Re: Dreaming On
On 24 Sep, 00:45, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/23 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I don't think CTM solves the HP. I don't think CTM contradicts physcialism. If you don't think CTM solves the HP then presumably you don't hold that conscious states supervene on the physical tokens of particular computational types. They might do inexplocably. But the significant point is that nothing else solves the HP either, --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 24 Sep, 09:14, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On 24 Sep, 00:45, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/23 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I don't think CTM solves the HP. I don't think CTM contradicts physcialism. If you don't think CTM solves the HP then presumably you don't hold that conscious states supervene on the physical tokens of particular computational types. They might do inexplocably. But the significant point is that nothing else solves the HP either, Another point that has got rather lost here is that computationalists tend to be a lot more concerned about cognition than experience, CTM has no trouble explaining how people play chess. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: If you don't think CTM solves the HP then presumably you don't hold that conscious states supervene on the physical tokens of particular computational types. They might do inexplocably. But the significant point is that nothing else solves the HP either, If you think they might do inexplicably, then presumably you don't hold that the merely functional association of conscious states with heterogeneous physical states counts as an adequate explanation. So what have we been disagreeing about? As to nothing else solving the HP, that has never been relevant to the discussion. David On 24 Sep, 00:45, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/23 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I don't think CTM solves the HP. I don't think CTM contradicts physcialism. If you don't think CTM solves the HP then presumably you don't hold that conscious states supervene on the physical tokens of particular computational types. They might do inexplocably. But the significant point is that nothing else solves the HP either, --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Another point that has got rather lost here is that computationalists tend to be a lot more concerned about cognition than experience, CTM has no trouble explaining how people play chess. It hasn't got lost - e.g. two sentences later I said I have no quarrel with the third-person notion of computational realisation per se. Nobody has been disputing the purely third-person analysis of physical systems in computational terms. Under your own definition of mathematical formalism, such an analysis is an interpretation of a fundamental physical state of affairs that has utility for certain purposes. Interpretation of the physical state of affairs people playing chess in functional terms might be one of them, although this may still beg some unresolved questions - e.g. the relevance of consciousness in the HP sense to people's ability to play chess. 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: Dreaming On
On 24 Sep, 14:32, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: If you don't think CTM solves the HP then presumably you don't hold that conscious states supervene on the physical tokens of particular computational types. They might do inexplocably. But the significant point is that nothing else solves the HP either, If you think they might do inexplicably, then presumably you don't hold that the merely functional association of conscious states with heterogeneous physical states counts as an adequate explanation. So what have we been disagreeing about? As to nothing else solving the HP, that has never been relevant to the discussion. Why harp on the fact that CTM isn't physicalist enough, if you think physicalism is equally sueless? After all, phsycialism is just PM +structure. The difference is that the structure is finer-grained. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 24 Sep, 14:50, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Another point that has got rather lost here is that computationalists tend to be a lot more concerned about cognition than experience, CTM has no trouble explaining how people play chess. It hasn't got lost - e.g. two sentences later I said I have no quarrel with the third-person notion of computational realisation per se. Right..so you are using third person to mean cognitive and 1st person to mean experiential...? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 24 Sep, 14:32, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: If you don't think CTM solves the HP then presumably you don't hold that conscious states supervene on the physical tokens of particular computational types. They might do inexplocably. But the significant point is that nothing else solves the HP either, If you think they might do inexplicably, then presumably you don't hold that the merely functional association of conscious states with heterogeneous physical states counts as an adequate explanation. So what have we been disagreeing about? As to nothing else solving the HP, that has never been relevant to the discussion. Why harp on the fact that CTM isn't physicalist enough, if you think physicalism is equally sueless? After all, phsycialism is just PM +structure. The difference is that the structure is finer-grained. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Right..so you are using third person to mean cognitive and 1st person to mean experiential...? I assume that when the term cognitive is used it is intended to be cashed out in some third-person way. However, many terms seem to be used somewhat promiscuously so one can't be sure in any given context. When I use experiential I do intend the first-person interpretation. But I don't want to be Humpty-Dumptyish about it - I'm quite prepared to make any necessary distinctions as the situation dictates. 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Why harp on the fact that CTM isn't physicalist enough, if you think physicalism is equally sueless? After all, phsycialism is just PM +structure. The difference is that the structure is finer-grained. Agreed. But the harping was motivated entirely by its relevance to the supervenience dispute within CTM. If CTM is a physical theory, it should be able to appeal directly and consistently to the low-level physical account; if it can't, we need another strategy to disambiguate its actual relation to the physical account. The latter conclusion is what motivates the reversal of matter and mathematics in comp. The issue is one of consistency and intelligibility. Whether either explanatory approach can solve the HP is a separate issue. 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: Dreaming On
