 is equal to 4 or 2+2 is not equal to 4. AR qua truth does nto buy you a UD either Wait I explain CT, you will see what I mean more easily. It is an assumption that a form of reincarnation is possible. This is not pure mathematics. UDA belongs to the intersection of cognitive and physic science. UDA is not purely mathematical. It is not going anywhere without some ontological assumptions either. since it has an ontological conclusion. I am using the hypothesis that my consciousness will be relatively preserved by a transformation of my brain, and Church thesis. And the conclusion is epistemological: comp - physics is a branch of number theory, but with a gift: that physics is part of a larger thing (and splits into qualia and quanta). I don't make publicly ontological commitment. I give a theory, theorems, and a practical way to test the consequence of the theory. The fact that you don't majke your ontological assumptions explicit is just the problem. You are aware. are you not, that philosophers and mathematicians are still writing books and papers attacking and defending Platonism and other approaches? Platonism is used by both philosopher and mathematician as something far more general than arithmetical realism, on which all mathematicians agree. I am not concerned with argument about how many pixies exist. So a doubt about the existence of a large cardinal in set theory rise a doubt about the existence of seven? No. A doubt about the ontological existence of seven leads to a doubt about the rest. A doubt on seven, would destroy the argument. Indeed! I personally don't believe in ontological seven, as far as I can make a sense on that. Well, if the UD isn't ontological either, I am not being simulated on it. I have use arithmetical realism, because I have never met any difficulty, among mathematicians, physicians and computer scientist. Nor even with philosophers, except some which just dodge the issues of showing what they miss in the argument. Hmm. Well, you would say that, wouldn't you. I was thinking of you, and some old friends. But at least, you make the dodging in public, my friends never did. I thank you for that. My work has been indeed rejected in Brussels, by philsophers. But it has been defended a s a PhD thesis by a jury with mathematician, computer scientist, physician (yes, not physicist, but doctor!). But it is a philosophical thesis, since its conclusion is the nature of existence. Not at all. I see the bigness of the misunderstanding here. I just use the scientific way to proceed in theology. Theology is philosophy and then some This is what I like with the Church Turing thesis, it makes possible to keep the agnostic scientific attitude in very deep question, and to proceed by theories and verification, and this in a field that atheists like to relegate to religious crackpot. Atheists and other religious fundamentailist hates this work, but that is normal. My work shows atheism and some religion are very close compared to the abysse between atheism and agnosticism (be it on mind, matter, god, or
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 28 Aug, 16:08, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 28 Aug 2009, at 14:46, Flammarion wrote: On 22 Aug, 08:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 10:28, Flammarion wrote: 1. Something that ontologically exists can only be caused or generated by something else that does 2. I ontologically exist 3. According to you, I am generated by the UD 4. Therefore the UD must ontologically exist. Step 4 is really step 0 which I have worked backwards to here 5. But the UD exists only mathematically. Thus, ontological existence = mathematical existence. There is no usual one, since there is no one agreed ontology of mathematics. For sets and functions, you may be right. For numbers, there is a general mathematical agreement. No there isn't. What is the disagreement? The age old debate about whether numbers exist There may be no philosophical argument, but this is not relevant to undersatnd the non philosophical reasoning. Ontology is philosophy. You can't settle ontological quesitons with mathematical proofs. Philosophy, or theology. OK. But comp is an assumption in cognitive- science/philosophy/theology. No. *CTM* is. Comp* is your own fusion of CTM with Platonism It is an assumption that a form of reincarnation is possible. This is not pure mathematics. UDA belongs to the intersection of cognitive and physic science. UDA is not purely mathematical. It is not going anywhere without some ontological assumptions either. since it has an ontological conclusion. You are aware. are you not, that philosophers and mathematicians are still writing books and papers attacking and defending Platonism and other approaches? Platonism is used by both philosopher and mathematician as something far more general than arithmetical realism, on which all mathematicians agree. I am not concerned with argument about how many pixies exist. So a doubt about the existence of a large cardinal in set theory rise a doubt about the existence of seven? No. A doubt about the ontological existence of seven leads to a doubt about the rest. I have use arithmetical realism, because I have never met any difficulty, among mathematicians, physicians and computer scientist. Nor even with philosophers, except some which just dodge the issues of showing what they miss in the argument. Hmm. Well, you would say that, wouldn't you. My work has been indeed rejected in Brussels, by philsophers. But it has been defended a s a PhD thesis by a jury with mathematician, computer scientist, physician (yes, not physicist, but doctor!). But it is a philosophical thesis, since its conclusion is the nature of existence. The point remains: there *is* a debate so there is *not* a standard ontology. It is believed explcitly by many physicists too, like David Deutsch, Roger Penrose, and those who use math in physics. I never said no-on beliieves Platonism. I said some people belive other things. Therefore it is contentious, therefore it is needs jsutification. It is more efficacious to see if the consequence of comp, believed by many, are verified by nature. It's the consequences of CTM+Platonism By comp, the ontic theory of everything is shown to be any theory in which I can represent the computable function. The very weak Robinson Arithmetic is already enough. I am not interested in haggling over which pixies exist. This may be the root of your problem. comp = CTM. It clearly isn't by the defintiion you gave in your SANE paper. All right. As I said: comp is CTM + 2 + 2 = 4. Nope, mere truth does not buy the immaterial existence of a UD But from 2+2 = 4 and CT, you can derive the existence of UD. Only the mathematical existence. Classical logic is just a formal rule. It depends on the realm in which you apply classical logic. In computer science people admit that a running program will either halt, or not halt, even in case we don't know. This is a non formal use of classical logic. It still does not demonstrate the immaterial existence of computers no-one has built. No one has ever build the prime numbers. No. They were not built. they did not spontaneously spring into being, they do not exist at all. Bivalence is not Platonism Exactly. This is one more reason to distinguish carefully arithmetical realism (bivalence in the realm of numbers), and Platonism (something huge in philosophy and theology). Even more reason to distinguish between AR qua truth and AR qua existence. Yes, and I use only AR qua truth. Then you cannot come to any valid conclusion about my existence. I may ask you what are your evidence for a primary matter, or for your notion of AR qua physical existence. You dismiss matterial existence assuming Platonic existence I dismiss Platonic existene assuming material existence. I may not
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 28 Aug, 15:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 28 Aug 2009, at 13:47, Flammarion wrote: On 21 Aug, 20:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 09:33, Flammarion wrote: I can only hope you will work on the UDA+MGA, and understand that non-theoretical truth have to be redefined as theoretical possibilities (consistencies) observed from inside (from some first person point of view). There is no UD. You are meaning no physical UD. I don't need a physical UD in the reasoning. I mean no existent UD, material or immaterial Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. It is a version of Platonism The wording is not important. Maybe you could flag the wording that we are supposed to take serioulsy. I have explained to you why it is preferable to avoid the term Platonism for the belief that classical logic can be applied in arithmetic I think the term Arithmetical Realism should be avoided when it is not clear whether it is a claim about truth or about existence. . Even mathematicians does not call that Platonism, which they use for the general idea that classical logic applies to a much larger part of math. Arithmetical realism is better: it is the belief that the truth of arithmetical sentence exists independently of any means (humans, theories, machines, universes, ...) to study them. The point is that in the assumption of CTM, (CT+ the theological act of faith), I am using that version of platonism only, which is just the idea that classical logic can be applied to arithmetical sentences, and in the conclusion, only, we have to abandon weak materialism or CTM. Nope. Assumptions about truth don't get you a UD which is capable of simulating me. You need a claim about existence. You told me this before, and I did explain that I am use the truth of the existential statement in arithmetic, as my unique claim about existence. And I put forward the counterargument that you can have true statements about existence, where the existence in question is not literal ontological existence. You need to argue that backwards- E means RITSIAR, and not just existence in some fictional or formal structure. You argument is either based on Platonism or invalid Yes, it based on Turing theorem, which with CT can be sump up by universal digital machines exist. Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. The CT thesis requires some mathematical claims to be true. it doesn't require numbers to actually exist I have never asserted that numbers actually exist. Just that they exist in the sense of the usual interpretation of existential arithmetical statement are independent of me, you, or the existence or not of a material world. There is no usual interpretation, it is disputed. For set theoretical realism. Not for the natural numbers. Yes, for natural numbers. Even the existence of the number one is disputed among philosophers I mean nobody, except you and ultrafinitist, doubt about the mathematical existence of natural numbers. They can doubt about deeper existence of those numbers, but I am not using this. Are you criticizing all theories using natural numbers (from economy to physics)?. As I have pointed out endlessly, I think the standard backwads-E statements of arithmetic are *true* , I just don't think backwards-E *means* ontological existence. Formalists don't think backeards-E has any existential implications at all Formalist does not believe in primary matter either. I think most of them do. That claim requires some support at least. And they do believe in formal systems, which *doesn't* mean immaterial systems. Formal systems exist in mathematician's brain, books, and blackboards for materialists+formalists. which have sense only through naïve arithmetic. This dodge the issue, nevertheless, because you can add formal to all existential quantifier in the reasoning without changing the conclusion: formal physics has to be reduced to formal number theory. It does change the conclusions. If the UD does not exist immaterially, or materially, it does not exist, and therefore I and physics are not being simulated on it. You cannot valldly derive an existential conclusion without making existential assumptions. Would the two cosmic branes never have collided, and the big bang never occurred, the Rieman hypothesis would still be atemporally and aspatially true or false. Truth and falsehood don't buy you an immaterial computer simulating me and eveything I see. Fortunately numbers and math are still free. If CTM is correct, you are emulated infinitely often in the UD*. It exists (mathematically) like PI and square-root of two. Which is to say, it does not really exist at all, and is merely said to exist in a formal game. Get the feeling you have change your mind
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 31 Aug 2009, at 19:15, Flammarion wrote: When discussing fundamental science, no use of the word exist should be taken literally. Fine. Then I am not literally being simulated by an immateial UD. If you want. But my point is that NO use of the word exist should be taken literally. It would help much more if you were able to say I don't understand this or that in the reasoning, and give explicit reference to the paper or posts. The argumetn I am actually making is that your arguemnt is either invalid or has an imiplict premise. How am I supposed ot point to an implicit premise. By pointing on a step in the reasoning where you think I am using that implicit premise. That's where you tell me I am being simulated by an immaterial UD I say this, but only in the following precise sense. Once you say yes to the doctor, and if comp is true, you can survive by having your instantaneous digital state of your generalized brain encoded in a number, and reconstituted later. Then, that computational state, and an infinity of more fine grained equivalent one, assuming your doctor has chosen a correct substitution level, belong to an infinity of computational histories. By Church thesis, the UD generates and executes all computational histories (computations), notably all those going through the state S, with and/or without oracles. When I say you are simulated in the UD, I am making a shorthand for saying this. And quickly your solipsitic 1-you is distributed densely on the border of the infinite UD*, concrete in the 7th step, arithmetical in the 8th step. After MGA, you can understand that, saying yes to the doctor, makes your consciousness not attributable to ANY particular universal machine, but a more complex mathematical structure related to that border, and which justifies also the observable, by the machine, physical laws. And this make comp empirically refutable. By MGA, your notion of literal ontological existence does not make sense with comp. It is so much propertyless, than it cannot be used to reify a notion of existence more than the apparent matter (given by the 4th and 5th hypostases) stabilizes the histories in the UD. real matter has no epistemological impact (with comp), it adds nothing to any theory of matter consistent with digital mechanism. Let us discuss MGA to see where is the problem. Or wait 'tilI I explain more the UD. Have you understand the step seven? Have you see that the reversal occur with the concrete UD, even if PM is needed? In the seventh step, the UD is still material in *any* sense, including the primary materialist one, if he desires. Also, with a stronger form of Occam razor, and using AUDA, you can bypass MGA. Or if you invoke a degree zero of virtualisation (the metal), then again, just say no to the digital surgeon. (thinking about some things you said in another posts today). 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 31 Aug 2009, at 19:31, Flammarion wrote: On 28 Aug, 16:08, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 28 Aug 2009, at 14:46, Flammarion wrote: On 22 Aug, 08:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 10:28, Flammarion wrote: 1. Something that ontologically exists can only be caused or generated by something else that does 2. I ontologically exist 3. According to you, I am generated by the UD 4. Therefore the UD must ontologically exist. Step 4 is really step 0 which I have worked backwards to here 5. But the UD exists only mathematically. Thus, ontological existence = mathematical existence. There is no usual one, since there is no one agreed ontology of mathematics. For sets and functions, you may be right. For numbers, there is a general mathematical agreement. No there isn't. What is the disagreement? The age old debate about whether numbers exist You confuse the use of number in physics, and in cognitive science, and in computer science, with metaphysical discussion I do avoid. When I say that there is no disagreement about the numbers, I mean that most scientist agree on the use of the classical tautologies in arithmetic. Nothing more. Or show me where. There may be no philosophical argument, but this is not relevant to undersatnd the non philosophical reasoning. Ontology is philosophy. You can't settle ontological quesitons with mathematical proofs. Philosophy, or theology. OK. But comp is an assumption in cognitive- science/philosophy/theology. No. *CTM* is. Comp* is your own fusion of CTM with Platonism Comp is CTM + 2+2 is equal to 4 or 2+2 is not equal to 4. Wait I explain CT, you will see what I mean more easily. It is an assumption that a form of reincarnation is possible. This is not pure mathematics. UDA belongs to the intersection of cognitive and physic science. UDA is not purely mathematical. It is not going anywhere without some ontological assumptions either. since it has an ontological conclusion. I am using the hypothesis that my consciousness will be relatively preserved by a transformation of my brain, and Church thesis. And the conclusion is epistemological: comp - physics is a branch of number theory, but with a gift: that physics is part of a larger thing (and splits into qualia and quanta). I don't make publicly ontological commitment. I give a theory, theorems, and a practical way to test the consequence of the theory. You are aware. are you not, that philosophers and mathematicians are still writing books and papers attacking and defending Platonism and other approaches? Platonism is used by both philosopher and mathematician as something far more general than arithmetical realism, on which all mathematicians agree. I am not concerned with argument about how many pixies exist. So a doubt about the existence of a large cardinal in set theory rise a doubt about the existence of seven? No. A doubt about the ontological existence of seven leads to a doubt about the rest. A doubt on seven, would destroy the argument. Indeed! I personally don't believe in ontological seven, as far as I can make a sense on that. I have use arithmetical realism, because I have never met any difficulty, among mathematicians, physicians and computer scientist. Nor even with philosophers, except some which just dodge the issues of showing what they miss in the argument. Hmm. Well, you would say that, wouldn't you. I was thinking of you, and some old friends. But at least, you make the dodging in public, my friends never did. I thank you for that. My work has been indeed rejected in Brussels, by philsophers. But it has been defended a s a PhD thesis by a jury with mathematician, computer scientist, physician (yes, not physicist, but doctor!). But it is a philosophical thesis, since its conclusion is the nature of existence. Not at all. I see the bigness of the misunderstanding here. I just use the scientific way to proceed in theology. This is what I like with the Church Turing thesis, it makes possible to keep the agnostic scientific attitude in very deep question, and to proceed by theories and verification, and this in a field that atheists like to relegate to religious crackpot. Atheists and other religious fundamentailist hates this work, but that is normal. My work shows atheism and some religion are very close compared to the abysse between atheism and agnosticism (be it on mind, matter, god, or whatever). Is that the problem? The point remains: there *is* a debate so there is *not* a standard ontology. It is believed explcitly by many physicists too, like David Deutsch, Roger Penrose, and those who use math in physics. I never said no-on beliieves Platonism. I said some people belive other things. Therefore it is contentious, therefore it is needs jsutification. It is more efficacious to see if
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 21 Aug, 20:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 09:33, Flammarion wrote: On 20 Aug, 00:28, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Flammarion wrote: Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that I am explaining this right now. Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. The notion of computation and computability have been discovered by Mathematicians working around the foundation crisis of math after the discovery by Cantor and others of paradoxes in set theory. The idea is that computation should be redefined as physical computation is a very recent one, and is due to people like David Deustch and Landauer. And it does not really work as such. Deutsch reconstruction of the Post-Church-Turing thesis is really a different thesis. Of course you can have theoretical truths about computation But show me something that has been computed by an immaterial computer. A Schmidhuberian computationalist would probably answer: look around you. But I have explained why this is not enough, and why a prori comp makes the observable reality not the output of one program (but a view from inside from all execution of all programs). I can only hope you will work on the UDA+MGA, and understand that non-theoretical truth have to be redefined as theoretical possibilities (consistencies) observed from inside (from some first person point of view). There is no UD. Comp, or CTM, leads to a many types no token view of reality. Token are seen as such by being appearances from the point of view of an abstract subject coupled to an (infinity of) abstract computations. CTM *implies* materialism, and the MGA doesn't work. CTM is neutral on materialism, even if many materialist use incorrectly comp to put the mind body problem under the rug. UDA, including MGA, shows why this fails. What is in MGA which does not work? It's a reductio of the idea that mental states supervene on computational states. CTM must be cast as the claim that mental activity supervenes on computational activity. I agree. Consciousness is attached to computation (and not to computational states), even at the starting of the reasoning, and also when the physical supervenience is introduced in MGA for the reductio ad absurdum. Then, eventually, keeping CTM, and thus abandoning (weak) materialism, consciousness is related to, well not just a computation, but to an infinite sheaves of computations. Consciousness is a first person notion, and as such, is dependent on the first person uncertainty measure brought by the first person indeterminacy. This is why I take time to explain what is a computation, or a computational activity, in purely arithmetical terms. A computation is not just a sequence of computational states, it is a sequence of computational states related by at least one universal machine (and then an infinity of them, from the point of view of the conscious being, observably so when he/she looks below its substitution level). Classical physics become the study of our most probable computations, which emerge from the statistical interference of all computations going through my relevant states (the relevance being dependent of the observer's comp-substitution level). Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. It is a version of Platonism The wording is not important. Maybe you could flag the wording that we are supposed to take serioulsy. The point is that in the assumption of CTM, (CT+ the theological act of faith), I am using that version of platonism only, which is just the idea that classical logic can be applied to arithmetical sentences, and in the conclusion, only, we have to abandon weak materialism or CTM. Nope. Assumptions about truth don't get you a UD which is capable of simulating me. You need a claim about existence. You argument is either based on Platonism or invalid Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. The CT thesis requires some mathematical claims to be true. it doesn't require numbers to actually exist I have never asserted that numbers actually exist. Just that they exist in the sense of the usual interpretation of existential arithmetical statement are independent of me, you, or the existence or not of a material world. There is no usual interpretation, it is disputed. Formalists don't think backeards-E has any existential implications at all Would the two cosmic branes never have collided, and the big bang never occurred, the Rieman hypothesis would still be atemporally and aspatially true or false. Truth and falsehood don't buy you an immaterial computer simulating me and eveything I see. Get the feeling you have change your mind on AR. You believe that a proposition
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 22 Aug, 00:38, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 21 Aug, 19:04, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Explaining away qua reduction is nto the same as explaining away qua elimination. Well, either way he's explaining away, as you yourself point out below. But it's a false distinction, as I point out below. But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! The upshot of which is that he *hasn't* eliminated the mind (with the possible exception of qualia) in the sense of Eliminative Materialism, only reduced it in the sense of Reductive materialism. What do you mean with the possible exception of qualia! The whole point is that if you think you can leave qualitative experience out of the account you're an eliminativist. Qualia are precisely what is being eliminated. He is a selective eliminativist. He is not being inconsistent. Having eiminated qualia, he deosn;t continue to talk about them. He does continue to talk about memory, thought and perception, but then he hasn't eilminated them. In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! In other words, his position isn't what you have decided it is. What do you mean? Are you saying he's an eliminativist or a crypto- dualist? Or are you implying that (possibly!) non-qualitative reductive materialism is something different than either of these? he is eliminativist about qualia and reductionist about everything else. In that case he's an eliminativist about consciousness.. So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. No. Paraphrase indicates identity. Water can be paraphrased as H2O. That means water is identical to H2O. not that water does not and cannot exist. Water is only eliminated as *fundamental* (eg. the way the Greeks thought of it). EliminativISM is a much stronger claim, that the concept eliminated should never subsequently be used even as a place-holder or shrothand Yes, so following your recipe above, a given computation can be paraphrased as a specific physical process. This means that this computation is identical to that physical process. 'Computation' is therefore eliminated as something fundamental (in the Greek sense). Consequently, this leaves CTM+PM with 'computation' as a mere shorthand for an appeal to the fundamental physical processes, or alternatively with no appeal to anything fundamental whatsoever. Yes, yes, and yes. Why would that be a problem? Well, if now you think there's no problem, perhaps you'd like to reconsider what you meant by no above. I try my best to respond to your comments, but it seems to me that you react as though you had never made them. I mean it is false that: Under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, Because instances of compuitation are not eleiminated, they are *identified* with physical processes. Further, I can't possibly agree with your contention that 'eliminativism' is any other or stronger claim than this. Uh-huh. And where are you getting your information on eliminativism from? This would be absurd, as well as unnecessary, because it would mean that we would be struck dumb. Only if we eliminated everything,. and only if we did not have substitute theory. Elimiativists think terms like thought will simply be abandoned as part of a failed theory, (like phlosgiston), rather than continuing as convenient but not entirely accurate shorthand. But they don't expect this to happen until the replacement theories are perfected. So they don't expect to be struck dumb. In that case they're 'replacementists' rather than 'eliminativists', wouldn't you say? It doesn't help to re-arrange the vocabulary They just want to replace one shorthand with another.