On 24 Sep, 16:16, david.nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Why harp on the fact that CTM isn't physicalist enough, if you think physicalism is equally sueless? After all, phsycialism is just PM +structure. The difference is that the structure is finer-grained. Agreed. But the harping was motivated entirely by its relevance to the supervenience dispute within CTM. If CTM is a physical theory, it should be able to appeal directly and consistently to the low-level physical account; So you, and only you, say. if it can't, we need another strategy to disambiguate its actual relation to the physical account. The latter conclusion is what motivates the reversal of matter and mathematics in comp. There is no ambiguity in the reduction of computation to physics. The remaining problem is the HP. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 24 Sep, 16:16, david.nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Why harp on the fact that CTM isn't physicalist enough, if you think physicalism is equally sueless? After all, phsycialism is just PM +structure. The difference is that the structure is finer-grained. Agreed. But the harping was motivated entirely by its relevance to the supervenience dispute within CTM. If CTM is a physical theory, it should be able to appeal directly and consistently to the low-level physical account; So you, and only you, say. No... Again I have to ask you what is the physical relata between executing a conscious program on a computer, an abaccus, with pen and paper, in my mind ? If you answer the abstract computation it's not an answer from your POV because as you keep saying *it doesn't exist*. Quentin if it can't, we need another strategy to disambiguate its actual relation to the physical account. The latter conclusion is what motivates the reversal of matter and mathematics in comp. There is no ambiguity in the reduction of computation to physics. The remaining problem is the HP. -- 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: Dreaming On
On 24 Sep, 17:34, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 24 Sep, 16:16, david.nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Why harp on the fact that CTM isn't physicalist enough, if you think physicalism is equally sueless? After all, phsycialism is just PM +structure. The difference is that the structure is finer-grained. Agreed. But the harping was motivated entirely by its relevance to the supervenience dispute within CTM. If CTM is a physical theory, it should be able to appeal directly and consistently to the low-level physical account; So you, and only you, say. No... Again I have to ask you what is the physical relata between executing a conscious program on a computer, an abaccus, with pen and paper, in my mind ? If you answer the abstract computation it's not an answer from your POV because as you keep saying *it doesn't exist*. It doesn't exist *independently*. Abstraction is a way of looking at things in which irrelevant details are suppressed. By suppressing irrelevant detials I can find an isomorphism between a TTL NAND gate and a CMOS NAND gate. etc. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
What are the common relevant physical details of all the proposed executing scheme ? Quentin 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 24 Sep, 17:34, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 24 Sep, 16:16, david.nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Why harp on the fact that CTM isn't physicalist enough, if you think physicalism is equally sueless? After all, phsycialism is just PM +structure. The difference is that the structure is finer-grained. Agreed. But the harping was motivated entirely by its relevance to the supervenience dispute within CTM. If CTM is a physical theory, it should be able to appeal directly and consistently to the low-level physical account; So you, and only you, say. No... Again I have to ask you what is the physical relata between executing a conscious program on a computer, an abaccus, with pen and paper, in my mind ? If you answer the abstract computation it's not an answer from your POV because as you keep saying *it doesn't exist*. It doesn't exist *independently*. Abstraction is a way of looking at things in which irrelevant details are suppressed. By suppressing irrelevant detials I can find an isomorphism between a TTL NAND gate and a CMOS NAND gate. etc. -- 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: if it can't, we need another strategy to disambiguate its actual relation to the physical account. The latter conclusion is what motivates the reversal of matter and mathematics in comp. There is no ambiguity in the reduction of computation to physics. How long can you go on arguing what is not disputed? Keep clearly in mind the third-person, first-person distinction. There is no ambiguity in the physical reduction of any realisation from a third-person perspective. From this perspective, the homogeneity of state that supervenes on the physical heterogeneity is merely one of interpretation - i.e. it is an abstraction and immaterial to the physical account. The problem is in introducing a mental type that equates to the computational one; now you have an actual homogeneity of experience to explain, not merely a metaphor. But there is no way to explain it on the basis of any consistent physical low-level account of a mental type; only a different one for each occasion of realisation. We're not only talking about small differences between brains, we're talking about any arbitrary level of physical heterogeneity that falls within the type. This is an ineluctable consequence of MR. But it is unrelated to the process of consistent hierarchical reduction that is central to physical explanation. This leaves CTM entirely devoid of any physical basis for attaching a homogeneous first-person experience to heterogeneous physical processes other than its own brute general posit; and circularity can count as explanation in nobody's book. This point is never argued in detail by supporters of CTM - rather anyone who points it out is denounced as unenlightened and unworthy of a reply in kind. Certainly they don't get one. Whether this motivates abandoning PM rather than CTM depends on how strongly one is committed to PM. If the fishy smell left by the shoulder-shrug that passes for physical justification in CTM nonetheless leaves one with a residual appetite for computationalism as an explanation for mind, then the switch in metaphysical posit may be preferable, at least as a working hypothesis. 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: Dreaming On
David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: if it can't, we need another strategy to disambiguate its actual relation to the physical account. The latter conclusion is what motivates the reversal of matter and mathematics in comp. There is no ambiguity in the reduction of computation to physics. How long can you go on arguing what is not disputed? Keep clearly in mind the third-person, first-person distinction. There is no ambiguity in the physical reduction of any realisation from a third-person perspective. From this perspective, the homogeneity of state that supervenes on the physical heterogeneity is merely one of interpretation - i.e. it is an abstraction and immaterial to the physical account. The problem is in introducing a mental type that equates to the computational one; now you have an actual homogeneity of experience to explain, not merely a metaphor. But there is no way to explain it on the basis of any consistent physical low-level account of a mental type; only a different one for each occasion of realisation. That's where I think you're asking for the impossible. An account of perception obviously cannot be low-level, it must be in the context of perceiving something. I don't think cogitation is qualitatively different, it is, as Hume said, just less distinct and vivid. So there can be no low-level explanation of cogitation either. There can be a low-level physics explanation of the physical process of a person playing chess - but to explain it *as playing chess* requires a context in which chess is meaningful. We're not only talking about small differences between brains, we're talking about any arbitrary level of physical heterogeneity that falls within the type. This is an ineluctable consequence of MR. But it is unrelated to the process of consistent hierarchical reduction that is central to physical explanation. The physical heterogeneity can only extend as far as the boundary beyond which there is a context which allows the process to be defined as a computation or a thought. An artificial brain in a human body can have human like experiences because it functions within our world. If it is functionally detached from our world, i.e. has no causal history linking it to events in our world, then it will be no more conscious than a rock in our world. This is hard to think about because in the case of the artificial brain, unlike the rock, there are intermediate degrees of relation to our world, e.g. it interacts with a tape of our world. I know you will say this is 3rd-person. But as I understand the terms, I think it is impossible to *give* a 1st-person account since a 1st-person would have to be something you experience. This leaves CTM entirely devoid of any physical basis for attaching a homogeneous first-person experience to heterogeneous physical processes other than its own brute general posit; and circularity can count as explanation in nobody's book. But a brute posit can count as explanation if it turns out to correctly predict something we didn't know. When Newton was asked what transmitted the gravitational force between bodies, he replied, Hypothesi non fingo. Brent This point is never argued in detail by supporters of CTM - rather anyone who points it out is denounced as unenlightened and unworthy of a reply in kind. Certainly they don't get one. Whether this motivates abandoning PM rather than CTM depends on how strongly one is committed to PM. If the fishy smell left by the shoulder-shrug that passes for physical justification in CTM nonetheless leaves one with a residual appetite for computationalism as an explanation for mind, then the switch in metaphysical posit may be preferable, at least as a working hypothesis. 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: Dreaming On
And HP stands for??? - Original Message - From: David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:50 AM Subject: Re: Dreaming On 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Another point that has got rather lost here is that computationalists tend to be a lot more concerned about cognition than experience, CTM has no trouble explaining how people play chess. It hasn't got lost - e.g. two sentences later I said I have no quarrel with the third-person notion of computational realisation per se. Nobody has been disputing the purely third-person analysis of physical systems in computational terms. Under your own definition of mathematical formalism, such an analysis is an interpretation of a fundamental physical state of affairs that has utility for certain purposes. Interpretation of the physical state of affairs people playing chess in functional terms might be one of them, although this may still beg some unresolved questions - e.g. the relevance of consciousness in the HP sense to people's ability to play chess. 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: Dreaming On
On 25 Sep 2009, at 02:07, m.a. wrote: And HP stands for??? I guess it means Hard Problem (of consciousness). I prefer to use mind-body problem (or hard mind-body problem in some context). I use also HPC (hard problem of consciousness) to distinguish it from the HPM (hard problem of matter, which is the problem of existence of not of primary matter, the nature of matter, where does it comes from, how to explain matter without postulating it as primitive, etc. Physicists never address this problem explicitly. Bruno - Original Message - From: David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:50 AM Subject: Re: Dreaming On 2009/9/24 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Another point that has got rather lost here is that computationalists tend to be a lot more concerned about cognition than experience, CTM has no trouble explaining how people play chess. It hasn't got lost - e.g. two sentences later I said I have no quarrel with the third-person notion of computational realisation per se. Nobody has been disputing the purely third-person analysis of physical systems in computational terms. Under your own definition of mathematical formalism, such an analysis is an interpretation of a fundamental physical state of affairs that has utility for certain purposes. Interpretation of the physical state of affairs people playing chess in functional terms might be one of them, although this may still beg some unresolved questions - e.g. the relevance of consciousness in the HP sense to people's ability to play chess. David 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: Dreaming On
On 22 Sep 2009, at 23:47, Flammarion wrote: On 22 Sep, 21:53, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Well little problem in gmail sorry. So I do it again /o\ Sorry I wanted to write it does *add* nothing. Level 0 is not part of the computation. And I still don't see how you can relate physically running a program on a computer, and running it on an abaccus, with a pen and a sheet of paper, in my mind. The only relation is the abstract computation. 1. The notion of immaterial computation needs defense since all known computers are material Physicisist cannot yet define computation (except in a sense immaterial quantum computations). it is a notion dicovered by mathematicians. I am no more sure what you mean by computation, now. How does your primary matter implements computations? Bruno 2. Level 0 as part of materialism makes a difference because it makes different predictions about what I will probably* observe. 3. Contrived BIV scenarios do not affect what I will probably* observe. 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: Dreaming On
On Sep 23, 3:20 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. Such a theory is available. It is the evolutionary account of the development of consciousness, c.f. Thomas Metzinger, Antonio Damasio, Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett. Well, I've read Damasio, Jaynes and Dennett, all at some length, and whilst each offers fascinating insight from his own perspective, I don't think that any of them could be said to offer a physical causal theory of first-person experience in the sense we are discussing here. Does Metzinger go any further? I've got quite a lot on my reading list so I've been resisting the temptation to add him to it for the moment - should I succumb? Knowing the physical function of a species sensors and the evolutionary history of it's environment you could infer what it is conscious of. True, but this is to give a third-person behavioural account, not a first-person experiential one. I'm right in assuming that you don't intend to offer a third-person account as an eliminativist dismissal of first-person experience - yes? I didn't think that was your position, but you've made this kind of comment so frequently recently that I'm starting to wonder. David David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? I wasn't trying to settle the whole issue in one go. You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. e.g. http://philpapers.org/rec/KLEDIS Klein's criticism of Maudlin is concerned with constraining what might be considered a valid computational realisation. Were this accepted as reasonable, he could attack that particular reductio by disputing the adequacy of the realisation. This is however a separate question to the lack of any consistent justification of the association of homogeneous experiential states to heterogeneous physical ones, which does not depend on any particular reductio argument. Klein does not set out to address this issue, but tips his hand by remarking that I remain neutral between identifying the disposition with the first-order property or treating it as a second-order property that is realized in each case by some first-order property. The problem with CTM as a physical theory is that it violates normal standards of physical explanation. The very notion of computation is based not on a consistent self-selection of a specific physically-defined class of events, but rather on an external interpretation of a functionally-defined class. This is not problematic in the third-person sense, but if a first-person experiential state is to be considered equivalent merely to what we could say about something, then it is not a physical state in any normally understood sense. What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. Such a theory is available. It is the evolutionary account of the development of consciousness, c.f. Thomas Metzinger, Antonio Damasio, Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett. Knowing the physical function of a species sensors and the evolutionary history of it's environment you could infer what it is conscious of. 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: Dreaming On