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 25 Aug, 08:22, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:38, Flammarion wrote: That is false. You are tacitly assuming that PM has to be argued with the full force of necessity -- I don't remember. I don't find trace of what makes you think so. Where? Well, if it;s tacit you wouldn't find a trace. I wake up this morning realizing this was not your usual statement that I am implicitly assuming what I am proving. So actually you may be right, I do believe that PM has to be argued. The key phrase is: with the full force of necessity --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 28 Aug 2009, at 14:46, Flammarion wrote: On 22 Aug, 08:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 10:28, Flammarion wrote: 1. Something that ontologically exists can only be caused or generated by something else that does 2. I ontologically exist 3. According to you, I am generated by the UD 4. Therefore the UD must ontologically exist. Step 4 is really step 0 which I have worked backwards to here 5. But the UD exists only mathematically. Thus, ontological existence = mathematical existence. There is no usual one, since there is no one agreed ontology of mathematics. For sets and functions, you may be right. For numbers, there is a general mathematical agreement. No there isn't. What is the disagreement? There may be no philosophical argument, but this is not relevant to undersatnd the non philosophical reasoning. Ontology is philosophy. You can't settle ontological quesitons with mathematical proofs. Philosophy, or theology. OK. But comp is an assumption in cognitive- science/philosophy/theology. It is an assumption that a form of reincarnation is possible. This is not pure mathematics. UDA belongs to the intersection of cognitive and physic science. UDA is not purely mathematical. You are aware. are you not, that philosophers and mathematicians are still writing books and papers attacking and defending Platonism and other approaches? Platonism is used by both philosopher and mathematician as something far more general than arithmetical realism, on which all mathematicians agree. I am not concerned with argument about how many pixies exist. So a doubt about the existence of a large cardinal in set theory rise a doubt about the existence of seven? I have use arithmetical realism, because I have never met any difficulty, among mathematicians, physicians and computer scientist. Nor even with philosophers, except some which just dodge the issues of showing what they miss in the argument. My work has been indeed rejected in Brussels, by philsophers. But it has been defended a s a PhD thesis by a jury with mathematician, computer scientist, physician (yes, not physicist, but doctor!). The point remains: there *is* a debate so there is *not* a standard ontology. It is believed explcitly by many physicists too, like David Deutsch, Roger Penrose, and those who use math in physics. I never said no-on beliieves Platonism. I said some people belive other things. Therefore it is contentious, therefore it is needs jsutification. It is more efficacious to see if the consequence of comp, believed by many, are verified by nature. By comp, the ontic theory of everything is shown to be any theory in which I can represent the computable function. The very weak Robinson Arithmetic is already enough. I am not interested in haggling over which pixies exist. This may be the root of your problem. comp = CTM. It clearly isn't by the defintiion you gave in your SANE paper. All right. As I said: comp is CTM + 2 + 2 = 4. Nope, mere truth does not buy the immaterial existence of a UD But from 2+2 = 4 and CT, you can derive the existence of UD. Classical logic is just a formal rule. It depends on the realm in which you apply classical logic. In computer science people admit that a running program will either halt, or not halt, even in case we don't know. This is a non formal use of classical logic. It still does not demonstrate the immaterial existence of computers no-one has built. No one has ever build the prime numbers. Bivalence is not Platonism Exactly. This is one more reason to distinguish carefully arithmetical realism (bivalence in the realm of numbers), and Platonism (something huge in philosophy and theology). Even more reason to distinguish between AR qua truth and AR qua existence. Yes, and I use only AR qua truth. I may ask you what are your evidence for a primary matter, or for your notion of AR qua physical existence. So what? If I am material the reasoning is correct. Since the alternatives to my being material are inherently unlikely, my reasoning is still *probably* correct. You are telling me that if you are material, then you are material. I am telling you I do not have to give equal weight to every hypothesis. I begin to believe what Jesse and David says: you are dodging the issue. What issue? CTM and weak materialism are epistemologically incompabible. Not demonstrated. You have pointed on invisible or implicit errors only, up to now. In your preceding post, you even argue somehow that you cannot show me the errors because they are invisible. At least you don't argue against the first person indeterminacy (unlike Chalmers who pretends that after a duplication between W and M you feel yourself to be simultaneously at the two places). I think you have difficulties with MGA, but if you are interested we
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 28 Aug 2009, at 13:47, Flammarion wrote: On 21 Aug, 20:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Aug 2009, at 09:33, Flammarion wrote: I can only hope you will work on the UDA+MGA, and understand that non-theoretical truth have to be redefined as theoretical possibilities (consistencies) observed from inside (from some first person point of view). There is no UD. You are meaning no physical UD. I don't need a physical UD in the reasoning. Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. It is a version of Platonism The wording is not important. Maybe you could flag the wording that we are supposed to take serioulsy. I have explained to you why it is preferable to avoid the term Platonism for the belief that classical logic can be applied in arithmetic. Even mathematicians does not call that Platonism, which they use for the general idea that classical logic applies to a much larger part of math. Arithmetical realism is better: it is the belief that the truth of arithmetical sentence exists independently of any means (humans, theories, machines, universes, ...) to study them. The point is that in the assumption of CTM, (CT+ the theological act of faith), I am using that version of platonism only, which is just the idea that classical logic can be applied to arithmetical sentences, and in the conclusion, only, we have to abandon weak materialism or CTM. Nope. Assumptions about truth don't get you a UD which is capable of simulating me. You need a claim about existence. You told me this before, and I did explain that I am use the truth of the existential statement in arithmetic, as my unique claim about existence. You argument is either based on Platonism or invalid Yes, it based on Turing theorem, which with CT can be sump up by universal digital machines exist. Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. The CT thesis requires some mathematical claims to be true. it doesn't require numbers to actually exist I have never asserted that numbers actually exist. Just that they exist in the sense of the usual interpretation of existential arithmetical statement are independent of me, you, or the existence or not of a material world. There is no usual interpretation, it is disputed. For set theoretical realism. Not for the natural numbers. I mean nobody, except you and ultrafinitist, doubt about the mathematical existence of natural numbers. They can doubt about deeper existence of those numbers, but I am not using this. Are you criticizing all theories using natural numbers (from economy to physics)?. Formalists don't think backeards-E has any existential implications at all Formalist does not believe in primary matter either. And they do believe in formal systems, which have sense only through naïve arithmetic. This dodge the issue, nevertheless, because you can add formal to all existential quantifier in the reasoning without changing the conclusion: formal physics has to be reduced to formal number theory. Would the two cosmic branes never have collided, and the big bang never occurred, the Rieman hypothesis would still be atemporally and aspatially true or false. Truth and falsehood don't buy you an immaterial computer simulating me and eveything I see. Fortunately numbers and math are still free. If CTM is correct, you are emulated infinitely often in the UD*. It exists (mathematically) like PI and square-root of two. Get the feeling you have change your mind on AR. You believe that a proposition like the statement that there is no biggest prime number has something to do with physics. In which physical theory you prove that statement, and how? Its truth is not a physical truth. The existence or non-existence asserted is not any kind of real existence OK, in your theory real existence = physical existence. There are two claim here: real existence = physical existence. and mathemaical existence != real existence. they are argued separately. Please, define real. But if the UDA is valid it would be better to write consensual reality = physical reality, and ontic or basic 3- existence = arithmetical existence, or to abandon CTM. If UDA is non valid, it would be nice to point where is the error. You said that the error is in step 0, because I would have pretended something like the number seven actually exists. My answer is that I don't see where I say so. I just say that the number seven exists, in the sense used by mathematicians. I limit my platonism to arithmetic to avoid the problem of platonism in set theory or analysis, and the CTM explains why realism on natural numbers in both necessary and sufficient. I am not denying nay truths, only the interpretation of backwards-E as actual existence I am using a fairly common notion
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:38, Flammarion wrote: That is false. You are tacitly assuming that PM has to be argued with the full force of necessity -- I don't remember. I don't find trace of what makes you think so. Where? Well, if it;s tacit you wouldn't find a trace. I wake up this morning realizing this was not your usual statement that I am implicitly assuming what I am proving. So actually you may be right, I do believe that PM has to be argued. No doubt that many millennia of evolution make us believe in the solidity of our environment, and many years of atomism have made us believe that the idea that matter has ultimate constituents is very plausible, as the term atom and elementary particles are witnessing. I have never been much happy with such a notion, which reminds me of the material point of classical physics. Does such elementary constituents have any spatial shape, and what are they made from. With quantum mechanics, from quantum fields to superstrings, I thought people would understand that the atomism question was not settled, and that fields and waves, and quantum logic, were somehow questioning at least the simplicity or naivety of such a conception of matter. Loop gravity and string theory addressed that fundamental point in a very different way. But anyway, the idea that physics, not matter, is fundamental is a prejudice of (simplified) Aristotelianism, and not a statement of any physical theories, and given the lack of success of (weak) materialism with respect to the mind-body or consciousness-reality problem, I tend to assume among honest scientists some agnosticism here. But I do have underestimated the materialist prejudice. So I guess you are right on this: I should insist that PM has never been proved nor really been addressed in modern science. It is always implicit in the background. I thought for long that people were aware that it is a methodological simplification, quite similar to the material point, but I am wrong on this. Comp does not entail the non existence of particles, but eventually reduce them to pure mathematical symmetries conjugated to the observer self-multiplications. If elementary, really elementary particles, exist, then comp *has to* justify them from a pure theory of mind (computer science/number theory). 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:38, Flammarion wrote: That is false. You are tacitly assuming that PM has to be argued with the full force of necessity -- I don't remember. I don't find trace of what makes you think so. Where? Well, if it;s tacit you wouldn't find a trace. If I use this tacitly, you could still help in saying where I am using this, even tacitly. Other than that. all pointing out that I might be in a UDA and therefore wrong doesn't mean I am wrong now. only that I am not necessarily right. If your context independent reasoning is wrong, then it is wrong everywhere. If your reasoning depends on the context (being real/material), then it presupposes what it was supposed to show. If you don't think the UDA is meant to show that I am not necessarily right, maybe you could say what it is meant to show To show that you are necessarily false. UDA shows that the notion of primitive matter is non sensical, given that it shows that you can use it to related it with any conscious observation. although your own argument does not have that force. If there is a weakness somewhere, tell us where. The conclusion of your argument *is* a necessary truth? Yes. It shows the necessity that comp entails no primitive matter available for the physical science. It does not show the necessity of no primitive matter available for the physical science; only that this necessarily follows from the computationalist hypothesis in the cognitive science. You remain free to abandon comp. But then you go back to the usual formulation of the mind-body problem with the information that you have to introduce actual infinities in both matter and mind. In fact, PM only has to be shown to be more plausible than the alternatives. It is not necessarily true because of sceptical hypotheses like the BIV and the UD, but since neither of them has much prima-facie plausibility, the plausibility og PM is not impacted much ? Ex(x = UD) is a theorem of elementary arithmetic. backwards-E x=UD is indeed true. Schools should not be teaching that backwards-E means ontological existence, since that is an open question among philosophers. I am not sure I understand your expression backwards-E. I only use the notion of arithmetical existence. Indeed what UDA shows is that physical existence has to be reduced to some sophisticated use of arithmetical existence. Indeed physical existence become a mode of self-reference (in AUDA). I have been taught elementary arithmetic in school, and I don't think such a theory has been refuted since. You will tell me that mathematical existence = non existence at all. You are the first human who says so. I am not the first formalist. You may be the last. But even formalist have no problem with arithmetical existence, only with set and real numbers (or infinite objects). And also, AUDA works perfectly well in the formalist setting. Well, UDA could probably not satisfy a formalist who says no the doctor, but you can recast it easily so that it works for a formalist studying the discourse of those who say yes to the doctor. The formalist will prove formally that they believe that matter must be explained through numbers. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 15:16, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 10:33, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 08:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 02:31, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this consists in saying that you are not Turing-emulable, Why can't I just say I'm not Turing emulated? It seems that your argument uses MGA to conclude that no physical instantaion is needed so Turing- emulable=Turing-emulated. It seems that all you can conclude is one cannot *know* that they have a correct argument showing they are material. But this is already well known from brain in a vat thought experiments. OK. But this seems to me enough to render invalid any reasoning leading to our primitive materiality. If a reasoning is valid, it has to be valid independently of being published or not, written with ink or carbon, being in or outside the UD*. I did not use MGA here. That is false. You are tacitly assuming that PM has to be argued with the full force of necessity -- I don't remember. I don't find trace of what makes you think so. Where? Well, if it;s tacit you wouldn't find a trace. Other than that. all pointing out that I might be in a UDA and therefore wrong doesn't mean I am wrong now. only that I am not necessarily right. If you don't think the UDA is meant to show that I am not necessarily right, maybe you could say what it is meant to show although your own argument does not have that force. If there is a weakness somewhere, tell us where. The conclusion of your argument *is* a necessary truth? In fact, PM only has to be shown to be more plausible than the alternatives. It is not necessarily true because of sceptical hypotheses like the BIV and the UD, but since neither of them has much prima-facie plausibility, the plausibility og PM is not impacted much ? Ex(x = UD) is a theorem of elementary arithmetic. backwards-E x=UD is indeed true. Schools should not be teaching that backwards-E means ontological existence, since that is an open question among philosophers. I have been taught elementary arithmetic in school, and I don't think such a theory has been refuted since. You will tell me that mathematical existence = non existence at all. You are the first human who says so. I am not the first formalist. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 21 Aug 2009, at 10:28, Flammarion wrote: 1. Something that ontologically exists can only be caused or generated by something else that does 2. I ontologically exist 3. According to you, I am generated by the UD 4. Therefore the UD must ontologically exist. Step 4 is really step 0 which I have worked backwards to here 5. But the UD exists only mathematically. Thus, ontological existence = mathematical existence. There is no usual one, since there is no one agreed ontology of mathematics. For sets and functions, you may be right. For numbers, there is a general mathematical agreement. There may be no philosophical argument, but this is not relevant to undersatnd the non philosophical reasoning. You are aware. are you not, that philosophers and mathematicians are still writing books and papers attacking and defending Platonism and other approaches? Platonism is used by both philosopher and mathematician as something far more general than arithmetical realism, on which all mathematicians agree. It is believed explcitly by many physicists too, like David Deutsch, Roger Penrose, and those who use math in physics. By comp, the ontic theory of everything is shown to be any theory in which I can represent the computable function. The very weak Robinson Arithmetic is already enough. I am not interested in haggling over which pixies exist. This may be the root of your problem. comp = CTM. It clearly isn't by the defintiion you gave in your SANE paper. All right. As I said: comp is CTM + 2 + 2 = 4. Classical logic is just a formal rule. It depends on the realm in which you apply classical logic. In computer science people admit that a running program will either halt, or not halt, even in case we don't know. This is a non formal use of classical logic. Bivalence is not Platonism Exactly. This is one more reason to distinguish carefully arithmetical realism (bivalence in the realm of numbers), and Platonism (something huge in philosophy and theology). So what? If I am material the reasoning is correct. Since the alternatives to my being material are inherently unlikely, my reasoning is still *probably* correct. You are telling me that if you are material, then you are material. I begin to believe what Jesse and David says: you are dodging the issue. What issue? CTM and weak materialism are epistemologically incompabible. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:26, Flammarion wrote: I understand both your discomfort with arithmetical realism and your defence of PM, but this discussion hinges on CTM +PM = true. Couldn't we try to focus on the validity or otherwise of this claim? OK. It's invalid because you can't have computaiton with zero phyiscal activity. This could be a critic to Maudlin's Olympia argument, it does not apply to MGA. Precisely, it does not apply to MGA1+MGA2 (see the MGA thread). MGA3 makes a link between Olympia and MGA, but is not needed. MGA1+MGA2 shows that if we accept the physical supervenience thesis, then we have to accept that consciousness supervenes in real time on the movie of a computation, which, I think, is already ridiculous. In MGA3 the stroboscope illustrates this, without reducing any physical activity at all. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
Flammarion wrote: ... We might call these three notions of existence Q-existence, M- existence and C-existence for short. My argument with you has been that even if one wishes to postulate a single universe, M-existence is an unnecessary middleman and doesn't even seem well-defined, all we need to do is postulate that out of all the mathematically possible universes that have Q-existence, only one has C-existence. The M-existence hypothesis is supported by the whole of science, and, unlike the C-existence hypothesis, is in line with the scientific claim that there was a long period when there was no consciousness in the universe. I'm confused by these last two paragraphs. Did Peter write both of them? The first seems to be against M-existence and the second for M-existence...or maybe I misunderstand? Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:13:54 -0700 From: meeke...@dslextreme.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff Flammarion wrote: ... We might call these three notions of existence Q-existence, M- existence and C-existence for short. My argument with you has been that even if one wishes to postulate a single universe, M-existence is an unnecessary middleman and doesn't even seem well-defined, all we need to do is postulate that out of all the mathematically possible universes that have Q-existence, only one has C-existence. The M-existence hypothesis is supported by the whole of science, and, unlike the C-existence hypothesis, is in line with the scientific claim that there was a long period when there was no consciousness in the universe. I'm confused by these last two paragraphs. Did Peter write both of them? The first seems to be against M-existence and the second for M-existence...or maybe I misunderstand? The first of those paragraphs was from me. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 00:28, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Flammarion wrote: Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that I am explaining this right now. Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. The notion of computation and computability have been discovered by Mathematicians working around the foundation crisis of math after the discovery by Cantor and others of paradoxes in set theory. The idea is that computation should be redefined as physical computation is a very recent one, and is due to people like David Deustch and Landauer. And it does not really work as such. Deutsch reconstruction of the Post-Church-Turing thesis is really a different thesis. Of course you can have theoretical truths about computation But show me something that has been computed by an immaterial computer. CTM *implies* materialism, and the MGA doesn't work. CTM is neutral on materialism, even if many materialist use incorrectly comp to put the mind body problem under the rug. UDA, including MGA, shows why this fails. What is in MGA which does not work? It's a reductio of the idea that mental states supervene on computational states. CTM must be cast as the claim that mental activity supervenes on computational activity. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 01:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/19 Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com: So someone else noticed Peter dodging the consequences of what he originally claimed with respect to Quinean paraphrase! Thanks. What consequence was that? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 00:43, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:59, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 15:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 10:36, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 01:29, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? Of course, no argument can validly come to a metaphysical conclusion-- in this case, that matter does not exist --without making a single metaphysical assumption. I completely agree with that point, but I don't see the relevance. Comp, alias CTM, CTM does not have Platonism tacked on as a sub-hypothesis Classical Digital mechanism, or Classical Computationalism, or just comp, is the conjunction of the following three sub-hypotheses: 1) The yes doctor hypothesis: It is the assumption, in cognitive science, that it exists a level of description of my parts (whatever I consider myself to be[2]) such that I would not be aware of any experiential change in the case where a functionally correct digital substitution is done of my parts at that level. We call that level the substitution level. More simply said it is the act of faith of those willing to say yes to their doctor for an artificial brain or an artificial body graft made from some description at some level. We will see such a level is unknowable. Note that some amount of folk or grand-mother psychology has been implicitly used under the granting of the notion of (self) awareness[3]. 2) Church Thesis. A modern version is that all digital universal machines are equivalent with respect to the class of functions (from the natural numbers to the natural numbers) they can compute[4]. It can be shown that this entails such machines compute the same functions, but also they can compute them in similar ways, i.e. following similar algorithm. So, the thesis says, making abstraction of computation time, all digital universal machine can simulate each other exactly (I will say emulate each other). 3) Arithmetical Realism (AR). This is the assumption that arithmetical proposition, like 1+1=2, or Goldbach conjecture, or the inexistence of a bigger prime, or the statement that some digital machine will stop, or any Boolean formula bearing on numbers, are true independently of me, you, humanity, the physical universe (if that exists), etc. It is a version of Platonism limited at least to arithmetical truth. It should not be confused with the much stronger Pythagorean form of AR, AR+, which asserts that only natural numbers exist together with their nameable relations: all the rest being derivative from those relations. Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. It is a version of Platonism Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. The CT thesis requires some mathematical claims to be true. it doesn't require numbers to actually exist This should be made clear in the seventh step series thread. You told us that you are OK with AR some post ago, but now I have no more clue at all about what do you assume or not. I may well have subscribed to some truth claims Get the feeling you have change your mind on AR. You believe that a proposition like the statement that there is no biggest prime number has something to do with physics. In which physical theory you prove that statement, and how? Its truth is not a physical truth. The existence or non-existence asserted is not any kind of real existence Actually the most you go deep in fundamental physics, the more you need deep results in number theory. I am not denying nay truths, only the interpretation of backwards-E as actual existence --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/21 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 20 Aug, 00:28, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Flammarion wrote: Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that I am explaining this right now. Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. The notion of computation and computability have been discovered by Mathematicians working around the foundation crisis of math after the discovery by Cantor and others of paradoxes in set theory. The idea is that computation should be redefined as physical computation is a very recent one, and is due to people like David Deustch and Landauer. And it does not really work as such. Deutsch reconstruction of the Post-Church-Turing thesis is really a different thesis. Of course you can have theoretical truths about computation But show me something that has been computed by an immaterial computer. CTM *implies* materialism, and the MGA doesn't work. CTM is neutral on materialism, even if many materialist use incorrectly comp to put the mind body problem under the rug. UDA, including MGA, shows why this fails. What is in MGA which does not work? It's a reductio of the idea that mental states supervene on computational states. CTM must be cast as the claim that mental activity supervenes on computational activity. If physicalism is true... in the end it supervenes on physical state only as for physicalism, computations do not exists unless they are being instantiated physically. Also a computation is implementation agnostic... how can you explain that with physicalism and denying any existence to computation ? Regards, Quentin -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 02:23, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 19 Aug, 13:35, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: It doesn't. It just has to be *amenable* of spelling out: i.e. if it is a posteriori compressed - for example into 'computational' language - then this demands that it be *capable* of prior justification by rigorous spelling out in physical terms for every conceptual reduction. MGA claims to show that this is impossible for the conjunction of CTM and PM. Of course, CTM on the basis of arithmetical realism is not spelled out either, but is immunised from physical paraphrase by making no appeal to PM for justification. Err. yeah. The hard part is reducing mentation to computation. The physical paraphrase of computation is just engineering, I understand both your discomfort with arithmetical realism and your defence of PM, but this discussion hinges on CTM +PM = true. Couldn't we try to focus on the validity or otherwise of this claim? OK. It's invalid because you can't have computaiton with zero phyiscal activity. But that is **precisely** the conclusion of the reductio that MGA proposes. MGA claims precisely that - as you say - since it is implausible to justify the ascription of computation to zero physical activity, if you still want to claim that there is computation 'going on', then it can't be attached to physical activity. I don't; want to claim there is computation still going on --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 11:31, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Aug 2009, at 10:46, Flammarion wrote: Indeed, you don't believe in the number seven. But sometimes you seem to believe in their mathematical existence, and that is all what I need. No. I always qualify mathematical existence as a mere truth claim that adds up to nothing ontologically. The UD exists in the same sense than the number seven. If you don't believe in the mathematical existence of the number seven, I believe in backwards-E 7. I don't believe that is enough to generate RITSTIAR. THat would be like a fictional character coming to life then indeed you cannot go farther than step zero. I let you know you are the first person on this planet who does not believe in the mathematical existence of the number seven. I have no clue what you mean by ontological existence, It is what Platonists affirm of numbers and formalists deny Formalist accept arithmetical existence. They reject set theoretical existence. They need arithmetical existence to define their formal systems. Not at all. That is more like intuitionism or something I have explained this over and over. I accept that true backwards-E statements are true. I don't accept that backwards-E means ontological existence. When science tackle fundamental question, it is better to be agnostic and abandon any ontological commitment. Your ontological, and philosophical commitment, seems to prevent you to even read the reasoning. You have as much ontological commitment as I. Since it [UD] does not exist, it does not contain anything. UD exists like PI exists. That doesn't exist ontologically either The point is that the proof goes on with such form on not necessarily ontological existence, or you have to show where in the reasoning things get wrong. 1. Something that ontologically exists can only be caused or generated by something else that does 2. I ontologically exist 3. According to you, I am generated by the UD 4. Therefore the UD must ontologically exist. Step 4 is really step 0 which I have worked backwards to here That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence. You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is ontological RITISAR existence. I still don't know if by RITSIAR you mean real in the sense my first person is real or real as my body is real. You told me that the difference is epistemological, and I can accept this (for a while). But that makes a huge difference in the meaning of RITSIAR. I cannot doubt my first person, but I can doubt my body. After UDA+MGA, my first person appears to have an infinity of bodies (like in QM without collapse), and this makes the difference between those two forms of RITSIAR even bigger. UDA proves nothing without an argument of the actual, if non-physical, existence of numbers. I need the usual mathematical existence of number. There is no usual one, since there is no one agreed ontology of mathematics. You are aware. are you not, that philosophers and mathematicians are still writing books and papers attacking and defending Platonism and other approaches? There is of course a standard set of backwards-E claims By comp, the ontic theory of everything is shown to be any theory in which I can represent the computable function. The very weak Robinson Arithmetic is already enough. I am not interested in haggling over which pixies exist. The way to prevent it is the same way that all sceptical hypotheses are prevented. You just note that there is not a scrap of evidence for them. The only upshot of scepticism is that there is no certainty, and we have to argue for the position of the greatest plausibility. I have better that a scrap of evidence: a deductive argument. A proof, that COMP = physics has to emerge from numbers. But I have also evidences for comp, in the sense that the physics which emerge from numbers is a multiversial physics, and the quantum reality makes many people to consider that we may live in a multiversial reality. And I have also more technical evidences coming from the Arithmetical UDA. That are evidence for comp. I can't be in something that has merely mathematical existence, any more than I can be in Nanrnia ... then CTM (comp) is false, and you should help us to find the error comp is false because comp=CTM+CTT+AR CTM is not falsified. comp = CTM. It clearly isn't by the defintiion you gave in your SANE paper. You may repeat the contrary as much as you want, but comp is CTM. You are the one who has invented a sequence of notion like seven needs to have actual or ontological existence for the reasoning to go through, but you have never show where in the reasoning I am using such actuality or ontologicalness. in UDA, instead of just denying existence for what almost everybody accepts to