David Nyman wrote: On Sep 23, 3:20 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. Such a theory is available. It is the evolutionary account of the development of consciousness, c.f. Thomas Metzinger, Antonio Damasio, Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett. Well, I've read Damasio, Jaynes and Dennett, all at some length, and whilst each offers fascinating insight from his own perspective, I don't think that any of them could be said to offer a physical causal theory of first-person experience in the sense we are discussing here. Does Metzinger go any further? I've got quite a lot on my reading list so I've been resisting the temptation to add him to it for the moment - should I succumb? Knowing the physical function of a species sensors and the evolutionary history of it's environment you could infer what it is conscious of. True, but this is to give a third-person behavioural account, not a first-person experiential one. I'm right in assuming that you don't intend to offer a third-person account as an eliminativist dismissal of first-person experience - yes? I didn't think that was your position, but you've made this kind of comment so frequently recently that I'm starting to wonder. I don't have a position on such an unsettled question. But I think what you are asking is incoherent - a first-person account physical account of experience. Can you give an example what such an account might look like? 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: Dreaming On
On 23 Sep, 02:06, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? I wasn't trying to settle the whole issue in one go. You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I don't think CTM solves the HP. I don't think CTM contradicts physcialism. I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. e.g. http://philpapers.org/rec/KLEDIS Klein's criticism of Maudlin is concerned with constraining what might be considered a valid computational realisation. Were this accepted as reasonable, he could attack that particular reductio by disputing the adequacy of the realisation. This is however a separate question to the lack of any consistent justification of the association of homogeneous experiential states to heterogeneous physical ones, which does not depend on any particular reductio argument. Klein does not set out to address this issue, but tips his hand by remarking that I remain neutral between identifying the disposition with the first-order property or treating it as a second-order property that is realized in each case by some first-order property. The problem with CTM as a physical theory is that it violates normal standards of physical explanation. Alternatively, that is what is just so handy about it The very notion of computation is based not on a consistent self-selection of a specific physically-defined class of events, but rather on an external interpretation of a functionally-defined class. Says who? The in-the-eye-of the observer notion of computation is contentious. The addition of side-constraints, such as counterfactuals, to the defintiion of computation is motivated precisely to avoid dryign paint implementing any possible computation. And the Maudlin argument exploits that to show that computation is narrowed down so much that no physical system can compute a mind. And then the Klein argument widens the definition of computation out again ...the moral of the story being that you can't have your argument that computing is in the eye of the beholder AND your your firm faith in the MGA/olympia style of argument. They work from different assumptions. This is not problematic in the third-person sense, but if a first-person experiential state is to be considered equivalent merely to what we could say about something, then it is not a physical state in any normally understood sense. What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. The point at issue is not whether there is only one way to realise a computation, or to get from A to B. The point is that in the case of the journey, the transition from physical irrelevance to relevance is at the point where the physical result emerges as identical - i.e. as the same journey form A to B. In the case of the computation, no such physical identity of result ever emerges; Instead there is functional identity and functional relevance... Sure, and that makes CTM a functional theory, supervening on functional relata, and appealing to a purely functional association with consciousness. In what remaining sense that makes any difference can CTM claim to be a materialist theory? It doesn;t need anything non-physical, as I have said several times. To say that nonetheless it must be materially instantiated is no answer; it is merely begging the question. It doesn;t require anything non-physical either. all you have is a collection of heterogeneous physical processes, each merely *formally* identical to a given computation. It is a further - and physically entirely ad hoc - assumption that this heterogeneity of physical states is homogeneous with a single experiential state. It is not entirely ad hoc because not every physical system implements every computation. The fact that not every physical system implements every computation doesn't reduce the ad-hoccery in the slightest, because the whole notion of implementation is immaterial from the outset. There's nothing physically fundamental about a computationally-defined 'realisation' - it is merely an externally-imposed interpretation of a physical state of affairs that is perfectly capable of causing whatever lies within its powers without such aid. The only interesting question from a
Re: Dreaming On
On 23 Sep, 03:20, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: David Nyman wrote: inherent in MR. Such a theory is available. It is the evolutionary account of the development of consciousness, c.f. Thomas Metzinger, Antonio Damasio, Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett. Knowing the physical function of a species sensors and the evolutionary history of it's environment you could infer what it is conscious of. It doesn't address the HP of coruse. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 23 Sep, 08:00, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 22 Sep 2009, at 23:47, Flammarion wrote: On 22 Sep, 21:53, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Well little problem in gmail sorry. So I do it again /o\ Sorry I wanted to write it does *add* nothing. Level 0 is not part of the computation. And I still don't see how you can relate physically running a program on a computer, and running it on an abaccus, with a pen and a sheet of paper, in my mind. The only relation is the abstract computation. 1. The notion of immaterial computation needs defense since all known computers are material Physicisist cannot yet define computation (except in a sense immaterial quantum computations). I have absolutely no idea why you would say that. Physicists tend to have computers on their desks and tend to regard them as physical. it is a notion dicovered by mathematicians. matehmaticians can discover numebrs, but they still need matterial things to writh them with, I am no more sure what you mean by computation, now. How does your primary matter implements computations? Same way it implements being a chair. By beign the bearer of properties that implement it. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/23 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I don't think CTM solves the HP. I don't think CTM contradicts physcialism. If you don't think CTM solves the HP then presumably you don't hold that conscious states supervene on the physical tokens of particular computational types. In that case we need no longer debate the association of physical and conscious states qua computatio. I have no quarrel with the third-person notion of computational realisation per se, and consequently I have no further arguments to offer. David So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? I wasn't trying to settle the whole issue in one go. You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I don't think CTM solves the HP. I don't think CTM contradicts physcialism. I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. e.g. http://philpapers.org/rec/KLEDIS Klein's criticism of Maudlin is concerned with constraining what might be considered a valid computational realisation. Were this accepted as reasonable, he could attack that particular reductio by disputing the adequacy of the realisation. This is however a separate question to the lack of any consistent justification of the association of homogeneous experiential states to heterogeneous physical ones, which does not depend on any particular reductio argument. Klein does not set out to address this issue, but tips his hand by remarking that I remain neutral between identifying the disposition with the first-order property or treating it as a second-order property that is realized in each case by some first-order property. The problem with CTM as a physical theory is that it violates normal standards of physical explanation. Alternatively, that is what is just so handy about it The very notion of computation is based not on a consistent self-selection of a specific physically-defined class of events, but rather on an external interpretation of a functionally-defined class. Says who? The in-the-eye-of the observer notion of computation is contentious. The addition of side-constraints, such as counterfactuals, to the defintiion of computation is motivated precisely to avoid dryign paint implementing any possible computation. And the Maudlin argument exploits that to show that computation is narrowed down so much that no physical system can compute a mind. And then the Klein argument widens the definition of computation out again ...the moral of the story being that you can't have your argument that computing is in the eye of the beholder AND your your firm faith in the MGA/olympia style of argument. They work from different assumptions. This is not problematic in the third-person sense, but if a first-person experiential state is to be considered equivalent merely to what we could say about something, then it is not a physical state in any normally understood sense. What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. The point at issue is not whether there is only one way to realise a computation, or to get from A to B. The point is that in the case of the journey, the transition from physical irrelevance to relevance is at the point where the physical result emerges as identical - i.e. as the same journey form A to B. In the case of the computation, no such physical identity of result ever emerges; Instead there is functional identity and functional relevance... Sure, and that makes CTM a functional theory, supervening on functional relata, and appealing to a purely functional association with consciousness. In what remaining sense that makes any difference can CTM claim to be a materialist theory? It doesn;t need anything non-physical, as I have said several times. To say that nonetheless it must be materially instantiated is no answer; it is merely begging the question. It doesn;t require anything non-physical either. all you have is a collection of heterogeneous physical processes, each merely *formally* identical to a given
Re: Dreaming On
2009/9/23 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: True, but this is to give a third-person behavioural account, not a first-person experiential one. I'm right in assuming that you don't intend to offer a third-person account as an eliminativist dismissal of first-person experience - yes? I didn't think that was your position, but you've made this kind of comment so frequently recently that I'm starting to wonder. I don't have a position on such an unsettled question. Perhaps you misunderstand me. Do you mean to suggest that the denial of first-person experience, as a 'solution' to the mind-body problem, is an unsettled question? Or that you are willing to entertain such a denial? But I think what you are asking is incoherent - a first-person account physical account of experience. Can you give an example what such an account might look like? I wasn't asking for that. I was extrapolating, for the purposes of this particular discussion, from the line of argument that assumes the primacy of matter and physical causation. On this basis, I would expect a physical theory of consciousness to take the form of a consistent mapping from a low-level physical account to a high-level experiential account, exactly as is the case with physical reductions of life, weather, or other higher-order physical phenomena (as you yourself have suggested to me more than once). This is not to say that I'm in any way convinced that first-person experience can be explained satisfactorily in this manner, but it's what a physical account should look like if consciousness is deemed to supervene on physical states in any standardly justified sense. David David Nyman wrote: On Sep 23, 3:20 am, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. Such a theory is available. It is the evolutionary account of the development of consciousness, c.f. Thomas Metzinger, Antonio Damasio, Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett. Well, I've read Damasio, Jaynes and Dennett, all at some length, and whilst each offers fascinating insight from his own perspective, I don't think that any of them could be said to offer a physical causal theory of first-person experience in the sense we are discussing here. Does Metzinger go any further? I've got quite a lot on my reading list so I've been resisting the temptation to add him to it for the moment - should I succumb? Knowing the physical function of a species sensors and the evolutionary history of it's environment you could infer what it is conscious of. True, but this is to give a third-person behavioural account, not a first-person experiential one. I'm right in assuming that you don't intend to offer a third-person account as an eliminativist dismissal of first-person experience - yes? I didn't think that was your position, but you've made this kind of comment so frequently recently that I'm starting to wonder. I don't have a position on such an unsettled question. But I think what you are asking is incoherent - a first-person account physical account of experience. Can you give an example what such an account might look like? 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 18:14, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The level 0 has nothing that can be detected/tested if CTM is true by a computational observer (us if CTM is true). If a level 0 is part of the standard package of materialism, it is testable because small world materialism makes different predictions about what will be observed, particularly WRs, than mathematical many-worlds. To put it another way., the theories are as testable as each other. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 1 Sep, 18:14, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The level 0 has nothing that can be detected/tested if CTM is true by a computational observer (us if CTM is true). If a level 0 is part of the standard package of materialism, it is testable because small world materialism makes different predictions about what will be observed, particularly WRs, than mathematical many-worlds. To put it another way., the theories are as testable as each other. No because computational observer has *no* access to any external thing. If you are computational in essence I can run you and give you any input I want and you can't rely on your measure to assert anything. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 18:35, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: What this shows is that CTM and comp are not different, but rather that comp is CTM properly understood. Its 'supervention' on virtualisation - i.e. a bottomless stack as perceived from inside - means that demanding that it further supervene on distinguishable 'platonic entities' is equivalent to demanding that it further supervene on PM, and hence equally superfluous. That is, you can believe it if you like but it is inconsequential. I realise that these conclusions are surprising (they certainly surprise me) and that of course they are not what most believers (and it is a belief) in CTM assume; but that does not mitigate their force. Bruno can conclude that but he certainly shouldn't assume it. What is consequent on all of this is that prior acceptance of CTM nullifies the force of your sceptical argument, because in making the assumption you have perforce abandoned scepticism with regard to its necessary consequences. If you like, belief in CTM is belief in the ghost in the machine, and ghosts and machines don't interact. You may regain your more general scepticism at the cost of relinquishing the assumption of CTM. Nothing of the kind follows from CTM unless you can make a MGA or Olympia argument work --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 22 Sep, 21:29, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 1 Sep, 18:14, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The level 0 has nothing that can be detected/tested if CTM is true by a computational observer (us if CTM is true). If a level 0 is part of the standard package of materialism, it is testable because small world materialism makes different predictions about what will be observed, particularly WRs, than mathematical many-worlds. To put it another way., the theories are as testable as each other. No because computational observer has *no* access to any external thing. If you are computational in essence I can run you and give you any input I want and you can't rely on your measure to assert anything. It is very unlikely I would find myself in such a contrived scenario, when there are many other corners of Platonia I could land in. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 22 Sep, 21:29, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 1 Sep, 18:14, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The level 0 has nothing that can be detected/tested if CTM is true by a computational observer (us if CTM is true). If a level 0 is part of the standard package of materialism, it is testable because small world materialism makes different predictions about what will be observed, particularly WRs, than mathematical many-worlds. To put it another way., the theories are as testable as each other. No because computational observer has *no* access to any external thing. If you are computational in essence I can run you and give you any input I want and you can't rely on your measure to assert anything. It is very unlikely I would find myself in such a contrived scenario, when there are many other corners of Platonia I could land in. Sure, but you can't have access to level 0 if you are computational, no matter what you say, it doesn't play a role. If it does had nothing to the computation (and it does had nothing), I see no reason to postulate one... to call it propertyless or whatever, it is useless. -- 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: Dreaming On
Sorry I wanted to write it does *add* nothing. Level 0 is not part of the computation. And I still don't see how you can relate physically running a program on a computer, a 2009/9/22 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 22 Sep, 21:29, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 1 Sep, 18:14, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The level 0 has nothing that can be detected/tested if CTM is true by a computational observer (us if CTM is true). If a level 0 is part of the standard package of materialism, it is testable because small world materialism makes different predictions about what will be observed, particularly WRs, than mathematical many-worlds. To put it another way., the theories are as testable as each other. No because computational observer has *no* access to any external thing. If you are computational in essence I can run you and give you any input I want and you can't rely on your measure to assert anything. It is very unlikely I would find myself in such a contrived scenario, when there are many other corners of Platonia I could land in. Sure, but you can't have access to level 0 if you are computational, no matter what you say, it doesn't play a role. If it does had nothing to the computation (and it does had nothing), I see no reason to postulate one... to call it propertyless or whatever, it is useless. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- 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: Dreaming On
Well little problem in gmail sorry. So I do it again /o\ Sorry I wanted to write it does *add* nothing. Level 0 is not part of the computation. And I still don't see how you can relate physically running a program on a computer, and running it on an abaccus, with a pen and a sheet of paper, in my mind. The only relation is the abstract computation. Quentin 2009/9/22 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com Sorry I wanted to write it does *add* nothing. Level 0 is not part of the computation. And I still don't see how you can relate physically running a program on a computer, a 2009/9/22 Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 22 Sep, 21:29, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com On 1 Sep, 18:14, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: The level 0 has nothing that can be detected/tested if CTM is true by a computational observer (us if CTM is true). If a level 0 is part of the standard package of materialism, it is testable because small world materialism makes different predictions about what will be observed, particularly WRs, than mathematical many-worlds. To put it another way., the theories are as testable as each other. No because computational observer has *no* access to any external thing. If you are computational in essence I can run you and give you any input I want and you can't rely on your measure to assert anything. It is very unlikely I would find myself in such a contrived scenario, when there are many other corners of Platonia I could land in. Sure, but you can't have access to level 0 if you are computational, no matter what you say, it doesn't play a role. If it does had nothing to the computation (and it does had nothing), I see no reason to postulate one... to call it propertyless or whatever, it is useless. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- 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: Dreaming On