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 21 Aug, 09:37, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Yes, of course you're right - perhaps I didn't phrase my response to Jesse clearly enough. In my discussion with Peter about Quinean 'eliminative paraphrasing', I was pursuing the same conclusion that you attribute to Dennett as an 'honest materialist'. That is, under materialism, that persons, consciousness - and computation - must in the end be explained away, or conceptually *eliminated*. Explaining away qua reduction is nto the same as explaining away qua elimination. Well, either way he's explaining away, as you yourself point out below. But it's a false distinction, as I point out below. But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! The upshot of which is that he *hasn't* eliminated the mind (with the possible exception of qualia) in the sense of Eliminative Materialism, only reduced it in the sense of Reductive materialism. What do you mean with the possible exception of qualia! The whole point is that if you think you can leave qualitative experience out of the account you're an eliminativist. Qualia are precisely what is being eliminated. In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! In other words, his position isn't what you have decided it is. What do you mean? Are you saying he's an eliminativist or a crypto- dualist? Or are you implying that (possibly!) non-qualitative reductive materialism is something different than either of these? So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. No. Paraphrase indicates identity. Water can be paraphrased as H2O. That means water is identical to H2O. not that water does not and cannot exist. Water is only eliminated as *fundamental* (eg. the way the Greeks thought of it). EliminativISM is a much stronger claim, that the concept eliminated should never subsequently be used even as a place-holder or shrothand Yes, so following your recipe above, a given computation can be paraphrased as a specific physical process. This means that this computation is identical to that physical process. 'Computation' is therefore eliminated as something fundamental (in the Greek sense). Consequently, this leaves CTM+PM with 'computation' as a mere shorthand for an appeal to the fundamental physical processes, or alternatively with no appeal to anything fundamental whatsoever. Further, I can't possibly agree with your contention that 'eliminativism' is any other or stronger claim than this. This would be absurd, as well as unnecessary, because it would mean that we would be struck dumb. There is no problem with using the 'eliminated' concept as a shorthand (indeed this is explicitly proposed in the Quinean excerpt you commented). The principle is to be able to put it aside whenever required, by means of an appeal to the underlying fundamental reduction. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 21 Aug, 17:25, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 21 Aug, 09:37, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Yes, of course you're right - perhaps I didn't phrase my response to Jesse clearly enough. In my discussion with Peter about Quinean 'eliminative paraphrasing', I was pursuing the same conclusion that you attribute to Dennett as an 'honest materialist'. That is, under materialism, that persons, consciousness - and computation - must in the end be explained away, or conceptually *eliminated*. Explaining away qua reduction is nto the same as explaining away qua elimination. Well, either way he's explaining away, as you yourself point out below. But it's a false distinction, as I point out below. But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! The upshot of which is that he *hasn't* eliminated the mind (with the possible exception of qualia) in the sense of Eliminative Materialism, only reduced it in the sense of Reductive materialism. What do you mean with the possible exception of qualia! The whole point is that if you think you can leave qualitative experience out of the account you're an eliminativist. Qualia are precisely what is being eliminated. He is a selective eliminativist. He is not being inconsistent. Having eiminated qualia, he deosn;t continue to talk about them. He does continue to talk about memory, thought and perception, but then he hasn't eilminated them. In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! In other words, his position isn't what you have decided it is. What do you mean? Are you saying he's an eliminativist or a crypto- dualist? Or are you implying that (possibly!) non-qualitative reductive materialism is something different than either of these? he is eliminativist about qualia and reductionist about everything else. So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. No. Paraphrase indicates identity. Water can be paraphrased as H2O. That means water is identical to H2O. not that water does not and cannot exist. Water is only eliminated as *fundamental* (eg. the way the Greeks thought of it). EliminativISM is a much stronger claim, that the concept eliminated should never subsequently be used even as a place-holder or shrothand Yes, so following your recipe above, a given computation can be paraphrased as a specific physical process. This means that this computation is identical to that physical process. 'Computation' is therefore eliminated as something fundamental (in the Greek sense). Consequently, this leaves CTM+PM with 'computation' as a mere shorthand for an appeal to the fundamental physical processes, or alternatively with no appeal to anything fundamental whatsoever. Yes, yes, and yes. Why would that be a problem? Further, I can't possibly agree with your contention that 'eliminativism' is any other or stronger claim than this. Uh-huh. And where are you getting your information on eliminativism from? This would be absurd, as well as unnecessary, because it would mean that we would be struck dumb. Only if we eliminated everything,. and only if we did not have substitute theory. Elimiativists think terms like thought will simply be abandoned as part of a failed theory, (like phlosgiston), rather than continuing as convenient but not entirely accurate shorthand. But they don't expect this to happen until the replacement theories are perfected. So they don't expect to be struck dumb. There is no problem with using the 'eliminated' concept as a shorthand (indeed this is explicitly proposed in the Quinean excerpt you commented). Says who? Eliminativists argue that there is. You may not agree, but you cannot conclude that no-one holds those views. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminativism http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 21 Aug 2009, at 09:33, Flammarion wrote: On 20 Aug, 00:28, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Flammarion wrote: Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that I am explaining this right now. Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. The notion of computation and computability have been discovered by Mathematicians working around the foundation crisis of math after the discovery by Cantor and others of paradoxes in set theory. The idea is that computation should be redefined as physical computation is a very recent one, and is due to people like David Deustch and Landauer. And it does not really work as such. Deutsch reconstruction of the Post-Church-Turing thesis is really a different thesis. Of course you can have theoretical truths about computation But show me something that has been computed by an immaterial computer. A Schmidhuberian computationalist would probably answer: look around you. But I have explained why this is not enough, and why a prori comp makes the observable reality not the output of one program (but a view from inside from all execution of all programs). I can only hope you will work on the UDA+MGA, and understand that non-theoretical truth have to be redefined as theoretical possibilities (consistencies) observed from inside (from some first person point of view). Comp, or CTM, leads to a many types no token view of reality. Token are seen as such by being appearances from the point of view of an abstract subject coupled to an (infinity of) abstract computations. CTM *implies* materialism, and the MGA doesn't work. CTM is neutral on materialism, even if many materialist use incorrectly comp to put the mind body problem under the rug. UDA, including MGA, shows why this fails. What is in MGA which does not work? It's a reductio of the idea that mental states supervene on computational states. CTM must be cast as the claim that mental activity supervenes on computational activity. I agree. Consciousness is attached to computation (and not to computational states), even at the starting of the reasoning, and also when the physical supervenience is introduced in MGA for the reductio ad absurdum. Then, eventually, keeping CTM, and thus abandoning (weak) materialism, consciousness is related to, well not just a computation, but to an infinite sheaves of computations. Consciousness is a first person notion, and as such, is dependent on the first person uncertainty measure brought by the first person indeterminacy. This is why I take time to explain what is a computation, or a computational activity, in purely arithmetical terms. A computation is not just a sequence of computational states, it is a sequence of computational states related by at least one universal machine (and then an infinity of them, from the point of view of the conscious being, observably so when he/she looks below its substitution level). Classical physics become the study of our most probable computations, which emerge from the statistical interference of all computations going through my relevant states (the relevance being dependent of the observer's comp-substitution level). Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. It is a version of Platonism The wording is not important. The point is that in the assumption of CTM, (CT+ the theological act of faith), I am using that version of platonism only, which is just the idea that classical logic can be applied to arithmetical sentences, and in the conclusion, only, we have to abandon weak materialism or CTM. Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. The CT thesis requires some mathematical claims to be true. it doesn't require numbers to actually exist I have never asserted that numbers actually exist. Just that they exist in the sense of the usual interpretation of existential arithmetical statement are independent of me, you, or the existence or not of a material world. Would the two cosmic branes never have collided, and the big bang never occurred, the Rieman hypothesis would still be atemporally and aspatially true or false. Get the feeling you have change your mind on AR. You believe that a proposition like the statement that there is no biggest prime number has something to do with physics. In which physical theory you prove that statement, and how? Its truth is not a physical truth. The existence or non-existence asserted is not any kind of real existence OK, in your theory real existence = physical existence. But if the UDA is valid it would be better to write consensual reality = physical reality, and ontic or basic 3- existence = arithmetical existence, or to abandon CTM. If UDA is non valid, it would be nice to point
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 21 Aug, 19:04, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Explaining away qua reduction is nto the same as explaining away qua elimination. Well, either way he's explaining away, as you yourself point out below. But it's a false distinction, as I point out below. But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! The upshot of which is that he *hasn't* eliminated the mind (with the possible exception of qualia) in the sense of Eliminative Materialism, only reduced it in the sense of Reductive materialism. What do you mean with the possible exception of qualia! The whole point is that if you think you can leave qualitative experience out of the account you're an eliminativist. Qualia are precisely what is being eliminated. He is a selective eliminativist. He is not being inconsistent. Having eiminated qualia, he deosn;t continue to talk about them. He does continue to talk about memory, thought and perception, but then he hasn't eilminated them. In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! In other words, his position isn't what you have decided it is. What do you mean? Are you saying he's an eliminativist or a crypto- dualist? Or are you implying that (possibly!) non-qualitative reductive materialism is something different than either of these? he is eliminativist about qualia and reductionist about everything else. In that case he's an eliminativist about consciousness.. So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. No. Paraphrase indicates identity. Water can be paraphrased as H2O. That means water is identical to H2O. not that water does not and cannot exist. Water is only eliminated as *fundamental* (eg. the way the Greeks thought of it). EliminativISM is a much stronger claim, that the concept eliminated should never subsequently be used even as a place-holder or shrothand Yes, so following your recipe above, a given computation can be paraphrased as a specific physical process. This means that this computation is identical to that physical process. 'Computation' is therefore eliminated as something fundamental (in the Greek sense). Consequently, this leaves CTM+PM with 'computation' as a mere shorthand for an appeal to the fundamental physical processes, or alternatively with no appeal to anything fundamental whatsoever. Yes, yes, and yes. Why would that be a problem? Well, if now you think there's no problem, perhaps you'd like to reconsider what you meant by no above. I try my best to respond to your comments, but it seems to me that you react as though you had never made them. Further, I can't possibly agree with your contention that 'eliminativism' is any other or stronger claim than this. Uh-huh. And where are you getting your information on eliminativism from? This would be absurd, as well as unnecessary, because it would mean that we would be struck dumb. Only if we eliminated everything,. and only if we did not have substitute theory. Elimiativists think terms like thought will simply be abandoned as part of a failed theory, (like phlosgiston), rather than continuing as convenient but not entirely accurate shorthand. But they don't expect this to happen until the replacement theories are perfected. So they don't expect to be struck dumb. In that case they're 'replacementists' rather than 'eliminativists', wouldn't you say? They just want to replace one shorthand with another. Either way, talking in 'reducese' won't get you much conversation. There is no problem with using the 'eliminated' concept as a shorthand (indeed this is explicitly proposed in the Quinean excerpt you commented). Says who? Eliminativists argue that there is. You may not agree, but you cannot conclude that no-one holds those views. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminativism http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/ Like I said, they
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 16:41, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Plotinus says that too! Me too. With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not- computable or not-provable, or some relativizations. You're still not getting it. PM isn't a non-computable number. It isn't mathematical at all. You really do think in a box.. If you believe that a deduction is not valid, you have to say where, and why. 1. Somehting X is non-computable 2. Everything is mathematical 3. Therefore X is a non-computable number. The conclusion is valid. But (2) is a belief of yours that I don't share. Hence *I* don't agree PM is a non-computable number Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below. In arithemetic. people write down problems on blackboards and solve them. If comp is assumed, some computation correspond to dream, and their existence can be proved in arithmetic. Mathematics cannot prove metaphysical claims. Backwards-E is metaphysically non-commital. And the MGA argument shows that no machine can make the difference between real, virtual and arithmetical. There is no immaterial existence at all, and my agreeign to have my brain physcially replicated doesn't prove there is. Meaning: UDA is non valid. I am still waiting your argument. I don't grant step 0 -- the immaterial existence of a UD or any other mathematical structure. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). No. I don't have to deny their truth. I just have to deny that mathematical existence is ontological existence. I have no clue what you mean by ontological existence, It is what Platonists affirm of numbers and formalists deny except physical existence, but this beg the question. If you don't deny the arithmetical truth, you accept arithmetical realism, and you cannot deny the UD, so you should be able to follow the argument. And if you believe the conclusion is wrong, you should say where. I have explained this over and over. I accept that true backwards-E statements are true. I don't accept that backwards-E means ontological existence. Since it [UD] does not exist, it does not contain anything. UD exists like PI exists. That doesn't exist ontologically either The rest is taken into account in the argument that I am referring to. Don't say that PI and circle does not exists. Say that PI and circles does not exist physically. It is quite different. Even Platonists regard them as existing non-physcially. If you don't understand what the debate between Platonists, formalists , intuiotionists (etc) is about, you need to read the literature. That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence. You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is ontological RITISAR existence. I still don't know if by RITSIAR you mean real in the sense my first person is real or real as my body is real. You told me that the difference is epistemological, and I can accept this (for a while). But that makes a huge difference in the meaning of RITSIAR. I cannot doubt my first person, but I can doubt my body. After UDA+MGA, my first person appears to have an infinity of bodies (like in QM without collapse), and this makes the difference between those two forms of RITSIAR even bigger. UDA proves nothing without an argument of the actual, if non-physical, existence of numbers. See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. So? It hasn't been. It has been implemented, and it has run for a week in 1991. This is anecdotical. Just to say that the UD is a concrete program. But it is hardly going to contain vast infinities after a week. The way to prevent it is the same way that all sceptical hypotheses are prevented. You just note that there is not a scrap of evidence for them. The only upshot of scepticism is that there is no certainty, and we have to argue for the position of the greatest plausibility. I have better that a scrap of evidence: a deductive argument. A proof, that COMP = physics has to emerge from numbers. But I have also evidences for comp, in the sense that the physics which emerge from numbers is a multiversial physics, and the quantum reality makes many people to consider that
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 21:49, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:21:19 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 19 Aug, 13:03, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Showing that a word can be removed from a verbal formulation by substitution with s synonym is not *ontological* elimination. Of course it is--*according to the Quinean definition of ontology*. The strange thing about your mode of argument is that you talk as though a word like existence has some single true correct meaning, and that anyone who uses it differently is just wrong--do you disagree with the basic premise that the meaning of words is defined solely by usage and/or definitions? If so, do you agree that there are in fact different ways this word is defined by real people, even if we restrict our attention to the philosophical community? Note that I actually argued the point that paraphrase is not elimination Provided you agree with that, your posts would be a lot less confusing if you would distinguish between different definitions and state which one you meant at a given time--for example, one might say I agree numbers have Quinean existence but I think they lack material existence, or existence in the sense that intelligent beings that appear in mathematical universes are actually conscious beings with their own qualia. We might call these three notions of existence Q-existence, M- existence and C-existence for short. My argument with you has been that even if one wishes to postulate a single universe, M-existence is an unnecessary middleman and doesn't even seem well-defined, all we need to do is postulate that out of all the mathematically possible universes that have Q-existence, only one has C-existence. The M-existence hypothesis is supported by the whole of science, and, unlike the C-existence hypothesis, is in line with the scientific claim that there was a long period when there was no consciousness in the universe. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug 2009, at 02:07, David Nyman wrote: 2009/8/19 Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Well, not if you believe there are objective truths about computations that are never actually carried out in the physical world, like whether some program with an input string a googolplex digits long ever halts or not. Yes, but here - in connection with Peter's apparent support for the Quinean concept-reduction argument - I was specifically commenting on the status of 'computation' **if** you assume primitive matter. In that case, I'm not sure what never actually carried out in the physical world would mean. On the contrary. If you assume there is a primitive material reality, a primitive physical universe, then it makes sense to talk about the computations which are carried out in the physical universe, like the one done by this or that computer or brains, and the computations which are not done in that universe, like some possible counterfactuals (the computations carried out by Julius Caesar meeting Napoleon), or some extravagant computations like the computation of the 10^(10^1000) digit of the square root of two. Of course in the special case of a large multiverse, or in the concrete ever expanding universe assumed in step seven, the universal dovetailing is integrally executed so that in such a universe all the computations are carried out. I don't have a problem with step 8 on the basis of the Olympia argument, as I've tried to demonstrate - is there some other aspect of computational supervenience that you feel I'm missing? May be you don't want to do the math? The math for UDA are really basic compared to the math needed for AUDA. I'm trying to follow the math as you go through it, although I still haven't really fathomed where it's leading. Your second sentence answers the first one. Your paragraph above also. The current seventh step series is leading to the understanding of what is a computation, and a machine, for a mathematician. With or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. This is amazing, because Cantor discovered a technic which is capable of demolishing most attempt to define a real universal thing in math, but as Gödel will eventually realize, the set of computable functions remains closed for that technic. Gödel described this as a kind of miracle, and was very skeptical about it. That miracle is Church thesis. Gödel, on its own saying, missed it, despite he invented one of the candidate for a definition of what are computations, and what means computable. The notion of computation does not rely on anything physical. Computation and computability theory are branch of mathematics, and in my youth those branches were taught in the pure mathematics courses., not in applied mathematics course. And in some universities this remains so. In informatics applied computer science, such course on the mathematical computation are not taught: you have to do pure math to study it, and if you dare to pretend there could be relations between them, you are consider as a betrayer of pure math! I think that what remains unclear in step seven is due to the lack of knowledge of that purely mathematical notion of computation. You need it to justify why Universal Machine and Universal Dovetailer exist and in what sense they are truly universal. The notion of physical computation *today* is quantum computation, and this is a priori something else, except it can be shown defining the same class of computable functions. A big problem for the comp hyp. consists in explaining why apparently everything we can touch and smell is described only by quantum computation. Why in UD* (the infinite execution of the UD, or of any UD) does the quantum computation wins the measure battle, at least from the first person (plural) points of view. Of course the first person plural indeterminacy explains why, but we have to recover the detail. The apparent primitive matter that we recover from comp is a priori too much powerful, and leads to too much white rabbits. Only pure mathematical computer science explains why this is not trivial at all. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 02:23, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 19 Aug, 13:35, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: It doesn't. It just has to be *amenable* of spelling out: i.e. if it is a posteriori compressed - for example into 'computational' language - then this demands that it be *capable* of prior justification by rigorous spelling out in physical terms for every conceptual reduction. MGA claims to show that this is impossible for the conjunction of CTM and PM. Of course, CTM on the basis of arithmetical realism is not spelled out either, but is immunised from physical paraphrase by making no appeal to PM for justification. Err. yeah. The hard part is reducing mentation to computation. The physical paraphrase of computation is just engineering, I understand both your discomfort with arithmetical realism and your defence of PM, but this discussion hinges on CTM +PM = true. Couldn't we try to focus on the validity or otherwise of this claim? OK. It's invalid because you can't have computaiton with zero phyiscal activity. But that is **precisely** the conclusion of the reductio that MGA proposes. MGA claims precisely that - as you say - since it is implausible to justify the ascription of computation to zero physical activity, if you still want to claim that there is computation 'going on', then it can't be attached to physical activity. Are you questioning that MGA constitutes a valid instantiation of a physical TM? What about Olympia? I should have added that you can;t have computaton with zero computational activity. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug 2009, at 10:46, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 16:41, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Plotinus says that too! Me too. With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not- computable or not-provable, or some relativizations. You're still not getting it. PM isn't a non-computable number. It isn't mathematical at all. You really do think in a box.. If you believe that a deduction is not valid, you have to say where, and why. 1. Somehting X is non-computable 2. Everything is mathematical 3. Therefore X is a non-computable number. The conclusion is valid. But (2) is a belief of yours that I don't share. Hence *I* don't agree PM is a non-computable number You have really decide to attack me without reading me. I have send at least 5 posts where I explain why I am very dubious about 2. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below. In arithemetic. people write down problems on blackboards and solve them. If comp is assumed, some computation correspond to dream, and their existence can be proved in arithmetic. Mathematics cannot prove metaphysical claims. If comp is assume we are doing an hypothesis which is metaphysical, or theological. It is a belief in a form of reincarnation. You attacks me perpetually on statements which I never uttered. Backwards-E is metaphysically non-commital. ? And the MGA argument shows that no machine can make the difference between real, virtual and arithmetical. There is no immaterial existence at all, and my agreeign to have my brain physcially replicated doesn't prove there is. Meaning: UDA is non valid. I am still waiting your argument. I don't grant step 0 -- the immaterial existence of a UD or any other mathematical structure. Indeed, you don't believe in the number seven. But sometimes you seem to believe in their mathematical existence, and that is all what I need. The UD exists in the same sense than the number seven. If you don't believe in the mathematical existence of the number seven, then indeed you cannot go farther than step zero. I let you know you are the first person on this planet who does not believe in the mathematical existence of the number seven. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). No. I don't have to deny their truth. I just have to deny that mathematical existence is ontological existence. I have no clue what you mean by ontological existence, It is what Platonists affirm of numbers and formalists deny Formalist accept arithmetical existence. They reject set theoretical existence. They need arithmetical existence to define their formal systems. except physical existence, but this beg the question. If you don't deny the arithmetical truth, you accept arithmetical realism, and you cannot deny the UD, so you should be able to follow the argument. And if you believe the conclusion is wrong, you should say where. I have explained this over and over. I accept that true backwards-E statements are true. I don't accept that backwards-E means ontological existence. When science tackle fundamental question, it is better to be agnostic and abandon any ontological commitment. Your ontological, and philosophical commitment, seems to prevent you to even read the reasoning. Since it [UD] does not exist, it does not contain anything. UD exists like PI exists. That doesn't exist ontologically either The point is that the proof goes on with such form on not necessarily ontological existence, or you have to show where in the reasoning things get wrong. The rest is taken into account in the argument that I am referring to. Don't say that PI and circle does not exists. Say that PI and circles does not exist physically. It is quite different. Even Platonists regard them as existing non-physically. But this is what I was saying. You don't read the post either apparently. Here I was asking you to say that seven does not exist physically instead of your usual seven does not exist. That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence. You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is ontological RITISAR existence. I still don't know if by RITSIAR you mean real in the sense my first person is real or real as my body is real. You told me that the difference is epistemological, and I can accept this