On 13 Sep, 17:51, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/11 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I'm not sure I see what distinction you're making. If as you say the realisation of computation in a physical system doesn't cause consciousness, that would entail that no physically-realised computation could be identical to any mental state. That doesn't follow because causation and identity are different The realisation could be consciousness (fire IS combustion) without causing it (fire CAUSES smoke but it not smoke) So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? I wasn't trying to settle the whole issue in one go. You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? This is what follows if one accepts the argument from MGA or Olympia that consciousness does not attach to physical states qua computatio. I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. e.g. http://philpapers.org/rec/KLEDIS I agree. Nonetheless, when two states are functionally equivalent one can still say what it is about them that is physically relevant. For example, in driving from A to B it is functionally irrelevant to my experience whether my car is fuelled by petrol or diesel. But there is no ambiguity about the physical details of my car trip or precisely how either fuel contributes to this effect. One can say what it is about physical systems that explains its ability to realise a certain computation. One can't say that there is anything that makes it exclusively able to. Equally one can explain various ways of getting from A to B, but one can't argue that there is only one possible way. The point at issue is not whether there is only one way to realise a computation, or to get from A to B. The point is that in the case of the journey, the transition from physical irrelevance to relevance is at the point where the physical result emerges as identical - i.e. as the same journey form A to B. In the case of the computation, no such physical identity of result ever emerges; Instead there is functional identity and functional relevance... all you have is a collection of heterogeneous physical processes, each merely *formally* identical to a given computation. It is a further - and physically entirely ad hoc - assumption that this heterogeneity of physical states is homogeneous with a single experiential state. It is not entirely ad hoc because not every physical system implements every computation. Yes, I agree. But if we're after a physical theory, we also want to be able to give in either case a clear physical account of their apprehensiveness, which would include a physical justification of why the fine-grained differences make no difference at the level of experience. THat would be because they make no computational difference, if CTM is correct. If all you have to offer is circular arguments we shall simply go round in circles. Saying CTM is wrong because it is based on computational equivalence not physical equivalence is circular. I can only suppose that complete arbitrariness would be a random association between physical states and mental states. This is not what is meant by arbitrary realisation. What is meant is that the requirement that a physical system be deemed conscious purely in virtue of its implementing a computation rules out no particular kind of physical realisation. Consequently a theory of this type is incapable of explicating general principles of physical-mental association independent of its functional posit. It isn't. Why is that a problem? The problem is that theories which aren't reducible to fundamental physics don't warrant consideration as physical theories. It is reducible, since you can give an account of why a particular physical system implements a particular computation. What you don't have it type-type identity. You can;t say that a particular type of system --electronic, organic, etc-- is associated with particular types of computation or mentation. Compuationalists see that as an advantage. It is not clear why you do not. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that, when reduced to a physical interpretation, CTM is in fact shown to entail gross implausibilities. SO it is alleged. Yes, but the upshot is that CTM is reduced to the theory that conscious states can be associated with material systems only in a manner that ex hypothesi must obscure any prospect of a general reduction of their detailed material causes, because any such causes could only be specific to each realisation. You can have as many material details as you like so
Re: Dreaming On
On 22 Sep, 21:53, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Well little problem in gmail sorry. So I do it again /o\ Sorry I wanted to write it does *add* nothing. Level 0 is not part of the computation. And I still don't see how you can relate physically running a program on a computer, and running it on an abaccus, with a pen and a sheet of paper, in my mind. The only relation is the abstract computation. 1. The notion of immaterial computation needs defense since all known computers are material 2. Level 0 as part of materialism makes a difference because it makes different predictions about what I will probably* observe. 3. Contrived BIV scenarios do not affect what I will probably* observe. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? I wasn't trying to settle the whole issue in one go. You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. e.g. http://philpapers.org/rec/KLEDIS Klein's criticism of Maudlin is concerned with constraining what might be considered a valid computational realisation. Were this accepted as reasonable, he could attack that particular reductio by disputing the adequacy of the realisation. This is however a separate question to the lack of any consistent justification of the association of homogeneous experiential states to heterogeneous physical ones, which does not depend on any particular reductio argument. Klein does not set out to address this issue, but tips his hand by remarking that I remain neutral between identifying the disposition with the first-order property or treating it as a second-order property that is realized in each case by some first-order property. The problem with CTM as a physical theory is that it violates normal standards of physical explanation. The very notion of computation is based not on a consistent self-selection of a specific physically-defined class of events, but rather on an external interpretation of a functionally-defined class. This is not problematic in the third-person sense, but if a first-person experiential state is to be considered equivalent merely to what we could say about something, then it is not a physical state in any normally understood sense. What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. The point at issue is not whether there is only one way to realise a computation, or to get from A to B. The point is that in the case of the journey, the transition from physical irrelevance to relevance is at the point where the physical result emerges as identical - i.e. as the same journey form A to B. In the case of the computation, no such physical identity of result ever emerges; Instead there is functional identity and functional relevance... Sure, and that makes CTM a functional theory, supervening on functional relata, and appealing to a purely functional association with consciousness. In what remaining sense that makes any difference can CTM claim to be a materialist theory? To say that nonetheless it must be materially instantiated is no answer; it is merely begging the question. all you have is a collection of heterogeneous physical processes, each merely *formally* identical to a given computation. It is a further - and physically entirely ad hoc - assumption that this heterogeneity of physical states is homogeneous with a single