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 10:05, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 20 Aug 2009, at 02:07, David Nyman wrote: 2009/8/19 Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Well, not if you believe there are objective truths about computations that are never actually carried out in the physical world, like whether some program with an input string a googolplex digits long ever halts or not. Yes, but here - in connection with Peter's apparent support for the Quinean concept-reduction argument - I was specifically commenting on the status of 'computation' **if** you assume primitive matter. In that case, I'm not sure what never actually carried out in the physical world would mean. On the contrary. If you assume there is a primitive material reality, a primitive physical universe, then it makes sense to talk about the computations which are carried out in the physical universe, like the one done by this or that computer or brains, and the computations which are not done in that universe, like some possible counterfactuals (the computations carried out by Julius Caesar meeting Napoleon), or some extravagant computations like the computation of the 10^(10^1000) digit of the square root of two. Yes, of course you're right - perhaps I didn't phrase my response to Jesse clearly enough. In my discussion with Peter about Quinean 'eliminative paraphrasing', I was pursuing the same conclusion that you attribute to Dennett as an 'honest materialist'. That is, under materialism, that persons, consciousness - and computation - must in the end be explained away, or conceptually *eliminated*. I'm not saying that I hold these views (I emphatically do not), only that anyone who honestly and rigorously adheres to materialism must see that they are entailed by this position. Of course, under materialism, there is a *physical process* corresponding to 'computation'; consequently, as both you and Jesse point out, one can of course envisage non-occurring, or counterfactual, processes with respect to these. But I don't see how that would change the conclusion of the eliminativist argument I was pursuing (as devil's advocate) - as indeed Jesse pointed out to Peter. I don't have a problem with step 8 on the basis of the Olympia argument, as I've tried to demonstrate - is there some other aspect of computational supervenience that you feel I'm missing? May be you don't want to do the math? The math for UDA are really basic compared to the math needed for AUDA. I'm trying to follow the math as you go through it, although I still haven't really fathomed where it's leading. Your second sentence answers the first one. Your paragraph above also. The current seventh step series is leading to the understanding of what is a computation, and a machine, for a mathematician. With or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. Ah. Well, tell me if you still want to make the point about my 'paragraph above', after my response on this. But on the issue of the understanding of what is computation, I must concede that I have much to learn technically - so I will be humble and try to study. But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. Don't misunderstand me - this
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 13:30, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 Aug, 10:05, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! Nope. He is a reductionist, not an eliminativist. So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. That isn't elimination in the sense of eliminativism. Don't misunderstand me - this is what is *wrong* with material monism - because to be consistent, one is either honestly forced to such an eliminativist conclusion (but then you must deny your own consciousness and all mental concepts), or you tacitly accept a form of dualism (but again without noticing!) So I suppose that when you say with primitive matter that you don't mean **only** with primitive matter, but rather with primitive matter + computation - which is in effect a dualistic assumption. Again, please don't misunderstand me - I regard comp as a coherent *monistic* approach to both mind and matter that seeks to 'eliminate' neither, and which brings the mind-body issues into full focus. But the assumption of PM *in addition* would transform it into a type of epiphenomenal dualism. You are still confusing reduciton/identity with elimination -- Early eliminativists such as Rorty and Feyerabend often confused two different notions of the sort of elimination that the term eliminative materialism entailed. On the one hand, they claimed, the cognitive sciences that will ultimately give people a correct account of the workings of the mind will not employ terms that refer to common- sense mental states like beliefs and desires; these states will not be part of the ontology of a mature cognitive science.[4][5] But critics immediately countered that this view was indistinguishable from the identity theory of mind.[1][13] Quine himself wondered what exactly was so eliminative about eliminative materialism after all: “ Is physicalism a repudiation of mental objects after all, or a theory of them? Does it repudiate the mental state of pain or anger in favor of its physical concomitant, or does it identify the mental state with a state of the physical organism (and so a state of the physical organism with the mental state)? [14] ” On the other hand, the same philosophers also claimed that common- sense mental states simply do not exist. But critics pointed out that eliminativists could not have it both ways: either mental states exist and will ultimately be explained in terms of lower-level neurophysiological processes or they do not.[1][13] Modern eliminativists have much more clearly expressed the view that mental phenomena simply do not exist and will eventually be eliminated from people's thinking about the brain in the same way that demons have been eliminated from people's thinking about mental illness and psychopathology.[3] - WP --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:56:27 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 19 Aug, 21:49, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:21:19 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 19 Aug, 13:03, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Showing that a word can be removed from a verbal formulation by substitution with s synonym is not *ontological* elimination. Of course it is--*according to the Quinean definition of ontology*. The strange thing about your mode of argument is that you talk as though a word like existence has some single true correct meaning, and that anyone who uses it differently is just wrong--do you disagree with the basic premise that the meaning of words is defined solely by usage and/or definitions? If so, do you agree that there are in fact different ways this word is defined by real people, even if we restrict our attention to the philosophical community? Note that I actually argued the point that paraphrase is not elimination Do you agree that it is in the Quinean definition of ontology? If you're going to define existence in terms of things that there are objective truths about like Quine wanted to, you need something like elimination-by-paraphrase if you want to avoid the implication that unicorns are real because the statement unicorns have a single horn is true given our definitions. Also, you didn't answer my question--regardless of what *you* think is the most sensible way to define existence, do you agree that different people define it differently, so there is no single correct usage? If so it would behoove you to distinguish the different senses in your posts, for example to drop the totally false suggestion that being a mathematical platonist implies you must believe mathematical structures have existence in the sense of M-existence or C-existence (Bruno may think mathematical structures have C-existence and I'm inclined to think so myself, but plenty of mathematical platonists do not) Provided you agree with that, your posts would be a lot less confusing if you would distinguish between different definitions and state which one you meant at a given time--for example, one might say I agree numbers have Quinean existence but I think they lack material existence, or existence in the sense that intelligent beings that appear in mathematical universes are actually conscious beings with their own qualia. We might call these three notions of existence Q-existence, M- existence and C-existence for short. My argument with you has been that even if one wishes to postulate a single universe, M-existence is an unnecessary middleman and doesn't even seem well-defined, all we need to do is postulate that out of all the mathematically possible universes that have Q-existence, only one has C-existence. The M-existence hypothesis is supported by the whole of science, You can't say science supports the metaphysical hypothesis of M-existence unless you can define what M-existence actually means. And we would experience all the same experimental results in a universe that had Q-existence and C-existence but no M-existence, would we not? If so, then there is absolutely no way that scientific evidence can distinguish the hypothesis that the universe has C-existence alone from the one that it has both M-existence and C-existence, any argument for the latter must be metaphysical rather than empirical. and, unlike the C-existence hypothesis, is in line with the scientific claim that there was a long period when there was no consciousness in the universe. The C-existence hypothesis need not say that unconscious things don't exist, C-existence can be defined in terms of the potential to influence the qualia of any conscious beings that are part of the same mathematical universe. On the other hand, one is also free to adopt some version of naturalistic panpsychism, like the one argued for by David Chalmers in The Conscious Mind or the version discussed at http://www.hedweb.com/lockwood.htm#naturalistic --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug 2009, at 14:30, David Nyman wrote: On 20 Aug, 10:05, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Your second sentence answers the first one. Your paragraph above also. The current seventh step series is leading to the understanding of what is a computation, and a machine, for a mathematician. With or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. Ah. Well, tell me if you still want to make the point about my 'paragraph above', after my response on this. But on the issue of the understanding of what is computation, I must concede that I have much to learn technically - so I will be humble and try to study. But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! I agree. I think that Dennett agrees too, as he almost confesses at the end of his book on Consciousness Explained. So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. Don't misunderstand me - this is what is *wrong* with material monism - because to be consistent, one is either honestly forced to such an eliminativist conclusion (but then you must deny your own consciousness and all mental concepts), or you tacitly accept a form of dualism (but again without noticing!) So I suppose that when you say with primitive matter that you don't mean **only** with primitive matter, but rather with primitive matter + computation - which is in effect a dualistic assumption. Actually, once we assume some primitive matter, we are immediately confronted with what Jacques Mallah called (in this list) the implementation problem (also treated by Putnam and Chalmers). It is even made worse with quantum computations. There is a sense to say that the quantum vacuum implements all computations, and there is a real difficulty in relating particular computation and particular piece matter, and that is a prerequisite to attach mind to matter for a partisan of PM+CTM. Again, please don't misunderstand me - I regard comp as a coherent *monistic* approach to both mind and matter that seeks to 'eliminate' neither, and which brings the mind-body issues into full focus. But the assumption of PM *in addition* would transform it into a type of epiphenomenal dualism. Well I think that the addition of PM to CTM leads to contradiction or elimination of consciousness (not a reduction of consciousness to physical activity, but real elimination). What Peter seems to have some difficulty to understand or admit. Now, with a theory which assumes that CTM is false, you can coherently define an identity thesis matter-mind (with enough actual infinities on both sides), and defend some epiphenomenal dualism. With CTM epiphenomenalism, for *primitive* matter, does not work. The notion of computation does not rely on anything physical. OK, with the caveats above. And there is nothing metaphysical here, just a tremendous mathematical discovery made by Emil Post, the first, and rediscovered by Kleene, Turing, Markov and some others. (To be frank, I don't believe Church ever makes that discovery. It is really Kleene who realized that Church definition was a really a thesis. But since Kleene introduced the vocable Church's thesis, mathematical logicians are using it. Many call it Church-Turing thesis nowadays. But historically it is either Emil Post who made the discovery the first, or perhaps Babbage, who, when getting old, invented a language to describe his machine, and discovered that the language was already an universal beast as clever as his machine). I think that what remains unclear in step seven is due to the lack of knowledge of that purely mathematical notion of computation. You need it to justify why Universal Machine and Universal Dovetailer exist and in what sense they are truly universal. Point taken. I will try to learn. It is very kind to tell me, and to provide me with supplementary
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/20 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 20 Aug, 13:30, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 Aug, 10:05, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But also - just to dispose once and for all of this particular point - I want to be sure that you understand that I'm not arguing *for* eliminative materialism, except as devil's advocate (I'm sure you know this). But one aspect of my recent discussions with Peter has been to bring to a focus the strict consequences of materialism, in precisely the honest way that you attribute to Dennett. The trouble is, that Dennett, having eliminated the mind and hence the notorious 'problem', still cheerfully carries on deploying the same mind-dependent concepts as though nothing had happened! In other words, his position is inconsistent and incoherent. It's dualism for free! Nope. He is a reductionist, not an eliminativist. Yep. Perhaps you haven't perused Consciousness Explained recently. The whole point is that you can't be a reductionist in the Quinean sense - which Dennett (more or less honestly) is - without being an eliminativist. The passage that you commented approvingly actually used the term 'eliminative materialist', for goodness sake! The reason that anyone might imagine that they could be is simply because of the all-too-understandable tenacity of first-person intuitions. Despite the (imagined) 'reduction', one can't help but go on *imagining*! IOW - since one is in fact conscious - one can't help but deploy the same mind-dependent (i.e. first-person) concepts that are supposed to be eliminated (i.e. made redundant) by the reductive (i.e. third-person) account of mind. So the distinction between reduction with and without elimination turns out to be that between eliminative materialism (the former) and material-mental 'dual aspect' theory (the latter). So, in this context, let me try to understand your remark: with or without assuming PM (primitive matter) there is an mathematical notion of computation and of computability. I would say - per Dennett, but understood *consistently* - that under the assumption that there is *only* primitive matter (i.e. material monism) - there strictly can be no appeal to such a notion as computation, because mathematics itself is eliminable per Qine. That isn't elimination in the sense of eliminativism. What other sense do you have in mind? Don't misunderstand me - this is what is *wrong* with material monism - because to be consistent, one is either honestly forced to such an eliminativist conclusion (but then you must deny your own consciousness and all mental concepts), or you tacitly accept a form of dualism (but again without noticing!) So I suppose that when you say with primitive matter that you don't mean **only** with primitive matter, but rather with primitive matter + computation - which is in effect a dualistic assumption. Again, please don't misunderstand me - I regard comp as a coherent *monistic* approach to both mind and matter that seeks to 'eliminate' neither, and which brings the mind-body issues into full focus. But the assumption of PM *in addition* would transform it into a type of epiphenomenal dualism. You are still confusing reduciton/identity with elimination Thanks for the excellent summary, but I assure you I'm not confusing them, I just want to know which is intended in a given case. I'd always assumed that your materialism went hand-in-hand with some identity-based hypothesis of mind (or at least the possibility of such). I was surprised - and consequently commented - when you appeared to endorse a passage citing physical reduction as an approach to elimination of human concepts. If I misunderstood what you meant by I agree, please just correct the misunderstanding. That being said, I do in fact think that 'identity' - even 'dual aspect' - theories can't really avoid being an unacknowledged back door to dualism. It's part of the 'sweeping under the rug' of the MBP I think, because the attempt to stretch the notion of 'identity' to the point of literally *equating* consciousness with 'primitively material' processes is ultimately to rob either of any sense. I suspect you may wish to respond that consciousness is not a matter of ontology, but epistemology. But in fact this is directly contradicted by the identity hypothesis itself: though we may differentiate the contents of consciousness from the context in which they are immediately apprehended by use of the term 'epistemological', that very container is ex hypothesi *identical* to that of the material. IOW: content = epistemology, but context+content = ontology. As you correctly remarked, it is rare for anyone to have a new idea, so I don't indulge the fantasy that I'm proposing anything original. Schrödinger, for example, articulated it rather clearly, commenting that if as monists, we must choose a singular ontology, then it would be curiously blind to reject the
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 20 Aug, 10:09, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: OK. It's invalid because you can't have computaiton with zero phyiscal activity. But that is **precisely** the conclusion of the reductio that MGA proposes. MGA claims precisely that - as you say - since it is implausible to justify the ascription of computation to zero physical activity, if you still want to claim that there is computation 'going on', then it can't be attached to physical activity. Are you questioning that MGA constitutes a valid instantiation of a physical TM? What about Olympia? I should have added that you can;t have computaton with zero computational activity. One more time then, using Olympia as the reductio ad absurdum: this relies on radical minimisation of physical activity to render implausible the notion of the attachment of instantiation-invariant consciousness-as-computation to PM. AFAICS the way to show that it did not go through would consist either in denying that Olympia constitutes a valid physical TM, or by denying the absurdity of the conclusion: i.e. insisting that any activity, however minimised, remains fully sufficient for the attachment of a unique, invariant conscious state. Which is it? David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:23:51 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: david.ny...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 20 Aug, 10:09, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: OK. It's invalid because you can't have computaiton with zero phyiscal activity. But that is **precisely** the conclusion of the reductio that MGA proposes. MGA claims precisely that - as you say - since it is implausible to justify the ascription of computation to zero physical activity, if you still want to claim that there is computation 'going on', then it can't be attached to physical activity. Are you questioning that MGA constitutes a valid instantiation of a physical TM? What about Olympia? I should have added that you can;t have computaton with zero computational activity. One more time then, using Olympia as the reductio ad absurdum: this relies on radical minimisation of physical activity to render implausible the notion of the attachment of instantiation-invariant consciousness-as-computation to PM. I don't think the Olympia argument is really the final nail in the coffin for the notion that computations can only be instantiated by the right sorts of physical processes; there might be other ways of defining when a physical process counts as an instantiation of a given abstract computation that don't lead to the same problems. See my speculations about a physical process needing to have the same causal structure as the abstract computation, with causal structure defined *not* in terms of counterfactuals but rather in terms of which facts imply which other facts, in the posts at http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16244.html and http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16257.html ...this notion of causal structure isn't totally developed and probably has holes in it, but I don't see any reason to rule out the idea that it couldn't be developed into a coherent notion of instantiation that wouldn't lead to weird reductio ad absurdums like Olympia does for computations defined in terms of counterfactuals. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/20 Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com: http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16244.html and http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@googlegroups.com/msg16257.html Thanks, Jesse - I'll take a look. David ...this notion of causal structure isn't totally developed and probably has holes in it, but I don't see any reason to rule out the idea that it couldn't be developed into a coherent notion of instantiation that wouldn't lead to weird reductio ad absurdums like Olympia does for computations defined in terms of counterfactuals. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 02:31, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this consists in saying that you are not Turing-emulable, Why can't I just say I'm not Turing emulated? It seems that your argument uses MGA to conclude that no physical instantaion is needed so Turing- emulable=Turing-emulated. It seems that all you can conclude is one cannot *know* that they have a correct argument showing they are material. But this is already well known from brain in a vat thought experiments. OK. But this seems to me enough to render invalid any reasoning leading to our primitive materiality. If a reasoning is valid, it has to be valid independently of being published or not, written with ink or carbon, being in or outside the UD*. I did not use MGA here. But if you are correct in your reasoning, the simulated you has to be correct to. It is the same reasoning. Or you have a special sense making you know that you are the real one, but either that special sense is Turing emulable and your doppelganger inherit them, or it is not Turing emulable, and you better should say no to the doctor, because you would loose that sense. Or it is a relation to the rest of the world and you can say yes so long as the doctor maintains your relations to the rest of the world - i.e. physically instantiates your emulation. This means, by definition of the generalized brain, that you have not choose the right substitution level/context. You can say yes because the doctor substitute correctly a *part* of your brain, but you have to introduce a non computational element in the environment to prevent its appearance in the mathematical UD*. You do *seem* to have a sort of point here, though. You provide a situation where comp is false, yet we can sayyes to the doctor. But in this case your survival is no more qua computatio. Your survival comes from the fact that your consciousness supervene on some magical (non turing emulable) property of the material moon (say), and that your doctor did not give you an artificial brain, just an artificial part of your brain. This is no more comp or CTM. It is not different than saying yes to the doctor because you believe there is a God who will save your soul and put it back in the reconstitution. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 01:51, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: David Nyman wrote: On 19 Aug, 00:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Note that I have never said that matter does not exist. I have no doubt it exists. I am just saying that matter cannot be primitive, assuming comp. Matter is more or less the border of the ignorance of universal machines (to be short). There is a fundamental physics which capture the invariant for all possible universal machine observation, and the rest is geography-history. Assuming comp the consistent- contingent obeys laws. AFAICS the essence of Bruno's dispute with Peter consists in: 1) ***If you accept the computational theory of mind (CTM)*** then matter can no longer be primitive to your explanations of appearances of any kind, mental or physical. 2) ***If you assert that matter is primitive to your explanation of appearances of any kind, mental or physical (PM)*** it is illegitimate to appeal to CTM. Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? David I think you are right that the MGA is at the crux. But I don't know whether to regard it as proving that computation need not be physically instantiated or as a reductio against the yes doctor hypothesis. Saying yes to the doctor seems very straightforward when you just think about the doctor replacing physical elements of your brain with functionally similar elements made of silicon or straw or whatever. But then I reflect that I, with my new head full of straw, must still interact with the world. So I have not been reduced to computation unless the part of the world I interact with is also replaced by computational elements If you were a programme interacting with the world before, you still will be after a function-preserving replacement is made. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 08:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 02:31, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this consists in saying that you are not Turing-emulable, Why can't I just say I'm not Turing emulated? It seems that your argument uses MGA to conclude that no physical instantaion is needed so Turing- emulable=Turing-emulated. It seems that all you can conclude is one cannot *know* that they have a correct argument showing they are material. But this is already well known from brain in a vat thought experiments. OK. But this seems to me enough to render invalid any reasoning leading to our primitive materiality. If a reasoning is valid, it has to be valid independently of being published or not, written with ink or carbon, being in or outside the UD*. I did not use MGA here. That is false. You are tacitly assuming that PM has to be argued with the full force of necessity -- although your own argument does not have that force. In fact, PM only has to be shown to be more plausible than the alternatives. It is not necessarily true because of sceptical hypotheses like the BIV and the UD, but since neither of them has much prima-facie plausibility, the plausibility og PM is not impacted much --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 01:29, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? Of course, no argument can validly come to a metaphysical conclusion-- in this case, that matter does not exist --without making a single metaphysical assumption. The argument is therefore invalid, or not purely logical --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 00:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 22:43, Flammarion wrote: On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I think you have a magical conception of reality. I don't need to reify number to believe in them. I just need to play with them. I think *you* believe in magic. You believe that if you write down hypothetical truths about what an immaterial machine would believe, you can conclude that everything has been conjured up by an immaterial machine. It's like saying you can go from making a theoretical study of the aerodynamics of Pegasus to taking a ride on Pegasus's back. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Plotinus says that too! Me too. With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not- computable or not-provable, or some relativizations. You're still not getting it. PM isn't a non-computable number. It isn't mathematical at all. You really do think in a box.. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below. In arithemetic. people write down problems on blackboards and solve them. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. Once you say yes to the doctor, there are immaterial Peter Jones. All your doppelganger emulating you, and being emulated at your level of substitution and below relatively occuring in the proof of the Sigma_1 sentences of Robinson Arithmetic. (The arithmetical version of the UD). There is no immaterial existence at all, and my agreeign to have my brain physcially replicated doesn't prove there is. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). No. I don't have to deny their truth. I just have to deny that mathematical existence is ontological existence. As I have been You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. You underestimate the dumbness of the DU, or sigma_1 arithmetic. It contains the emulation of all the quantum states of the milky way, with correct approximation of its neighborhood. Since it does not exist, it does not contain anything. It is hard to recognize Peter Jones or Bruno Marchal from the huge relation and huge numbers involved, in some emulations, but it is easy to prove there exists, from the information the doctor got when scanning your brain. Same mistake All you can prove is that *if* the UD existed *then* it would contain such-and-such. But it doesn't actually exist. In computations enough similar than our own most probable current one, it is a theorem that those entities have such or such beliefs, and behave in such and such ways, developing such and such discourses. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Standard comp says nothing about Plato's Platonism, but once you take the digitalness seriously enough, and
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 22:46, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/18 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: The paraphrase condition means, for example, that instead of adopting a statement like unicorns have one horn as a true statement about reality and thus being forced to accept the existence of unicorns, you could instead paraphrase this in terms of what images and concepts are in people's mind when they use the word unicorn; and if you're an eliminative materialist who wants to avoid accepting mental images and concepts as a basic element of your ontology, it might seem plausible that you could *in principle* paraphrase all statements about human concepts using statements about physical processes in human brains, although we may lack the understanding to do that now. I presume that one could substitute 'computation' for 'unicorn' in the above passage? If so, the human concept that it is 'computation' that gives rise to consciousness could be paraphrased using statements about physical processes in human brains. So what may we now suppose gives such processes this particular power? Presumably not their 'computational' nature - because now nous n'avons pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là (which I'm sure you will recall was precisely the point I originally made). That's completely back to front. Standard computaitonalism regards computation as a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. It doesn't exist at the fundamental level like quarks, and it isn't non-existent like unicorns. It is a higher-level existent, like horses. I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. (my original point) after such reduction to primary physical processes. So why should 'computation' escape this fate? How would you respond if I said the brain is conscious because it is 'alive'? Would 'life' elude the paraphrased reduction to physical process? I don't see your point. Either claim may or may not be true and may or may not be paraphraseable. BTW, let's be clear: I'm not saying that physicalism is false (although IMO it is at least incomplete). I'm merely pointing out one of its consequences. Which is what? It's prima facie possible for physicalism to be true and computationalism false. That is to say that the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computaitonal processes. Yes, of course, this is precisely my point, for heaven's sake. Here's the proposal, in your own words: assuming physicalism the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computational processes. Physicalist theory of mind urgently required. QED I am arguing with Bruno about whether the eliminaiton of matter makes things easier for the MBP. I think it just give you less to work with. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: There is no immaterial existence at all, and my agreeign to have my brain physcially replicated doesn't prove there is. And you saying so doesn't prove there isn't. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). No. I don't have to deny their truth. I just have to deny that mathematical existence is ontological existence. As I have been Then you're missusing 'existence'. Because using your language existence = no existence at all ! for mathemetical existence... Why bother using the word existence when you don't even mean it. You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. You underestimate the dumbness of the DU, or sigma_1 arithmetic. It contains the emulation of all the quantum states of the milky way, with correct approximation of its neighborhood. Since it does not exist, it does not contain anything. You say so, but you could repeat it ad infinitum, it won't render it truer. It is hard to recognize Peter Jones or Bruno Marchal from the huge relation and huge numbers involved, in some emulations, but it is easy to prove there exists, from the information the doctor got when scanning your brain. Same mistake All you can prove is that *if* the UD existed *then* it would contain such-and-such. But it doesn't actually exist. In computations enough similar than our own most probable current one, it is a theorem that those entities have such or such beliefs, and behave in such and such ways, developing such and such discourses. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Standard comp says nothing about Plato's Platonism, but once you take the digitalness seriously enough, and CT, it is just standard computer science. That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence. You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is ontological RITISAR existence. So you would accept to be turned into a program as long as you're running on a physical implementation... ok it's fair enough. My question is *in that precise case*... What are you ? the program written in whatever language it was written ? the functionnaly equivalent program written in brainfuck ? the same written in the machine language of the physical machine you're running on ? the bytecode that would be JIT in a VM ? the transistor of the physical machine ? What IS RITSIAR when you'll be digitalized ? If you're running, and I suspend the program ? Do *you* still exists ? If I restart it ? Do you still exists ? If I never restart it do you still exists ? If I destroy every copy of the program that is you do you still exists ? See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. So? It hasn't been. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. So? If you develop a correct argument that you are running on a computer when actually you are a BIV, then the BIV you will come up with that argument too. Any argument whatsoever can be undermined by a sceptical hypothesis, and there are many. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this consists in saying that you are not Turing-emulable, or that you just don't know if you are in the UD or not. The way to prevent it is the same way that all sceptical hypotheses are prevented. You just note that there is not a scrap of evidence for them. The only upshot
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 22:46, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/18 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Yes, of course, this is precisely my point, for heaven's sake. Here's the proposal, in your own words: assuming physicalism the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computational processes. Physicalist theory of mind urgently required. QED Why does it have to be spelt out? No-one in this discussion has spelt out a CMT, it is taken off the shelf. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 10:28, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: There is no immaterial existence at all, and my agreeign to have my brain physcially replicated doesn't prove there is. And you saying so doesn't prove there isn't. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). No. I don't have to deny their truth. I just have to deny that mathematical existence is ontological existence. As I have been Then you're missusing 'existence'. Because using your language existence = no existence at all ! for mathemetical existence... Why bother using the word existence when you don't even mean it. People do. People agree that Sherlock Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street even though he lived at all. If you want to start a project to eliminate metaphorical and other non-literla uses from langauge, you have a long way to go. You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. You underestimate the dumbness of the DU, or sigma_1 arithmetic. It contains the emulation of all the quantum states of the milky way, with correct approximation of its neighborhood. Since it does not exist, it does not contain anything. You say so, but you could repeat it ad infinitum, it won't render it truer. *If* it does not exist, it does not contain anything. Now show that it exists. It is hard to recognize Peter Jones or Bruno Marchal from the huge relation and huge numbers involved, in some emulations, but it is easy to prove there exists, from the information the doctor got when scanning your brain. Same mistake All you can prove is that *if* the UD existed *then* it would contain such-and-such. But it doesn't actually exist. In computations enough similar than our own most probable current one, it is a theorem that those entities have such or such beliefs, and behave in such and such ways, developing such and such discourses. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Standard comp says nothing about Plato's Platonism, but once you take the digitalness seriously enough, and CT, it is just standard computer science. That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence. You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is ontological RITISAR existence. So you would accept to be turned into a program as long as you're running on a physical implementation... ok it's fair enough. My question is *in that precise case*... What are you ? the program written in whatever language it was written ? the functionnaly equivalent program written in brainfuck ? the same written in the machine language of the physical machine you're running on ? the bytecode that would be JIT in a VM ? the transistor of the physical machine ? What IS RITSIAR when you'll be digitalized ? Whatever combination of hardware and software I am in fact running on. Juggling combinations of h/w and s/w is not going to make me immaterial. If you're running, and I suspend the program ? Do *you* still exists ? no If I restart it ? Do you still exists ? yes If I never restart it do you still exists ? no If I destroy every copy of the program that is you do you still exists ? no See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. So? It hasn't been. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. So? If you develop a correct argument that you are running on a computer when actually you are a BIV,
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence. You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is ontological RITISAR existence. So you would accept to be turned into a program as long as you're running on a physical implementation... ok it's fair enough. My question is *in that precise case*... What are you ? the program written in whatever language it was written ? the functionnaly equivalent program written in brainfuck ? the same written in the machine language of the physical machine you're running on ? the bytecode that would be JIT in a VM ? the transistor of the physical machine ? What IS RITSIAR when you'll be digitalized ? Whatever combination of hardware and software I am in fact running on. Juggling combinations of h/w and s/w is not going to make me immaterial. If I'm reading the program and executing it in my head with a pencil and writing down the result on a sheet of paper... would you exists ? in my head ? on the paper ? on the pencil ? Would you cease to exists at the very moment I stop doing it ? If you're running, and I suspend the program ? Do *you* still exists ? no If I restart it ? Do you still exists ? yes If I never restart it do you still exists ? no If I destroy every copy of the program that is you do you still exists ? no See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. So? It hasn't been. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. So? If you develop a correct argument that you are running on a computer when actually you are a BIV, then the BIV you will come up with that argument too. Any argument whatsoever can be undermined by a sceptical hypothesis, and there are many. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this consists in saying that you are not Turing-emulable, or that you just don't know if you are in the UD or not. The way to prevent it is the same way that all sceptical hypotheses are prevented. You just note that there is not a scrap of evidence for them. The only upshot of scepticism is that there is no certainty, and we have to argue for the position of the greatest plausibility. At this stage. Then with step-8, you know, relatively to the comp act of faith, that you are already there. If you say yes to the doctor, you can bet, from computer science that you are already in the (N,x,+) matrix. I can't be in something that has merely mathematical existence, any more than I can be in Nanrnia So you can't be a program... So I *can* be a runnign programme. I *can't* be abstract software. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. (my original point) after such reduction to primary physical processes. So why should 'computation' escape this fate? How would you respond if I said the brain is conscious because it is 'alive'? Would 'life' elude the paraphrased reduction to physical process? I don't see your point. Either claim may or may not be true and may or may not be paraphraseable. My point is that claiming - *a priori* - that 'life' caused consciousness would shed as little light as saying that computation did so. In either case, a successful paraphrase must be capable of pointing out precisely *which* specific physical entities - in precisely *what* relation - to precisely *which* other specific physical entities - are deemed responsible for the paraphrased concept in any specific case. I freely concede that - *if* it turned out a posteriori that a reduced physical theory capable of explicitly attaching specific mental descriptions to specific physical processes could be shown, in all cases FAPP, to be equivalent to some explicitly specifiable program interpreted purely in terms of functional relations of its physical instantiation - I would indeed be impressed. But this would be a world away from a brute a priori assumption. IOW, the justification for any paraphrased concept is posterior, not prior. In the context of the foregoing, MGA makes a direct attack on CTM + PM = true via reductio: i.e. by demonstrating at least one class of physical reduction of a computation where any physical attachment theory must evaporate. To emphasise: it isn't per se an attack on PM, only on the a priori conjunction of PM and CTM. At what step do you say it is invalid? BTW, let's be clear: I'm not saying that physicalism is false (although IMO it is at least incomplete). I'm merely pointing out one of its consequences. Which is what? That PM theory isn't justified in making an a priori claim to a 'computational' theory of mind, or indeed *any* a priori claim to organising principles transcending the underlying physical processes. All conceptual overlays in this context must be, and indeed - with the outstanding exception of CTM - in practice always are, accepted as requiring justification a posteriori. It's prima facie possible for physicalism to be true and computationalism false. That is to say that the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computaitonal processes. Yes, of course, this is precisely my point, for heaven's sake. Here's the proposal, in your own words: assuming physicalism the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computational processes. Physicalist theory of mind urgently required. QED I am arguing with Bruno about whether the eliminaiton of matter makes things easier for the MBP. I think it just give you less to work with. MBP?? At this stage, I'm really unclear on the basis of the above whether or not you actually wish to defend CTM + PM = true on a priori grounds. Would you please clarify? David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Yes, of course, this is precisely my point, for heaven's sake. Here's the proposal, in your own words: assuming physicalism the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computational processes. Physicalist theory of mind urgently required. QED Why does it have to be spelt out? No-one in this discussion has spelt out a CMT, it is taken off the shelf. It doesn't. It just has to be *amenable* of spelling out: i.e. if it is a posteriori compressed - for example into 'computational' language - then this demands that it be *capable* of prior justification by rigorous spelling out in physical terms for every conceptual reduction. MGA claims to show that this is impossible for the conjunction of CTM and PM. Of course, CTM on the basis of arithmetical realism is not spelled out either, but is immunised from physical paraphrase by making no appeal to PM for justification. I understand both your discomfort with arithmetical realism and your defence of PM, but this discussion hinges on CTM +PM = true. Couldn't we try to focus on the validity or otherwise of this claim? OTOH, if you don't wish necessarily to defend the validity of CTM + PM, the discussion would then indeed appear to reduce straightforwardly (if that's the mot juste) to an elucidation of what is entailed by RITSIAR. Perhaps there's an opportunity here to clear the board a bit? David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 09:36, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? Of course, no argument can validly come to a metaphysical conclusion-- in this case, that matter does not exist --without making a single metaphysical assumption. The argument is therefore invalid, or not purely logical Again, with respect, you appear to assume that MGA argues that matter doesn't exist. In fact it argues that CTM + PM = false, which is not the same thing at all. It is possible to retain matter as primitive (which I for one don't rule out, dependent on a more complete understanding of mind-body) whilst relinquishing an a priori CTM. What would be needed, as I've said elsewhere, would be an alternative theory of mind which - like any other 'transcendent' a posteriori analysis - would be capable of direct elucidation in terms of of primary physical processes. Bruno has argued separately against the plausibility of finding such a theory, but this isn't implicit in MGA, AFAICS. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 10:33, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 08:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 02:31, Brent Meeker wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this consists in saying that you are not Turing-emulable, Why can't I just say I'm not Turing emulated? It seems that your argument uses MGA to conclude that no physical instantaion is needed so Turing- emulable=Turing-emulated. It seems that all you can conclude is one cannot *know* that they have a correct argument showing they are material. But this is already well known from brain in a vat thought experiments. OK. But this seems to me enough to render invalid any reasoning leading to our primitive materiality. If a reasoning is valid, it has to be valid independently of being published or not, written with ink or carbon, being in or outside the UD*. I did not use MGA here. That is false. You are tacitly assuming that PM has to be argued with the full force of necessity -- I don't remember. I don't find trace of what makes you think so. Where? although your own argument does not have that force. If there is a weakness somewhere, tell us where. In fact, PM only has to be shown to be more plausible than the alternatives. It is not necessarily true because of sceptical hypotheses like the BIV and the UD, but since neither of them has much prima-facie plausibility, the plausibility og PM is not impacted much ? Ex(x = UD) is a theorem of elementary arithmetic. I have been taught elementary arithmetic in school, and I don't think such a theory has been refuted since. You will tell me that mathematical existence = non existence at all. You are the first human who says so. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 10:36, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 01:29, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? Of course, no argument can validly come to a metaphysical conclusion-- in this case, that matter does not exist --without making a single metaphysical assumption. I completely agree with that point, but I don't see the relevance. Comp, alias CTM, is an hypothesis in cognitive science/philosophy-of- mind/metaphysics/theology. It is certainly not an hypothesis in mathematics. It relates the preservation of my consciousness through a substitution of my (generalized) brain ( a priori material). 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 10:58, Flammarion wrote: I think *you* believe in magic. You believe that if you write down hypothetical truths about what an immaterial machine would believe, you can conclude that everything has been conjured up by an immaterial machine. I don't proceed in that way at all. I propose a step by step reasoning which shows that CTM + PM leads to an epistemological contradiction, so that CTM has to justify the appearance of PM. (= UDA) Then I show that theoretical computer science is very promising to extract those appearance of PM. (= AUDA). It's like saying you can go from making a theoretical study of the aerodynamics of Pegasus to taking a ride on Pegasus's back. Comparing mathematical objects with fairy tales objects can hardly help. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Plotinus says that too! Me too. With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not- computable or not-provable, or some relativizations. You're still not getting it. PM isn't a non-computable number. It isn't mathematical at all. You really do think in a box.. If you believe that a deduction is not valid, you have to say where, and why. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below. In arithemetic. people write down problems on blackboards and solve them. If comp is assumed, some computation correspond to dream, and their existence can be proved in arithmetic. And the MGA argument shows that no machine can make the difference between real, virtual and arithmetical. There is no immaterial existence at all, and my agreeign to have my brain physcially replicated doesn't prove there is. Meaning: UDA is non valid. I am still waiting your argument. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). No. I don't have to deny their truth. I just have to deny that mathematical existence is ontological existence. I have no clue what you mean by ontological existence, except physical existence, but this beg the question. If you don't deny the arithmetical truth, you accept arithmetical realism, and you cannot deny the UD, so you should be able to follow the argument. And if you believe the conclusion is wrong, you should say where. Since it [UD] does not exist, it does not contain anything. UD exists like PI exists. The rest is taken into account in the argument that I am referring to. Don't say that PI and circle does not exists. Say that PI and circles does not exist physically. It is quite different. It is hard to recognize Peter Jones or Bruno Marchal from the huge relation and huge numbers involved, in some emulations, but it is easy to prove there exists, from the information the doctor got when scanning your brain. Same mistake All you can prove is that *if* the UD existed *then* it would contain such-and-such. But it doesn't actually exist. What you mean is that UD does not physically exists. (Well I am not sure this is true, but OK). But MGA shows that the UD does not need to physically exist for my (non primary) physical existence. That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence. You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is ontological RITISAR existence. I still don't know if by RITSIAR you mean real in the sense my first person is real or real as my body is real. You told me that the difference is epistemological, and I can accept this (for a while). But that makes a huge difference in the meaning of RITSIAR. I cannot doubt my first person, but I can doubt my body. After UDA+MGA, my first person appears to have an infinity of bodies (like in QM without collapse), and this makes the difference between those two forms of RITSIAR even bigger. See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. So? It hasn't been. It has been implemented, and it has run for a week in 1991. This is anecdotical. Just to say that the UD is a concrete program. The way to prevent it is the same way that all sceptical hypotheses are prevented. You just note that there is not a scrap of evidence for them. The only upshot of scepticism is that there is no certainty, and we have to argue for the position of the greatest plausibility. I have better that a scrap of evidence: a deductive
Re: Emulation and Stuff
Flammarion wrote: On 18 Aug, 18:26, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Flammarion wrote: Single-universe thinking is a different game from everythingism. It is not about explaining everything from logical first priciples. It accepts contingency as the price paid for parsimony. Pasimony and lack of arbitrariness are *both* explanatory desiderata, so there is no black-and-white sense in which Everythingism wins. But parsimony in *theory* is what is desirable. Everythingists tend to think that, and their opponents tend not to. Almost any physics explanation of how the universe came to be is going to predict the existence of many universes. If it's based on QM is will be probabilistic. So then there is a tension with parsimony between an unparsimonious addition to the theory, i.e. and just one thing happens, and keeping the theory parsimonious, but allowing an unparsimonious ontology in which they all happen. Physical many-world theories are still constrained down to a subset of the the total of maths. Everythingist theories are not. In that case you might as well call it primary ectoplasm or primary asdfgh. You might as well call 2 the successor of 0. All symbols are arbitrary. My point was just that I think it's *misleading* to use the word matter which already has all sorts of intuitive associations for us, when really you're talking about something utterly mysterious whose properties are completely divorced from our experiences, more like Kant's noumena which were supposed to be things-in-themselves separate from all phenomenal properties (including quantitative ones). I don't accept that characterisation of PM. (BTW, phenomenal properties could be accounted for as non-mathematical attributes of PM) I think this is a category mistake. Mathematical attributes belong to *the descriptions* or PM, not to PM. And the descriptions are necessarily mathematical simply to be precise and consistent. I think that is a bizzare statement. You mean I can;t say that a cubic object is cubic, because a cube is part of geometry, which is part of maths? If the attributes belong to the descriptions only, the descriptions are never going to be accurate at all, since the descriptions are attributing the attributes to the objects. No, what I mean is that when you describe something as cubic the description cubic is mathematical - not the object itself. And the descriptions are necessarily mathematical simply to be precise and consistent. a) if they are not precise descriptions *of* something -- of properties that things have -- what's the point? My point is that things can have mathematical properties and yet not be mathematical objects. An object can be triangular and yet not consist of three intersecting line segments. Brent All you are going to achieve is a kind of fictive self-consistency, like a set of cooked books. b) there is no apriori necessity why the world should be susceptible to mathematical description at all iTFP --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 01:51, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: David Nyman wrote: On 19 Aug, 00:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Note that I have never said that matter does not exist. I have no doubt it exists. I am just saying that matter cannot be primitive, assuming comp. Matter is more or less the border of the ignorance of universal machines (to be short). There is a fundamental physics which capture the invariant for all possible universal machine observation, and the rest is geography-history. Assuming comp the consistent- contingent obeys laws. AFAICS the essence of Bruno's dispute with Peter consists in: 1) ***If you accept the computational theory of mind (CTM)*** then matter can no longer be primitive to your explanations of appearances of any kind, mental or physical. 2) ***If you assert that matter is primitive to your explanation of appearances of any kind, mental or physical (PM)*** it is illegitimate to appeal to CTM. Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? David I think you are right that the MGA is at the crux. But I don't know whether to regard it as proving that computation need not be physically instantiated or as a reductio against the yes doctor hypothesis. Saying yes to the doctor seems very straightforward when you just think about the doctor replacing physical elements of your brain with functionally similar elements made of silicon or straw or whatever. But then I reflect that I, with my new head full of straw, must still interact with the world. So I have not been reduced to computation unless the part of the world I interact with is also replaced by computational elements If you were a programme interacting with the world before, you still will be after a function-preserving replacement is made. Yes, but my future experience will not have been reduced to the running of Turing-emulable program - it will depend on impinging effects not part of the program, unless the environment is also part of the emulation. Brent --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 16:41, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I am sorry Peter, but CTM + PM just does not work, and it is a good news, because if we keep CTM, we get a sort of super generalization of Darwin idea that things evolve. We still don't have a definite response from Peter as to whether CTM + PM = true is central to his argument. On the basis of some of the things he's said in reply to me recently, I think it may not be. If we could resolve this key point, perhaps it would cast fresh light on some of the issues thrown up e.g. (BTW I'm not expecting answers to these questions here and now): 1) What motivates the assumption of different theoretical postulates of primitiveness, contingency and necessity? 2) How do explanations of physical and mental phenomena diverge on the basis of these different assumptions? 3) What kind of non-computational theories of mind might be viable, assuming CTM + PM = false? 4) And my original question: does the notion of emulation = substitution have any force outside CTM? IOW if I believe I'm made of primitive matter, what does this imply in terms of evaluating proposals from the doctor? and so forth. Anyway, it would be nice to get past an impasse which has plagued the discussions interminably whilst continually failing to be resolved. Just wondering, of course :-) David read more » --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 13:03, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Showing that a word can be removed from a verbal formulation by substitution with s synonym is not *ontological* elimination. Substituting H2O for water does not show that water is non-existent, just that is is non-fundamental. (my original point) after such reduction to primary physical processes. So why should 'computation' escape this fate? How would you respond if I said the brain is conscious because it is 'alive'? Would 'life' elude the paraphrased reduction to physical process? I don't see your point. Either claim may or may not be true and may or may not be paraphraseable. My point is that claiming - *a priori* - that 'life' caused consciousness would shed as little light as saying that computation did so. I don't think anyone is doing that. For one thing, there is quite a body of research on computationalism. For another, it is being discussed as a hypothesis, which is different from assuming its truth. In either case, a successful paraphrase must be capable of pointing out precisely *which* specific physical entities - in precisely *what* relation - to precisely *which* other specific physical entities - are deemed responsible for the paraphrased concept in any specific case. I freely concede that - *if* it turned out a posteriori that a reduced physical theory capable of explicitly attaching specific mental descriptions to specific physical processes could be shown, in all cases FAPP, to be equivalent to some explicitly specifiable program interpreted purely in terms of functional relations of its physical instantiation - I would indeed be impressed. But this would be a world away from a brute a priori assumption. IOW, the justification for any paraphrased concept is posterior, not prior. Err...yeah. I'm not particularly commited to the CTM as a categorical truth. I just don't think it has the implications Bruno thinks. In the context of the foregoing, MGA makes a direct attack on CTM + PM = true via reductio: i.e. by demonstrating at least one class of physical reduction of a computation where any physical attachment theory must evaporate. To emphasise: it isn't per se an attack on PM, only on the a priori conjunction of PM and CTM. At what step do you say it is invalid? Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that BTW, let's be clear: I'm not saying that physicalism is false (although IMO it is at least incomplete). I'm merely pointing out one of its consequences. Which is what? That PM theory isn't justified in making an a priori claim to a 'computational' theory of mind, No-one has maintained that CTM is an implication of PM or indeed *any* a priori claim to organising principles transcending Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. the underlying physical processes. All conceptual overlays in this context must be, and indeed - with the outstanding exception of CTM - in practice always are, accepted as requiring justification a posteriori. Have you read *any* of the literature on the CTM? It's prima facie possible for physicalism to be true and computationalism false. That is to say that the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computaitonal processes. Yes, of course, this is precisely my point, for heaven's sake. Here's the proposal, in your own words: assuming physicalism the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computational processes. Physicalist theory of mind urgently required. QED I am arguing with Bruno about whether the eliminaiton of matter makes things easier for the MBP. I think it just give you less to work with. MBP?? Mind body problem At this stage, I'm really unclear on the basis of the above whether or not you actually wish to defend CTM + PM = true on a priori grounds. Would you please clarify? CTM *implies* materialism, and the MGA doesn't work. CTM might still be false though. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 15:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 10:36, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 01:29, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? Of course, no argument can validly come to a metaphysical conclusion-- in this case, that matter does not exist --without making a single metaphysical assumption. I completely agree with that point, but I don't see the relevance. Comp, alias CTM, CTM does not have Platonism tacked on as a sub-hypothesis Classical Digital mechanism, or Classical Computationalism, or just comp, is the conjunction of the following three sub-hypotheses: 1) The yes doctor hypothesis: It is the assumption, in cognitive science, that it exists a level of description of my parts (whatever I consider myself to be[2]) such that I would not be aware of any experiential change in the case where a functionally correct digital substitution is done of my parts at that level. We call that level the substitution level. More simply said it is the act of faith of those willing to say yes to their doctor for an artificial brain or an artificial body graft made from some description at some level. We will see such a level is unknowable. Note that some amount of folk or �grand-mother psychology� has been implicitly used under the granting of the notion of (self) awareness[3]. 2) Church Thesis. A modern version is that all digital universal machines are equivalent with respect to the class of functions (from the natural numbers to the natural numbers) they can compute[4]. It can be shown that this entails such machines compute the same functions, but also they can compute them in similar ways, i.e. following similar algorithm. So, the thesis says, making abstraction of computation time, all digital universal machine can simulate each other exactly (I will say emulate each other). 3) Arithmetical Realism (AR). This is the assumption that arithmetical proposition, like �1+1=2,� or Goldbach conjecture, or the inexistence of a bigger prime, or the statement that some digital machine will stop, or any Boolean formula bearing on numbers, are true independently of me, you, humanity, the physical universe (if that exists), etc. It is a version of Platonism limited at least to arithmetical truth. It should not be confused with the much stronger Pythagorean form of AR, AR+, which asserts that only natural numbers exist together with their nameable relations: all the rest being derivative from those relations. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 13:35, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: It doesn't. It just has to be *amenable* of spelling out: i.e. if it is a posteriori compressed - for example into 'computational' language - then this demands that it be *capable* of prior justification by rigorous spelling out in physical terms for every conceptual reduction. MGA claims to show that this is impossible for the conjunction of CTM and PM. Of course, CTM on the basis of arithmetical realism is not spelled out either, but is immunised from physical paraphrase by making no appeal to PM for justification. Err. yeah. The hard part is reducing mentation to computation. The physical paraphrase of computation is just engineering, I understand both your discomfort with arithmetical realism and your defence of PM, but this discussion hinges on CTM +PM = true. Couldn't we try to focus on the validity or otherwise of this claim? OK. It's invalid because you can't have computaiton with zero phyiscal activity. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug, 13:48, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 19 Aug, 09:36, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? Of course, no argument can validly come to a metaphysical conclusion-- in this case, that matter does not exist --without making a single metaphysical assumption. The argument is therefore invalid, or not purely logical Again, with respect, you appear to assume that MGA I was refering to the UDA argues that matter doesn't exist. In fact it argues that CTM + PM = false, which is not the same thing at all. It is possible to retain matter as primitive (which I for one don't rule out, dependent on a more complete understanding of mind-body) whilst relinquishing an a priori hypothetical :CTM. What would be needed, as I've said elsewhere, would be an alternative theory of mind which - like any other 'transcendent' a posteriori analysis - would be capable of direct elucidation in terms of of primary physical processes. Bruno has argued separately against the plausibility of finding such a theory, but this isn't implicit in MGA, AFAICS. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Seems like this post didn't go through, so I'll resend it: Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:21:19 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 19 Aug, 13:03, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Showing that a word can be removed from a verbal formulation by substitution with s synonym is not *ontological* elimination. Of course it is--*according to the Quinean definition of ontology*. The strange thing about your mode of argument is that you talk as though a word like existence has some single true correct meaning, and that anyone who uses it differently is just wrong--do you disagree with the basic premise that the meaning of words is defined solely by usage and/or definitions? If so, do you agree that there are in fact different ways the word existence is defined by real people, even if we restrict our attention to the philosophical community? Provided you agree with that, your posts would be a lot less confusing if you would distinguish between different definitions and state which one you meant at a given time--for example, one might say I agree numbers have Quinean existence but I think they lack material existence, or existence in the sense that intelligent beings that appear in mathematical universes are actually conscious beings with their own qualia. We might call these three notions of existence Q-existence, M-existence and C-existence for short. My argument with you has been that even if one wishes to postulate a single universe, M-existence is an unnecessary middleman and doesn't even seem well-defined, all we need to do is postulate that out of all the mathematically possible universes that have Q-existence, only one has C-existence. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:21:19 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 19 Aug, 13:03, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Showing that a word can be removed from a verbal formulation by substitution with s synonym is not *ontological* elimination. Of course it is--*according to the Quinean definition of ontology*. The strange thing about your mode of argument is that you talk as though a word like existence has some single true correct meaning, and that anyone who uses it differently is just wrong--do you disagree with the basic premise that the meaning of words is defined solely by usage and/or definitions? If so, do you agree that there are in fact different ways this word is defined by real people, even if we restrict our attention to the philosophical community? Provided you agree with that, your posts would be a lot less confusing if you would distinguish between different definitions and state which one you meant at a given time--for example, one might say I agree numbers have Quinean existence but I think they lack material existence, or existence in the sense that intelligent beings that appear in mathematical universes are actually conscious beings with their own qualia. We might call these three notions of existence Q-existence, M-existence and C-existence for short. My argument with you has been that even if one wishes to postulate a single universe, M-existence is an unnecessary middleman and doesn't even seem well-defined, all we need to do is postulate that out of all the mathematically possible universes that have Q-existence, only one has C-existence. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Well, not if you believe there are objective truths about computations that are never actually carried out in the physical world, like whether some program with an input string a googolplex digits long ever halts or not. Yes, but here - in connection with Peter's apparent support for the Quinean concept-reduction argument - I was specifically commenting on the status of 'computation' **if** you assume primitive matter. In that case, I'm not sure what never actually carried out in the physical world would mean. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:59, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 15:20, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 19 Aug 2009, at 10:36, Flammarion wrote: On 19 Aug, 01:29, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form - seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds for this? Of course, no argument can validly come to a metaphysical conclusion-- in this case, that matter does not exist --without making a single metaphysical assumption. I completely agree with that point, but I don't see the relevance. Comp, alias CTM, CTM does not have Platonism tacked on as a sub-hypothesis Classical Digital mechanism, or Classical Computationalism, or just comp, is the conjunction of the following three sub-hypotheses: 1) The yes doctor hypothesis: It is the assumption, in cognitive science, that it exists a level of description of my parts (whatever I consider myself to be[2]) such that I would not be aware of any experiential change in the case where a functionally correct digital substitution is done of my parts at that level. We call that level the substitution level. More simply said it is the act of faith of those willing to say yes to their doctor for an artificial brain or an artificial body graft made from some description at some level. We will see such a level is unknowable. Note that some amount of folk or �grand-mother psychology� has been implicitly used under the granting of the notion of (self) awareness[3]. 2) Church Thesis. A modern version is that all digital universal machines are equivalent with respect to the class of functions (from the natural numbers to the natural numbers) they can compute[4]. It can be shown that this entails such machines compute the same functions, but also they can compute them in similar ways, i.e. following similar algorithm. So, the thesis says, making abstraction of computation time, all digital universal machine can simulate each other exactly (I will say emulate each other). 3) Arithmetical Realism (AR). This is the assumption that arithmetical proposition, like �1+1=2,� or Goldbach conjecture, or the inexistence of a bigger prime, or the statement that some digital machine will stop, or any Boolean formula bearing on numbers, are true independently of me, you, humanity, the physical universe (if that exists), etc. It is a version of Platonism limited at least to arithmetical truth. It should not be confused with the much stronger Pythagorean form of AR, AR+, which asserts that only natural numbers exist together with their nameable relations: all the rest being derivative from those relations. Thanks for quoting my sane2004 definition of comp, and showing that indeed platonism is not part of it. Just arithmetical realism without which CT has no meaning at all. This should be made clear in the seventh step series thread. You told us that you are OK with AR some post ago, but now I have no more clue at all about what do you assume or not. Get the feeling you have change your mind on AR. You believe that a proposition like the statement that there is no biggest prime number has something to do with physics. In which physical theory you prove that statement, and how? Actually the most you go deep in fundamental physics, the more you need deep results in number theory. The most amazing example is the evaluation of the mass of the photon in string theory. You get that the mass of the photon is given by two terms. The first one can be evaluated into -1/12, the second one get evaluated into 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+ ... Again an infinity, but lucklily enough number theorist knew that on the complex plane there is a sense to say, like Ramanujan found by himself in India, that the infinite sum 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+ ... is actually equal to -1/12, which gives zero for the mass of the photon, as expected. 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+ ... is zeta(-1) which analytical definition is defined on -1 and equal to -1/12. 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
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: 1) What motivates the assumption of different theoretical postulates of primitiveness, contingency and necessity? Is that question really important? It is a bit a private question. Typical motivation for comp, are that it is very plausible under a large spectrum of consideration, and it leads naturally to the use of Computer science, which is full of interesting result which put light on those question. In the process you try to find the faithful representations to reason correct at the relevant level of your inquiry. The advantage of comp is that you can get a lot, without theoretical assumptions (other that yes doctor and some high school math, and then Church thesis, virtually accepted by everybody, curiously enough) I don't know if the question is important, but it interests me. It's kind of you to answer, though as I said I didn't expect one here and now. 2) How do explanations of physical and mental phenomena diverge on the basis of these different assumptions? Hmm... It depends of the future. If UDA leads to a refutation of comp, it will lead to non computationalist theory of mind, perhaps coherent with physicalism (I don't know, I doubt this actually). If UDA leads to a empirically correct physics, it will leads to Pythagorean second birth and probably the slow, or not so slow, explorations of the matrix. I dunno. 3) What kind of non-computational theories of mind might be viable, assuming CTM + PM = false? It is a bit vexing that you assume the result of a an argument! You are assuming UDA is valid. Thanks! Perhaps I phrased this ambiguously. I meant: if one *assumes* (does this word carry some additional meaning beyond the hypothetical in French?) that CTM + PM is indeed false, but one is also prepared to relinquish CTM, what other theories of mind might be available? I'm sorry if this question vexes you ;-) UDA shows that CTM + PM - false. Equivalently, it shows this: CTM - not PM, or this: PM - ~CTM. Non computational theory of mind? There are three kinds. But it needs even more mathematical logic. Sorry. 1) Those for which AUDA still works completely and soundly, at the propositional level. Most self-referentially correct angels, that is non turing emulable entities still obeys to the AUDA hypostases. 2) Those for which AUDA remains sound, but no more complete, but that you can effectively complete (example: true in all transitive models of ZF). G and G* are still sound for such a divine entity, but no more complete. You have to add a formula to characterize them. 3) Those for which AUDA could apply soundly, but can no more be completed. 4) Those for which AUDA does no more apply at all. I suspect they are very near the 0-person ONE itself, but the math are hard, if not collapsing actually. 4) And my original question: does the notion of emulation = substitution have any force outside CTM? I have too many interpretations for emulation = substitution. I am not sure what you refer to. I refer to the next sentence. Patience! IOW if I believe I'm made of primitive matter, what does this imply in terms of evaluating proposals from the doctor? If the doctor proposes a digital machine, and you accept, it means you will either become zombie, or a non working zombie, or a dead person. If he propose a non digital machine coherent with your non comp theory of mind, it will be OK, but such theory have not yet been proposed in any rationalist frame. Except in a sense Roger Penrose, and precursors (the QM-Copenhagen). and so forth. Anyway, it would be nice to get past an impasse which has plagued the discussions interminably whilst continually failing to be resolved. If Peter is really interested in the subject he could search for the point where he has trouble in the UDA. But he seems to defend PM and CTM a priori, so we can't help. He want believe that the problem is in step 0, where I would assume Platonism at the start. But he is ambiguous about what he means by Platonism. In some post it means Arithmetical Realism (the banal believe that classical logic can be applied to the number realm), and in some post it means the falsity of CTM+PM, like if I was assuming at the start that only numbers exists. UDA would loss its main purpose! I have met other similar person. They believe so much in CTM+PM that they does not take the time to study the argument that PM+CTM is false. (well is false OR eliminate consciousness and the person: it *is* an epistemological contradiction). Too bad for them. OK? The rationalist loves to search errors and criticize reasoning. I have decompose the reasoning in step to provide helps, but dogmatic person seems not to take the opportunity. I guess CTM+PM is a sort of religious dogma, for them. And they are never clear on PM. Somehow they cannot be clear, because if they are too much clear, Church thesis entails that comp + a
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Showing that a word can be removed from a verbal formulation by substitution with s synonym is not *ontological* elimination. Substituting H2O for water does not show that water is non-existent, just that is is non-fundamental. Please make your mind up. Do you agree with the Quinean approach, as you said you did, or not? If you do, please stop dodging its clear consequences. (my original point) after such reduction to primary physical processes. So why should 'computation' escape this fate? How would you respond if I said the brain is conscious because it is 'alive'? Would 'life' elude the paraphrased reduction to physical process? I don't see your point. Either claim may or may not be true and may or may not be paraphraseable. My point is that claiming - *a priori* - that 'life' caused consciousness would shed as little light as saying that computation did so. I don't think anyone is doing that. For one thing, there is quite a body of research on computationalism. For another, it is being discussed as a hypothesis, which is different from assuming its truth. Yes, but it's not being researched in terms of any underlying physical processes. So it can't be making any coherent claims about physical causation, which would be the only justification open to it per Quine. So what precisely - as a 'physical' hypothesis - is it saying? In either case, a successful paraphrase must be capable of pointing out precisely *which* specific physical entities - in precisely *what* relation - to precisely *which* other specific physical entities - are deemed responsible for the paraphrased concept in any specific case. I freely concede that - *if* it turned out a posteriori that a reduced physical theory capable of explicitly attaching specific mental descriptions to specific physical processes could be shown, in all cases FAPP, to be equivalent to some explicitly specifiable program interpreted purely in terms of functional relations of its physical instantiation - I would indeed be impressed. But this would be a world away from a brute a priori assumption. IOW, the justification for any paraphrased concept is posterior, not prior. Err...yeah. I'm not particularly commited to the CTM as a categorical truth. I just don't think it has the implications Bruno thinks. Do you believe that CTM is a coherent hypothesis on the assumption of PM? In the context of the foregoing, MGA makes a direct attack on CTM + PM = true via reductio: i.e. by demonstrating at least one class of physical reduction of a computation where any physical attachment theory must evaporate. To emphasise: it isn't per se an attack on PM, only on the a priori conjunction of PM and CTM. At what step do you say it is invalid? Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that BTW, let's be clear: I'm not saying that physicalism is false (although IMO it is at least incomplete). I'm merely pointing out one of its consequences. Which is what? That PM theory isn't justified in making an a priori claim to a 'computational' theory of mind, No-one has maintained that CTM is an implication of PM or indeed *any* a priori claim to organising principles transcending Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. the underlying physical processes. All conceptual overlays in this context must be, and indeed - with the outstanding exception of CTM - in practice always are, accepted as requiring justification a posteriori. Have you read *any* of the literature on the CTM? Please recall that we're discussing the implications of the Quinean reductive paraphrase approach you said you agreed with. In this context, a posteriori implies that - once something has been explicated exclusively in terms of underlying physical processes - it can be thereafter subsumed under some category - such as 'life' - that then serves effectively as a shorthand reference to the physical processes themselves. I've never seen any attempt to justify the hypothesis that there is an identifiable class of physical processes which 1) plausibly account for consciousness in direct physical terms, whilst 2) falling unambiguously within the class of computations under some functional analysis. This hypothesis is totally
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 19 Aug, 13:35, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: It doesn't. It just has to be *amenable* of spelling out: i.e. if it is a posteriori compressed - for example into 'computational' language - then this demands that it be *capable* of prior justification by rigorous spelling out in physical terms for every conceptual reduction. MGA claims to show that this is impossible for the conjunction of CTM and PM. Of course, CTM on the basis of arithmetical realism is not spelled out either, but is immunised from physical paraphrase by making no appeal to PM for justification. Err. yeah. The hard part is reducing mentation to computation. The physical paraphrase of computation is just engineering, I understand both your discomfort with arithmetical realism and your defence of PM, but this discussion hinges on CTM +PM = true. Couldn't we try to focus on the validity or otherwise of this claim? OK. It's invalid because you can't have computaiton with zero phyiscal activity. But that is **precisely** the conclusion of the reductio that MGA proposes. MGA claims precisely that - as you say - since it is implausible to justify the ascription of computation to zero physical activity, if you still want to claim that there is computation 'going on', then it can't be attached to physical activity. Are you questioning that MGA constitutes a valid instantiation of a physical TM? What about Olympia? David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 19 Aug 2009, at 22:21, Flammarion wrote: Where he says computation can happen without any physicial process at all. I don't see any evidence for that I am explaining this right now. Only Bruno thinks computation trancends matter. The notion of computation and computability have been discovered by Mathematicians working around the foundation crisis of math after the discovery by Cantor and others of paradoxes in set theory. The idea is that computation should be redefined as physical computation is a very recent one, and is due to people like David Deustch and Landauer. And it does not really work as such. Deutsch reconstruction of the Post-Church-Turing thesis is really a different thesis. CTM *implies* materialism, and the MGA doesn't work. CTM is neutral on materialism, even if many materialist use incorrectly comp to put the mind body problem under the rug. UDA, including MGA, shows why this fails. What is in MGA which does not work? 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/19 Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com: I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* No, reducible, not eliminable. That is an important distinction. Not in this instance. The whole thrust of the paraphrase argument is precisely to show - in principle at least - that the reduced concept can be *eliminated* from the explanation. You can do this with 'life', so you should be prepared to do it with 'computation'. Showing that a word can be removed from a verbal formulation by substitution with s synonym is not *ontological* elimination. Of course it is--*according to the Quinean definition of ontology*. The strange thing about your mode of argument is that you talk as though a word like existence has some single true correct meaning, and that anyone who uses it differently is just wrong--do you disagree with the basic premise that the meaning of words is defined solely by usage and/or definitions? If so, do you agree that there are in fact different ways this word is defined by real people, even if we restrict our attention to the philosophical community? Provided you agree with that, your posts would be a lot less confusing if you would distinguish between different definitions and state which one you meant at a given time--for example, one might say I agree numbers have Quinean existence but I think they lack material existence, or existence in the sense that intelligent beings that appear in mathematical universes are actually conscious beings with their own qualia. We might call these three notions of existence Q-existence, M-existence and C-existence for short. My argument with you has been that even if one wishes to postulate a single universe, M-existence is an unnecessary middleman and doesn't even seem well-defined, all we need to do is postulate that out of all the mathematically possible universes that have Q-existence, only one has C-existence. So someone else noticed Peter dodging the consequences of what he originally claimed with respect to Quinean paraphrase! Thanks. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 19:28, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 11:17, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 11:11, 1Z wrote: Without Platonism, there is no UD since it is not observable within physical space. So the UDA is based on Plat., not the other way round. Are you saying that without platonism, the square root of 2 does not exist? Yes, the square root of two has no ontological existence. All what matters with comp is that things like the square root of 2 has a notion of existence independent of me. Prime number does not exist? Yes, prime numbers have no ontological existence I guess you make a material ontological commitment. One of my goal is to explain, notably with the comp hyp, that a term like matter has no referent. This would explain why physicist never use such ontological commitment explicitly. To say that matter exists simply is a non rational act of the type don't ask. UDA makes just this precise by reudcing the mind body problem to a body problem. That mathematical existence is a meaningless notion? Sense but no refence. Mathematical statements have truth values but do not refere to anything outside the formal system. Then they have no truth value. What you say is formalism, and this has been explicitly refuted by mathematical logicians. We know, mainly by the work of Gödel that the truth about numbers extends what can be justified in ANY effective formal systems (and non effective one are not really formal). But I know that there are still some formalists in the neighborhood, and that is why I make explicit the assumption of arithmetical realism. It is the assumption that the structure (N, +, x) is well defined, despite we can't define it effectively. Mathematics would be a physical illusion? A referentless formal game, distinguished from fiction only by its rigour and generality You evacuate the whole approach of semantics by Tarski and Quine. I will not insist on this because I will explain with some detail why Church thesis necessitate arithmetical realism, and why this leads directly to the incompleteness and the discovery that arithmetical truth cannot be captured by any effective formal system. The formalist position in math is no more tenable. But physics use mathematics, would that not make physics illusory or circular? No, because it uses mathematics empirically. The same language that can be used to write fiction can be used to write history. The difference is in how it used. not in the langauge itself I don't see any difference in the use of analytical tools in physics and in number theory. The distribution of the prime numbers is objective, and this is the only type of independent objectivity needed in the reasoning. Nothing more. It's a perfectly consistent assumption. THere is no disproof of materialism that doesn't beg the quesiton by assuming immaterialism Well, I do believe in the natural numbers, and I do believe in their immateriality (the number seven is not made of quantum field, or waves, or particle). Then you are a Platonist, and you argument is based on Platonism. I believe that the truth of arithmetical statement having the shape ExP(x) is independent of me, and you and the physical universe (if that exists). You can call that Platonism, if you want, but this is not obviously anti-physicalist. Non-physicalism is the conclusion of a reasoning (UDA). Given that Plato's conception of reality is closer to the conclusion, I prefer to use the expression Arithmetical realism for this (banal) assumption, and Platonism or non-physicalism for the conclusion. But that is only a vocabulary problem. So either you tell me that you don't believe in the number seven, or that you have a theory in which the number seven is explained in materialist term, without assuming numbers in that theory. The latter. Show it. I know an attempt toward science without number by Hartree Field (wrong spelling?), but I found it poorly convincing. Most physicists accept the objectivity of numbers. Even more so with the attempt to marry GR and QM. This leads to major difficulties, even before approaching the consciousness problem. Such as? Explaining number with physical notions, and explaining, even partially, physical notions with the use numbers. That is just a repetition of the claim that there are problems. You have not in the least explained what the problems are. UDA is such an explanation. AUDA gives a constructive path toward a solution. You arguments here are based on the idea that primary matter needs to be given a purely mathematical expression. That in turn is based on an assumption of Platonism. If Platonism is false and materialism true, one would *expect* mathematical explanation to run out at some point. Your difficulty is a *prediction* of materialism , and therefore a successfor materailism
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 02:47, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/18 Jesse Mazer wrote: AFAICS the assumption of primary matter 'solves' the white rabbit problem by making it circular: i.e. assuming that primary matter exists entails restricting the theory to just those mathematics and parameters capable of predicting what is observed; since white rabbits are not in fact observed, it follows that no successful mathematics of primary matter has any business predicting them. This is not to say that such circularity is necessarily vicious; its proponents no doubt see it as virtuously parsimonious. Nonetheless, one of the chief arguments for the pluralistic alternatives is that - by not applying a priori mathematical or parametric restrictions - they may thereby be less arbitrary. This of course leaves them with the problem of the white rabbits to solve by other means. David Yes. It pretty well comes to a trade-off between cotingency and saving appearances. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 01:53, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Peter Jones wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. But then it seems like you're really just talking about consciousness and qualia--of all the mathematically possible universes containing possible self-aware observers, only in some (or one) are these possible observers actually real in the sense of having qualia (and there qualia being influenced by other, possibly nonconsious elements of the mathematical universe they are a part of). No.. I don't need the hypothesis that WR universes are there but unobserved. There's no need to have a middleman called primary matter, such that only some (or one) mathematical possible universes are actually instantianted in primary matter, and only those instantiated in primary matter give rise to qualia. There is no absolute need, but there are advantages. For instance, the many-wolder might have to admit the existence of zombie universes -- universes that containt *apparent* intelligent lige that is nonetheless unconscious-- in order to account for the non-obseration of WR universes. If you *are* going to add unobservable middlemen like this, I don't concede that PM is unobservable. What exists is material, what is immaterial does not exist. There is therefore a large set of facts about matter. Moreover, the many-worlders extra universes *have* to be unobservable one way or the other, since they are not observed! there's no real logical justification for having only one--you could say only some mathematically possible universes are instantiated in primary asfgh, and only some of those give rise to qwertyuiop, and only the ones with quertyuiop can give rise to zxcvbn, and only ones with zxcvbn can give rise to qualia and consciousness. Single-universe thinking is a different game from everythingism. It is not about explaining everything from logical first priciples. It accepts contingency as the price paid for parsimony. Pasimony and lack of arbitrariness are *both* explanatory desiderata, so there is no black-and-white sense in which Everythingism wins. In that case you might as well call it primary ectoplasm or primary asdfgh. You might as well call 2 the successor of 0. All symbols are arbitrary. My point was just that I think it's *misleading* to use the word matter which already has all sorts of intuitive associations for us, when really you're talking about something utterly mysterious whose properties are completely divorced from our experiences, more like Kant's noumena which were supposed to be things-in-themselves separate from all phenomenal properties (including quantitative ones). I don't accept that characterisation of PM. (BTW, phenomenal properties could be accounted for as non-mathematical attributes of PM) And are you making any explicit assumption about the relation between this primary matter and qualia/first-person experience? If not, then I don't see why it wouldn't be logically possible to have a universe with primary matter but no qualia (all living beings would be zombies), or qualia but no primary matter (and if you admit this possibility, then why shouldn't we believe this is exactly the type of universe we live in?) The second possibility is ruled out because it predicts White Rabbits. I don't agree, there's no reason you couldn't postulate a measure Yes there is: you have to justify from first principles and not just postulate it. The problem is that if all possible maths exists, all possible measures exist... you can't pick out one as being, for some contingent reason the measure on the set of mathematical possibilities which determined the likelihood they would actually be
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 00:41, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/17 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Yep. I have no problem with any of that Really? Let's see then. The paraphrase condition means, for example, that instead of adopting a statement like unicorns have one horn as a true statement about reality and thus being forced to accept the existence of unicorns, you could instead paraphrase this in terms of what images and concepts are in people's mind when they use the word unicorn; and if you're an eliminative materialist who wants to avoid accepting mental images and concepts as a basic element of your ontology, it might seem plausible that you could *in principle* paraphrase all statements about human concepts using statements about physical processes in human brains, although we may lack the understanding to do that now. I presume that one could substitute 'computation' for 'unicorn' in the above passage? If so, the human concept that it is 'computation' that gives rise to consciousness could be paraphrased using statements about physical processes in human brains. So what may we now suppose gives such processes this particular power? Presumably not their 'computational' nature - because now nous n'avons pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là (which I'm sure you will recall was precisely the point I originally made). That's completely back to front. Standard computaitonalism regards computation as a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. It doesn't exist at the fundamental level like quarks, and it isn't non-existent like unicorns. It is a higher-level existent, like horses. Standard computationalism is *not* Bruno's claims about immaterial self-standing computations dreaming they are butterflies or whatever. That magnificent edifice is very much of his own making. He may call it comp but don't be fooled. It seems to me that what one can recover from this is simply the hypothesis that certain brain processes give rise to consciousness in virtue of their being precisely the processes that they are - no more, no less. Am I still missing something? It's prima facie possible for physicalism to be true and computationalism false. That is to say that the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computaitonal processes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:41, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. QM mechanics solves mathematically the white rabbit problem. I do agree with this, but to say it does this by invoking primitive matter does not follow. On the contrary QM amplitude makes primitive matter still more hard to figure out. Primitive matter is, up to now, a metaphysical notion. Darwinian evolution can justify why we take seriously the consistency of our neighborhood, and why we extrapolate that consistency, but physicists does not, in their theories, ever postulate *primitive* matter. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. Are you defending Bohm's Quantum Mechanics? The wave without particles still act physically, indeed they have to do that for the quantum disappearance of the white rabbits. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 01:43, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/17 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I am trying to persuade Bruno that his argument has an implict assumption of Platonism that should be made explicit. An assumption of Platonism as a non-observable background might be justifiiable in the way you suggest, but it does need to be made explicit. Yes, this is why I felt it might help the discussion to make the possibility of such an assumption explicit in this way. Bruno's theory may well be falsifiable. But then it is hardly a disproof of materialism as it stands. Agreed - not as a knockdown blow - although as you know his argument is that materialism is incompatible with the computational theory of mind; and of course I've also been arguing for this, although my alternative (i.e. a theory, rather than an intuition) wouldn't necessarily be the same as his. I think the core of the problem is a tendency to mentally conjure platonia as a pure figment; I am not sure what you mean by that. Anti-Platonic philsoophies of maths, such as formalism, are considered positons supported by arguments, not vague intuitions. Yes, I don't dispute that. But aside from this, perhaps one could say that we tend to assume that ideas about 'platonias' have sense but no reference. I don't see why However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point One should perhaps recall that the appeal to number as a causal principle (to use the logic of 'paraphrase') can't be met by any merely human concept of number. IOW for reality to emerge from number, whatever the putative referents of human number terminology may be, they must at some level be uniquely cashable in terms of RITSIAR. I would have hoped that was obvious. this will not do; nor is it presumably what Plato had in mind. Rather, platonia might be reconceived in terms of the preconditions of the observable and real; its theoretical entities must - ultimately - be cashable for what is RITSIAR, both 'materially' and 'mentally'. On this basis, some such intuition of an 'immaterial' (pre-material?) - but inescapably real - precursory state could be seen as theoretically inevitable, whether one subsequently adopts a materialist or a comp interpretative stance. I don;t see why it is necessay at all, let alone why it was inevitable. You were earlier comparing it to a hypothetical background ontology. How did it jump form (falsifiable) hypotheiss to necessary and inevitable truth? It didn't. I was just suggesting that embracing some more 'agnostic' ?!?!?! background schema of this kind might actually be helpful in appreciating the scope and limits of explanation. For example, just how far down the explanatory hierarchy do we have to go before it starts making less and less sense to insist on characterising the explanatory entities as 'material'? It hasn't happened yet. Are superstrings material? Is quantum foam material? Are whatever-are-conceived-as-the-pre-conditions for their appearance in the scheme of things material? What is surely at issue is not their 'essential' materiality but their properties as appealed to by theory (i.e. the ones to which we would resort by paraphrase). Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. Perhaps our ultimate explanatory entities need be conceived as no more 'material' than necessary for us to depend on them as plausible pre-cursors of the more obviously material; but of course, no less so either. While I've got you here, as it were - I don't see why this wouldn't apply equally to the mental: IOW our explanatory entities need be conceived as no more 'mental' than necessary for us to depend on them as plausible precursors of the more obviously mental; but no less so either. David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:44, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 18:51, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Jesse Mazer wrote: Does Bruno assume arithmetic is really real or just a really good model, and can the difference be known? I don't think Bruno believes there is anything else for arithemeic *to* model. Artithmetical theories model (in the physicists sense) the standard model (in the logician sense) of arithmetic. But you are right. Arithmetical truth is what our theories try to model, always imperfectly, and necessarily so, as we know since Gödel. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:48, Flammarion wrote: What do you mean by ontological existence? Real in the Sense that I am Real. What does that mean? Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? The 1-I reality (my consciousness) is undoubtable, and incommunicable in any 3-ways. The 3-I reality (my body, identity card, ...) is doubtable (I could be dreaming) and communicable in 3-ways, yet always with interrogation mark. This makes a big difference. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 09:12, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 19:28, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 11:17, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 11:11, 1Z wrote: Without Platonism, there is no UD since it is not observable within physical space. So the UDA is based on Plat., not the other way round. Are you saying that without platonism, the square root of 2 does not exist? Yes, the square root of two has no ontological existence. All what matters with comp is that things like the square root of 2 has a notion of existence independent of me. that's what I meant. Prime number does not exist? Yes, prime numbers have no ontological existence I guess you make a material ontological commitment. One of my goal is to explain, notably with the comp hyp, that a term like matter has no referent. One of my goals is to explain that you cannot convince me tha matter doesn't exist without first convincing me that numbers do. You may be able to eliminate matter in favour of numbers, but that doesn;'t stop me douing the converse. This would explain why physicist never use such ontological commitment explicitly. Physicists write reams about matter. To say that matter exists simply is a non rational act of the type don't ask. UDA makes just this precise by reudcing the mind body problem to a body problem. The UDA doesn't even start without Platonism That mathematical existence is a meaningless notion? Sense but no refence. Mathematical statements have truth values but do not refere to anything outside the formal system. Then they have no truth value. That statement requires some justification What you say is formalism, and this has been explicitly refuted by mathematical logicians. False. From previous conversations, you conflate fomalism with Hilbert's programme. I am not referring to the claim that there is a mechanical proof-porcedure for any theorem, I am referring to the claim that mathematics is a non-referential formal game. Note that Platonism vs. Formalism is an open quesiton in philosophy. We know, mainly by the work of Gödel that the truth about numbers extends what can be justified in ANY effective formal systems (and non effective one are not really formal). Irrelevant. Platonism vs. Formalism is a debate about *existence* not about truth. But I know that there are still some formalists in the neighborhood, and that is why I make explicit the assumption of arithmetical realism. It is the assumption that the structure (N, +, x) is well defined, despite we can't define it effectively. Mathematics would be a physical illusion? A referentless formal game, distinguished from fiction only by its rigour and generality You evacuate the whole approach of semantics by Tarski and Quine. Maybe. Evidently I prefer Frege I will not insist on this because I will explain with some detail why Church thesis necessitate arithmetical realism, and why this leads directly to the incompleteness and the discovery that arithmetical truth cannot be captured by any effective formal system. The formalist position in math is no more tenable. But physics use mathematics, would that not make physics illusory or circular? No, because it uses mathematics empirically. The same language that can be used to write fiction can be used to write history. The difference is in how it used. not in the langauge itself I don't see any difference in the use of analytical tools in physics and in number theory. I've done both and I do. The distribution of the prime numbers is objective, and this is the only type of independent objectivity needed in the reasoning. Nothing more. Truths about prime numbers are objective truths,. That says nothing about existence. It's a perfectly consistent assumption. THere is no disproof of materialism that doesn't beg the quesiton by assuming immaterialism Well, I do believe in the natural numbers, and I do believe in their immateriality (the number seven is not made of quantum field, or waves, or particle). Then you are a Platonist, and you argument is based on Platonism. I believe that the truth of arithmetical statement having the shape ExP(x) is independent of me, and you and the physical universe (if that exists). To get a claim of existence out of that claim of truth, you have to take the exists to have a single uniform meaning in all contexts,. This, we formalists dispute. You can call that Platonism, if you want, but this is not obviously anti-physicalist. Show me where these numbers are phsycially, then Non-physicalism is the conclusion of a reasoning (UDA). Unfortunately, it is also the assumption Given that Plato's conception of reality is closer to the conclusion, I prefer to use the expression Arithmetical realism for this (banal) assumption, and Platonism or
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:37:02 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 01:53, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Peter Jones wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. But then it seems like you're really just talking about consciousness and qualia--of all the mathematically possible universes containing possible self-aware observers, only in some (or one) are these possible observers actually real in the sense of having qualia (and there qualia being influenced by other, possibly nonconsious elements of the mathematical universe they are a part of). No.. I don't need the hypothesis that WR universes are there but unobserved. What does are there mean? It seems to be a synonym for physical existence, but my whole point here is that the notion of physical existence doesn't even seem well-defined, if this discussion is going to get anywhere you need to actually address this argument head on rather than just continue to talk as though terms like exists and are there have a transparent meaning. The only kinds of existence that seem meaningful to me are the type of Quinean existence I discussed earlier, and existence in the sense of conscious experience which is something we all know firsthand. Can you explain what physical existence is supposed to denote if it is not either of these? There's no need to have a middleman called primary matter, such that only some (or one) mathematical possible universes are actually instantianted in primary matter, and only those instantiated in primary matter give rise to qualia. There is no absolute need, but there are advantages. For instance, the many-wolder might have to admit the existence of zombie universes -- universes that containt *apparent* intelligent lige that is nonetheless unconscious-- in order to account for the non-obseration of WR universes. If you *are* going to add unobservable middlemen like this, I don't concede that PM is unobservable. What exists is material, what is immaterial does not exist. There is therefore a large set of facts about matter. Moreover, the many-worlders extra universes *have* to be unobservable one way or the other, since they are not observed! Who said anything about many worlds? Again, we are free to believe in a type of single-universe scenario, let's call it scenario A, where only a single one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense (and it seems you cannot deny that all mathematical structures do 'exist' in this sense, since you agree there are objective mathematical truths) also exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. You want to add a third notion of physical existence, so your single-universe scenario, which we can call scenario B, says that only one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense also exists in the physical sense (i.e. there is actual 'prime matter' whose behavior maps perfectly to that unique mathematical description), and presumably you believe that only a universe which exists in the physical sense can exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. But all observations that conscious observers would make about the world in scenario B would also be observed in scenario A (assuming that the same mathematical universe that is granted physical existence in scenario B is the one that's granted conscious existence in scenario A). In both scenarios physical objects would be identified based on the qualia associated with them (color, visual shape, tactile hardness, etc.), and based on the fact that they behaved in certain predictable
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 10:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:48, Flammarion wrote: What do you mean by ontological existence? Real in the Sense that I am Real. What does that mean? Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? The 1-I reality (my consciousness) is undoubtable, and incommunicable in any 3-ways. The 3-I reality (my body, identity card, ...) is doubtable (I could be dreaming) and communicable in 3-ways, yet always with interrogation mark. This makes a big difference. It's an epistemological difference. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 10:51, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? ITSIAR Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. There is a basic meaning to existence, the Johnsonion one. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) It is absolutely clear from the above that if they are a) existent and b) not physcially accountable then they are c) immaterically existent. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 16 Aug, 16:34, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 14 Aug 2009, at 14:34, 1Z wrote: On 14 Aug, 09:48, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: You are dismissing the first person indeterminacy. A stuffy TM can run a computation. But if a consciousness is attached to that computation, it is automatically attached to an infinity of immaterial and relative computations as well, There's your Platonism. Not mine. The one which follows from the comp assumption, if UDA is valid. If nothing immaterial exists (NB nothing, I don't make exceptions for just a few pixies or juse a few numbers) there is nothiign for a cosnc. to attach itself to except a propbably small, probabuily singular set of stuiffy brains and computers. I can understand how easy for a materialist it is, to conceive at first sight, that numbers and mathematical objects are convenient fiction realized as space-time material configuration, perhaps of brains. But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. This leads to major difficulties, i dont; see why. THe neural underpinnings of the concept horse are probably more complex than the concept horse. If you folow that reasonng through consistently, Plato's heaven is going to be densely populated and the brain will have no woro to do at all even before approaching the consciousness problem. mathematical stucture+matter gives you more to tackle the consciousness problem with than mathematical structure alone This shows that a purely physicalist explanation of numbers could lead to difficulties. But the same for a description of any piece of material things, by just that token. By what token? You think there is some complex undepiining to quarks? So, I am not sure that physicist can be said to have solved the matter problem either, and some physicists are already open, independently of comp, to the idea that physical objects are relative mathematical (immaterial) objects. Which of course are no material. Wheeler, Tegmark, for example. But then with comp, you are yourself an immaterial object, of the kind person, like the lobian machine. You own a body, or you borrow it to your neighborhood, and you as an immaterial pattern can become stable only by being multiplied in infinities of coherent similar histories, which eventually the physicists begin to talk about (multiverse). I tend to believe in many immaterial things. Some are absolutely real (I think) like the natural numbers. Some may be seen as absolutely real, or just as useful fiction: it changes nothing. I can't take a ride on pagasus. and I can;t be computed by a convenient fiction This is the case for the negative number, the rational, a large part of the algebraic and topological, and analytical. Some are both absolutely real, and physically real, they live in platonia, and then can come back on earth: they have a relatively concrete existence. For example, the games of chess, the computers, the animals, and the persons. But the concreteness is relative, the 'I' coupled with the chessboard is an abstract couple following normality conditions (that QM provides, but comp not yet). Some could have an even more trivial sense of absolute existence, and a case could be made they don't exist, even in Platonia, like the unicorns, perhaps, and the squared circles (hopefully). Each branch of math has its own notion of existence, and with comp, we have a lot choice, for the ontic part, but usually I take arithmetical existence, if only because this is taught in school, and its enough to justified the existence of the universal numbers, and either they dreams (if yes doctor) or at least their discourse on their dreams (if you say no the doctor and decide to qualify those machines are inexistent zombies). Platonism is not taught in schools. You are conflatin existence with truth There is a sense to say those universal machines do not exist, but it happens that they don't have the cognitive abilities to know that, and for them, in-existence does not make sense. And for a mathematicans, they exists in a very strong sense, which is that, by accepting Church Thesis, they can prove the existence of universal digital (mathematical) machine from 0, succession, addition and multiplication. Both amoebas colony (human cells), and engineers are implementing some of them everyday in our neighborhood, as we can guess. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:01:51 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 10:51, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? ITSIAR Don't know what that stands for--I think I've seen that abbreviation before in some other recent posts, but there have been a lot of posts I've missed over the last few weeks so maybe it was defined in one of the ones I didn't read. Anyway, could you explain? Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. There is a basic meaning to existence, the Johnsonion one. Of course Johnson's refutation of Berkeley's idealism was not a very philosophical one, it was either humorous or anti-intellectual, depending on how seriously he intended it. Any philosopher could tell you that Johnson would have exactly the same experience of feeling the rock against his boot in a lawlike idealist universe, like the scenario A I offered in the post before the one you are responding to here. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) It is absolutely clear from the above that if they are a) existent and b) not physcially accountable then they are c) immaterically existent. What do you mean by physically accountable? Are you referring to the notion that mathematical truths cannot be paraphrased as physical truths (assuming that what we call the physical world is itself not just a part of Platonia)? If so, then yes, I'd say according to the Quinean definition of existence, numbers exist but not as part of the physical world. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:32:18 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 12:00, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:01:51 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 10:51, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com However, some physicists - Julian Barbour for one - use the term in a way that clearly has reference, as I think does Bruno. Any Platonists thinks there is a real immaterial realm, that is the whole point What does real mean? ITSIAR Don't know what that stands for--I think I've seen that abbreviation before in some other recent posts, but there have been a lot of posts I've missed over the last few weeks so maybe it was defined in one of the ones I didn't read. Anyway, could you explain? In The Sense I Am Real And what sense is that? You are obviously real in the Quinean sense, and Platonists would say numbers are real in this sense too, but you are also real in the sense of having conscious experiences, and perhaps in the sense of being physically real (although as always I have doubts about whether this is meaningful as distinct from the other two senses), I think most mathematical Platonists would *not* say numbers are real in these senses. Once again it seems to be a synonym for existence, but you aren't defining what notion of existence you're talking about, you speak as though it has a single transparent meaning which coincides with your own notion of physical existence. There is a basic meaning to existence, the Johnsonion one. Of course Johnson's refutation of Berkeley's idealism was not a very philosophical one, it was either humorous or anti-intellectual, depending on how seriously he intended it. It was not very apriori or theoretical. But then it is perverse to ignore the fact that we do in fact exist. Why struggle for defintions when the brute fact stare yo in the face? Any philosopher could tell you that Johnson would have exactly the same experience of feeling the rock against his boot in a lawlike idealist universe, like the scenario A I offered in the post before the one you are responding to here. The he would exist in an idealist universe. He would still exist. Sure, but Johnson's kicking the rock was specifically meant to refute idealism, so I thought that's what you were referring to. My whole argument with you has been that it's sufficient to posit the Quinean existence of mathematical universes + the existence of conscious experience in at least one of these mathematical universes, that there is no need to posit any additional notion called physical existence that's distinct from both mathematical existence in the Quinean sense and existence in the sense of having real conscious experiences. It would help if you'd address my comments about scenario A vs. scenario B in that earlier post. On the contrary, I think most modern analytic philosophers would interpret mathematical Platonism to mean *only* that mathematical structures exist in the Quinean sense, i.e. that there are truths about them that cannot be paraphrased into truths about the physical world (whatever that is). I don't think any additional notion of existence is normally implied by the term mathematical Platonism (and many philosophers might not even acknowledge that there are any well-defined notions of of 'existence' besides the Quinean one) It is absolutely clear from the above that if they are a) existent and b) not physcially accountable then they are c) immaterically existent. What do you mean by physically accountable? What you mean: that there are truths about them that can be paraphrased into truths about the physical world Are you referring to the notion that mathematical truths cannot be paraphrased as physical truths (assuming that what we call the physical world is itself not just a part of Platonia)? If so, then yes, I'd say according to the Quinean definition of existence, numbers exist but not as part of the physical world. Mathematical truths are relationships between concepts, and concepts are neural acitivity. So the paraphrase can be made. Wait, so do you believe there is no objective truth about mathematical statements that humans haven't specifically figured out in their brains? For example, do you think there's an objective truth about the googolplexth digit of pi? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 11:59, Flammarion wrote: On 18 Aug, 10:01, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:48, Flammarion wrote: What do you mean by ontological existence? Real in the Sense that I am Real. What does that mean? Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? The 1-I reality (my consciousness) is undoubtable, and incommunicable in any 3-ways. The 3-I reality (my body, identity card, ...) is doubtable (I could be dreaming) and communicable in 3-ways, yet always with interrogation mark. This makes a big difference. It's an epistemological difference. This does not answer the question: Do you mean real in the sense that 1-I is real? or do you mean real in the sense that 3-I is real? 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 12:14, Flammarion wrote: Each branch of math has its own notion of existence, and with comp, we have a lot choice, for the ontic part, but usually I take arithmetical existence, if only because this is taught in school, and its enough to justified the existence of the universal numbers, and either they dreams (if yes doctor) or at least their discourse on their dreams (if you say no the doctor and decide to qualify those machines are inexistent zombies). Platonism is not taught in schools. You are conflatin existence with truth Platonism is not taught in schools, I agree. But I have never said that. I am not conflating existence with truth, I am conflating mathematical existence with truth of existential arithmetical statements. mathematical stucture+matter gives you more to tackle the consciousness problem with than mathematical structure alone The mind-body problem comes from the fact that we have not yet find how to attach consciousness to matter. At least with comp, after UDA, we know why. No. it is equivalent to the conjunction of that stament with and the mathematicians Ex is a claim of ontological existence. You are the one making that addition. So, again, show where in the reasoning I would use that addition. If you really believe that the number 7 has no existence at all, then the UDA reasoning does not go through, at last! Read or reread the SANE paper, I explicitly assume Arithmetical Realism. This is hardly new. I really don't follow you. UDA is an argument showing that comp (yes doctor + CT) = non physicalism. (CT = Church thesis) A weaker version of CT is provably equivalent with Ex(x = universal number). It makes no sense without AR. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 19:28, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 11:17, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 11:11, 1Z wrote: Without Platonism, there is no UD since it is not observable within physical space. So the UDA is based on Plat., not the other way round. Are you saying that without platonism, the square root of 2 does not exist? Yes, the square root of two has no ontological existence. All what matters with comp is that things like the square root of 2 has a notion of existence independent of me. Prime number does not exist? Yes, prime numbers have no ontological existence I guess you make a material ontological commitment. One of my goal is to explain, notably with the comp hyp, that a term like matter has no referent. This would explain why physicist never use such ontological commitment explicitly. To say that matter exists simply is a non rational act of the type don't ask. UDA makes just this precise by reudcing the mind body problem to a body problem. That mathematical existence is a meaningless notion? Sense but no refence. Mathematical statements have truth values but do not refere to anything outside the formal system. Then they have no truth value. What you say is formalism, and this has been explicitly refuted by mathematical logicians. We know, mainly by the work of Gödel that the truth about numbers extends what can be justified in ANY effective formal systems (and non effective one are not really formal). But I know that there are still some formalists in the neighborhood, and that is why I make explicit the assumption of arithmetical realism. It is the assumption that the structure (N, +, x) is well defined, despite we can't define it effectively. Mathematics would be a physical illusion? A referentless formal game, distinguished from fiction only by its rigour and generality You evacuate the whole approach of semantics by Tarski and Quine. I will not insist on this because I will explain with some detail why Church thesis necessitate arithmetical realism, and why this leads directly to the incompleteness and the discovery that arithmetical truth cannot be captured by any effective formal system. The formalist position in math is no more tenable. But physics use mathematics, would that not make physics illusory or circular? No, because it uses mathematics empirically. The same language that can be used to write fiction can be used to write history. The difference is in how it used. not in the langauge itself I don't see any difference in the use of analytical tools in physics and in number theory. The distribution of the prime numbers is objective, and this is the only type of independent objectivity needed in the reasoning. Nothing more. It's a perfectly consistent assumption. THere is no disproof of materialism that doesn't beg the quesiton by assuming immaterialism Well, I do believe in the natural numbers, and I do believe in their immateriality (the number seven is not made of quantum field, or waves, or particle). Then you are a Platonist, and you argument is based on Platonism. I believe that the truth of arithmetical statement having the shape ExP(x) is independent of me, and you and the physical universe (if that exists). You can call that Platonism, if you want, but this is not obviously anti-physicalist. Non-physicalism is the conclusion of a reasoning (UDA). Given that Plato's conception of reality is closer to the conclusion, I prefer to use the expression Arithmetical realism for this (banal) assumption, and Platonism or non-physicalism for the conclusion. But that is only a vocabulary problem. So either you tell me that you don't believe in the number seven, or that you have a theory in which the number seven is explained in materialist term, without assuming numbers in that theory. The latter. Show it. I know an attempt toward science without number by Hartree Field (wrong spelling?), but I found it poorly convincing. Most physicists accept the objectivity of numbers. Even more so with the attempt to marry GR and QM. This leads to major difficulties, even before approaching the consciousness problem. Such as? Explaining number with physical notions, and explaining, even partially, physical notions with the use numbers. That is just a repetition of the claim that there are problems. You have not in the least explained what the problems are. UDA is such an explanation. AUDA gives a constructive path toward a solution. You arguments here are based on the idea that primary matter needs to be given a purely mathematical expression. That in turn is based on an assumption of Platonism. If Platonism is false and materialism true, one would *expect* mathematical explanation to run out at some point. Your
Re: Emulation and Stuff
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 17 Aug 2009, at 22:41, Flammarion wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. QM mechanics solves mathematically the white rabbit problem. I do agree with this, but to say it does this by invoking primitive matter does not follow. On the contrary QM amplitude makes primitive matter still more hard to figure out. Primitive matter is, up to now, a metaphysical notion. Darwinian evolution can justify why we take seriously the consistency of our neighborhood, and why we extrapolate that consistency, but physicists does not, in their theories, ever postulate *primitive* matter. Not explicitly, but physicists generally accept that some things happen and others don't; not only in QM but in symmetry breaking. Brent We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. Are you defending Bohm's Quantum Mechanics? The wave without particles still act physically, indeed they have to do that for the quantum disappearance of the white rabbits. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
Jesse Mazer wrote: Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:37:02 -0700 Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff From: peterdjo...@yahoo.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com On 18 Aug, 01:53, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: Peter Jones wrote: On 17 Aug, 14:46, Jesse Mazer laserma...@hotmail.com wrote: 1Z wrote: But those space-time configuration are themselves described by mathematical functions far more complex that the numbers described or explain. But what is this primary matter? If it is entirely divorced from all the evidence from physics that various abstract mathematical models of particles and fields can be used to make accurate predictions about observed experimental results, then it becomes something utterly mysterious and divorced from any of our empirical experiences whatsoever (since all of our intuitions regarding 'matter' are based solely on our empirical experiences with how it *behaves* in the sensory realm, and the abstract mathematical models give perfectly accurate predictions about this behavior). Primary matter is very much related to the fact that some theories of physics work and other do not. It won't tell you which ones work, but it will tell you why there is a difference. It solves the white rabbit problem. We don't see logically consistent but otherwise bizarre universes because they are immaterial and non-existent--not matter instantiates that particualar amtehamtical structure. But then it seems like you're really just talking about consciousness and qualia--of all the mathematically possible universes containing possible self-aware observers, only in some (or one) are these possible observers actually real in the sense of having qualia (and there qualia being influenced by other, possibly nonconsious elements of the mathematical universe they are a part of). No.. I don't need the hypothesis that WR universes are there but unobserved. What does are there mean? It seems to be a synonym for physical existence, but my whole point here is that the notion of physical existence doesn't even seem well-defined, if this discussion is going to get anywhere you need to actually address this argument head on rather than just continue to talk as though terms like exists and are there have a transparent meaning. The only kinds of existence that seem meaningful to me are the type of Quinean existence I discussed earlier, and existence in the sense of conscious experience which is something we all know firsthand. Can you explain what physical existence is supposed to denote if it is not either of these? There's no need to have a middleman called primary matter, such that only some (or one) mathematical possible universes are actually instantianted in primary matter, and only those instantiated in primary matter give rise to qualia. There is no absolute need, but there are advantages. For instance, the many-wolder might have to admit the existence of zombie universes -- universes that containt *apparent* intelligent lige that is nonetheless unconscious-- in order to account for the non-obseration of WR universes. If you *are* going to add unobservable middlemen like this, I don't concede that PM is unobservable. What exists is material, what is immaterial does not exist. There is therefore a large set of facts about matter. Moreover, the many-worlders extra universes *have* to be unobservable one way or the other, since they are not observed! Who said anything about many worlds? Again, we are free to believe in a type of single-universe scenario, let's call it scenario A, where only a single one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense (and it seems you cannot deny that all mathematical structures do 'exist' in this sense, since you agree there are objective mathematical truths) also exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. You want to add a third notion of physical existence, so your single-universe scenario, which we can call scenario B, says that only one of the mathematical universes which exist in the Quinean sense also exists in the physical sense (i.e. there is actual 'prime matter' whose behavior maps perfectly to that unique mathematical description), and presumably you believe that only a universe which exists in the physical sense can exist in the giving-rise-to-conscious-experience sense. But all observations that conscious observers would make about the world in scenario B would also be observed in scenario A (assuming that the same mathematical universe that is granted physical existence in scenario B is the one that's granted conscious existence in scenario A). In both scenarios physical objects would be identified based on the qualia associated with them
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 19:17, Brent Meeker wrote: Some posts ago, you seem to accept arithmetical realism, so I am no more sure of your position. I may have assented to the *truth* of some propositions... but truth is not existence. At least, the claim that truth=existence is extraordinary and metaphysical... Mathematical existence = truth of existential mathematical statement. The number seven exists independently of me, is equivalent with the statement that the truth of the mathematical statement Ex(x = s(s(s(s(s(s(s(0 is true independently of me. The above of course is a set of tokens symbolizing a set of cardinality eight. Er, actually it symbolizes the number seven (it is a detail, but set theory will never been formalized in my posts, except much later, for giving another example of Lobian machine). The fact that it symbolizes something depends on humans interpreting it. I would have used the usual humans notation 7. So I was referring to any interpretative machine (computer, universal number) which agrees on the usual first order axiom of arithmetic, talking in first order language, together with the supplementary symbols s, 0, x and +. We fix the notation, and, in the case of such machine we fix the semantic by the usual mathematical structure (N,+,x). This seems similar to the MGA and the idea that a rock computes every function. I have already criticized this. Once sup-comp is accepted, the computation exists in arithmetic and are given by well defined relations among numbers, entirely defined with the language above, and they have the usual interpretation in (N,+,x). But those relation will define complex UD-like relationships describing relative observers in relative environment/universal machine, like Brent deciding to send a mail, for example. Those internal interpretation will exist in a sense which is not dependent of the choice of any interpretation or even representation, once you assume the usual truth of the arithmetical relations. In comp, like in QM, a rock compute only in the sense that it is made of infinities of computations. Without comp, I have no clue of what a rock is, except that QM seems to agree on the fact that it is made of infinities of computations. They depend on being interpreted in some context or environment. Right. The interpreter are given by the universal numbers, or universal machine. This is a bit tricky to define shortly, and I postpone it in the seven step series (but I am a bit buzy), so that more can uderstand. In the third person way: a computation is always defined relatively to another universal number, or directly in term of number addition and multiplication. From the first person perspective we can only bet on the most probable universal number, among an infinity of them. I'm happy to abstract them from their environment to get a manageable model. But once the model is a number that the doctor will send on Mars, where a reconstitution device has been build, you have to abstract yourself from the environment, for awhile. Saying yes doctor *is* a big theological step. Nobody should ever force you. The ethic of comp is the right to say no to the doctor. I'm not so comfortable to say that that abstraction doesn't need the environment and is what is really real. Yeah ... I am sorry. But let us not be driven by wishful thinking, and if comp survives UDA, there is a sense in which matter becomes much more solid and stable. Observable environment emerge statistically from infinities of non temporal and non spatial computations/number relations. Including (universal) environment does not help, because the UD generates them all (with their many variants), except some infinite diagonal garden of Eden which are evacuated through the comp hyp. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. No, it just has to be right. The fact that a simulated me *would8 be wrong doesn't mean the real me *is* wrong. If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. Why can't I just get a guarantee that he will re-incarnate me materially? Even if matter doesn't exist, I won't lose out. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
2009/8/18 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: The paraphrase condition means, for example, that instead of adopting a statement like unicorns have one horn as a true statement about reality and thus being forced to accept the existence of unicorns, you could instead paraphrase this in terms of what images and concepts are in people's mind when they use the word unicorn; and if you're an eliminative materialist who wants to avoid accepting mental images and concepts as a basic element of your ontology, it might seem plausible that you could *in principle* paraphrase all statements about human concepts using statements about physical processes in human brains, although we may lack the understanding to do that now. I presume that one could substitute 'computation' for 'unicorn' in the above passage? If so, the human concept that it is 'computation' that gives rise to consciousness could be paraphrased using statements about physical processes in human brains. So what may we now suppose gives such processes this particular power? Presumably not their 'computational' nature - because now nous n'avons pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là (which I'm sure you will recall was precisely the point I originally made). That's completely back to front. Standard computaitonalism regards computation as a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. It doesn't exist at the fundamental level like quarks, and it isn't non-existent like unicorns. It is a higher-level existent, like horses. I completely agree that **assuming primary matter** computation is a physical process taking place in brains and computer hardware. The paraphrase argument - the one you said you agreed with - asserts that *any* human concept is *eliminable* (my original point) after such reduction to primary physical processes. So why should 'computation' escape this fate? How would you respond if I said the brain is conscious because it is 'alive'? Would 'life' elude the paraphrased reduction to physical process? BTW, let's be clear: I'm not saying that physicalism is false (although IMO it is at least incomplete). I'm merely pointing out one of its consequences. It's prima facie possible for physicalism to be true and computationalism false. That is to say that the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computaitonal processes. Yes, of course, this is precisely my point, for heaven's sake. Here's the proposal, in your own words: assuming physicalism the class of consciousness-causing processes might not coincide with any proper subset of the class of computational processes. Physicalist theory of mind urgently required. QED David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug, 15:21, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 12:14, Flammarion wrote: Each branch of math has its own notion of existence, and with comp, we have a lot choice, for the ontic part, but usually I take arithmetical existence, if only because this is taught in school, and its enough to justified the existence of the universal numbers, and either they dreams (if yes doctor) or at least their discourse on their dreams (if you say no the doctor and decide to qualify those machines are inexistent zombies). Platonism is not taught in schools. You are conflatin existence with truth Platonism is not taught in schools, I agree. But I have never said that. I am not conflating existence with truth, I am conflating mathematical existence with truth of existential arithmetical statements. You have to be doing more than that, because you cannot agree with me that mathematical existence is no existence at all. mathematical stucture+matter gives you more to tackle the consciousness problem with than mathematical structure alone The mind-body problem comes from the fact that we have not yet find how to attach consciousness to matter. No, it comes from no being able to attach *phenomenal* consciousness to mathematical structures. There is no problem attaching *cognition* to matter at all. If the matter of your brain is disrupted, so are your though processes. At least with comp, after UDA, we know why. No. it is equivalent to the conjunction of that stament with and the mathematicians Ex is a claim of ontological existence. You are the one making that addition. So, again, show where in the reasoning I would use that addition. Where you want me to be running on a UD. I cannot be running on a merely conceptual UD any more than I can be a character in fiction. If you really believe that the number 7 has no existence at all, then the UDA reasoning does not go through, at last! Read or reread the SANE paper, I explicitly assume Arithmetical Realism. Then you are explicitly *not* assuming standard computaitonalism This is hardly new. I really don't follow you. UDA is an argument showing that comp (yes doctor + CT) = non physicalism. (CT = Church thesis) The sane paper says Classical Digital mechanism, or Classical Computationalism, or just comp, is the conjunction of the following three sub- hypotheses: You mentioned two. The third is AR/Platonism A weaker version of CT is provably equivalent with Ex(x = universal number). It makes no sense without AR. All mathematics makes sense without Platonism. You are conflating truth and existence again. Ex(x = universal number) can be true without x being RITSIAR 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Emulation and Stuff - The Ross Model of our Universe
Some of you may be interested in my model of our Universe in which I propose that the fundamental building blocks of our Universe are tronnies each of which is one-half of nothing, with no mass and no volume and a charge of +e or -e. I have attached a copy of the first portion of my latest patent application disclosing my model which was filed a few months ago. The portion attached includes the lead-in portion, the Background and the Summary. If anyone is interested in the rest of the patent application, he or she should let me know. It will soon be published by the patent office at uspto.gov. Several earlier applications are listed in the first paragraph of the attached. These can now be down-loaded from the patent office website. Search for tronnies. John R. Ross V.P. Intellectual Property Trex Enterprises Corp. Office No. (858) 646-5488 Fax No. (858) 646-5500 -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Flammarion Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 1:43 PM To: Everything List Subject: Re: Emulation and Stuff On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. Your argument should be non UD accessible, and thus non Turing emulable. No, it just has to be right. The fact that a simulated me *would8 be wrong doesn't mean the real me *is* wrong. If you feel being primitively material, just say no to the doctor. Why can't I just get a guarantee that he will re-incarnate me materially? Even if matter doesn't exist, I won't lose out. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~--- Background and Summary Pat. Ap. Ross Model.docx Description: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Re: Emulation and Stuff
On 18 Aug 2009, at 22:43, Flammarion wrote: On 18 Aug, 11:25, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Aug 2009, at 10:55, Flammarion wrote: Any physcial theory is distinguished from an Everythingis theory by maintaining the contingent existence of only some possible mathematical structures. That is a general statement that is not affected by juggling one theory for another. I have further defined PM in *terms* of such contingency. That is actually very nice, because it follows the Plato-Aristotle- Plotinus definition of matter which I follow in AUDA. And this is enough for showing we don't have to reify matter (nor numbers). If you are not reifying anything. then there is nothing, hen there is no UD. I think you have a magical conception of reality. I don't need to reify number to believe in them. I just need to play with them. I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from contingent structures and still pretend that matter is primitive. I am saying that material existence *is* contingent existence. It is not a structure of anything. Plotinus says that too! Me too. With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not- computable or not-provable, or some relativizations. Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the existence of primitive matter. Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming each other. In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below. All the Peter Jones which are generated by the UD, in the Tarski or Fregean sense, (I don't care), will pretend that primitive matter does not exist, and if your argument goes through, for rational reason and logic (and not by mystical apprehension), those immaterial Peter Jones will prove *correctly* that they are material, and this is a contradiction. It's not a contradiction of materialism. If there are no immaterial PJ's, nothing is believed by them at all. Once you say yes to the doctor, there are immaterial Peter Jones. All your doppelganger emulating you, and being emulated at your level of substitution and below relatively occuring in the proof of the Sigma_1 sentences of Robinson Arithmetic. (The arithmetical version of the UD). So to save a role to matter, you will have to make your consciousness of primitive matter relying on some non computational feature. No. I just have to deny immaterial existence. You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are used by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions, which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum). You keep confusing the idea that theoretical entities could hypothetcially have certain beliefs with the actual existence of those entities and beliefs. You underestimate the dumbness of the DU, or sigma_1 arithmetic. It contains the emulation of all the quantum states of the milky way, with correct approximation of its neighborhood. It is hard to recognize Peter Jones or Bruno Marchal from the huge relation and huge numbers involved, in some emulations, but it is easy to prove there exists, from the information the doctor got when scanning your brain. In computations enough similar than our own most probable current one, it is a theorem that those entities have such or such beliefs, and behave in such and such ways, developing such and such discourses. Note that if you accept standard comp, you have to accept that Peter Jones is generated by the UD makes sense, even if you cease to give referents to such Peter Jones. False. Standard comp says nothing about Platonism or AR. I can give a Johnsonian refutation of the UD. I can't see it, no-one can see it, so it ain't there. Standard comp says nothing about Plato's Platonism, but once you take the digitalness seriously enough, and CT, it is just standard computer science. See conscience mécanisme appendices for snapshot of a running mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be implemented materially , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations too. Fregean sense is enough to see that those Peter Jones would correctly (if you are correct) prove that they are material, when we know (reasoning outside the UD) than they are not. So? That doesn't man I am wrong, because it doesn't mean I am in the UD. The fact that we can see that a BIV has false beliefs doesn't make us wrong about anything. This is not the point. The point is that if you develop a correct argumentation that you are material, and that what we see around us is material, then the arithmetical P. Jone(s) will also find a correct argumentation that *they* are material, and that what they see is material. The problem is that if you are correct in our physical reality their reasoning will be correct too, and false of course. But then your reasoning has to be false too. The only way to prevent this