experiential state. It is not entirely ad hoc because not every physical system implements every computation. The fact that not every physical system implements every computation doesn't reduce the ad-hoccery in the slightest, because the whole notion of implementation is immaterial from the outset. There's nothing physically fundamental about a computationally-defined 'realisation' - it is merely an externally-imposed interpretation of a physical state of affairs that is perfectly capable of causing whatever lies within its powers without such aid. The only interesting question from a physical perspective is what those powers might be. THat would be because they make no computational difference, if CTM is correct. If all you have to offer is circular arguments we shall simply go round in circles. Saying CTM is wrong because it is based on computational equivalence not physical equivalence is circular. I've made it abundantly clear that I'm not saying that CTM is wrong; I'm just saying that if it's right, then ex hypothesi this cannot be in virtue of the standard sense of physical causation invoked in any other context. That is not circular. What you're resisting is the conclusion that this has any necessary entailment for the direction of inference from the mathematical to the physical, or vice versa. I think that in common with reflexive believers in CTM - though you say you're not of their company - you are surreptitiously and unjustifiably conflating merely functionally-defined classes of physical events with primary physical causation, in order to ignore the intractable problem of justifying a consistent
Re: Dreaming On
David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/22 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? I wasn't trying to settle the whole issue in one go. You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? Would you respond to this please? I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. e.g. http://philpapers.org/rec/KLEDIS Klein's criticism of Maudlin is concerned with constraining what might be considered a valid computational realisation. Were this accepted as reasonable, he could attack that particular reductio by disputing the adequacy of the realisation. This is however a separate question to the lack of any consistent justification of the association of homogeneous experiential states to heterogeneous physical ones, which does not depend on any particular reductio argument. Klein does not set out to address this issue, but tips his hand by remarking that I remain neutral between identifying the disposition with the first-order property or treating it as a second-order property that is realized in each case by some first-order property. The problem with CTM as a physical theory is that it violates normal standards of physical explanation. The very notion of computation is based not on a consistent self-selection of a specific physically-defined class of events, but rather on an external interpretation of a functionally-defined class. This is not problematic in the third-person sense, but if a first-person experiential state is to be considered equivalent merely to what we could say about something, then it is not a physical state in any normally understood sense. What would make a theory of consciousness a physical theory would be a normal causal account of a succession of physical states, the experience that accompanies them, and the precise relation between them. Such a theory would of course escape the vulnerability to accusations of lack of meaningful physical commitment inherent in MR. Such a theory is available. It is the evolutionary account of the development of consciousness, c.f. Thomas Metzinger, Antonio Damasio, Julian Jaynes, Daniel Dennett. Knowing the physical function of a species sensors and the evolutionary history of it's environment you could infer what it is conscious of. 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: So then question then becomes how close together do the intermediate points have to be to constitute the same experience. An interesting question. We might investigate it empirically by noting how closely the brain processes during one experience of X are similar to another experience of X - of course that brings out that to compare two experiences really means to compare one to the memory of the other or the memories of both. If your point is that ultimately any explanation in processual terms is functional - in the sense of demarcating a boundary of physical relevance - and that consequently there will be some level at which two realisations will FAPP be experientially identical, I would agree, if only on the basis that no two brains, nor the 'same' brain thinking the 'same' thought, are ever identical, though their experiences may be very similar. The issue would then be to identify the modular level at which this occurs, and this implies an utterly different engagement with the relevant physics than the neutrality towards realisation adopted by 'fundamentalist' CTM. I disagree the that reductios prove anything except that the context may have to be arbitrarily large. Are you saying that you take the view that the phenomenal experience is somehow a product of, or is identical with, the total environment, as in some defences of the Chinese Room? If so, what is your view of the mechanism by which physical-experiential association at this level would be established? David David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Yes, of course I know it's *implicitly* physical, that's the problem. The point is that evaluating CTM as a physical theory of mind necessitates making the relation between experience and process *explicitly* physical, and actually attempting this inevitably results in a failure to discover any consistent association between specific physics and specific experience. That seems like a category mistake. You're asking for and explicitly physical relation between a computation and a physical process. But a computation isn't physical; the relation has to relate something non-physical to the physical - so obviously it relates the non-physical things like potential action in a context or evolutionary function to the physical process. This is not merely unfortunate, it is a direct consequence of the arbitrariness of physical implementation central to the hypothesis. I don't see the problem. There are arbitrarily many computations of the same function too. I'm having a really hard time comprehending why we're at such cross-purposes here. I have no difficulty with the formal definition of a computation, its multiple realisations, or with your criterion of relevance to an external context. However none of this is remotely relevant to what's at issue with respect to the status of CTM as a physical theory of *phenomenal experience*, as opposed to observed *behaviour*, which AFAICS is all you are referring to above. Let me put it like this. In any physical account of a particular phenomenon, some physical events will be relevant, and some irrelevant. I gave the example of differently fuelled journeys - I'm sure you can think of a dozen equally good or better examples. In any of these examples you would seek - and should at least in principle be able - to explain what is physically directly relevant to the outcome, what is irrelevant (in the sense of merely generally supportive of) the outcome, and how precisely this demarcation is justified in explicit physical terms. In each case, the line of demarcation would be at the point where some common physical outcome can be identified as emerging from disparate underlying processes Now let's consider CTM on the same terms. We seek to explain an outcome - an experience - that will emerge at some point of demarcation of relevant and irrelevant physical processes. To this end let us attempt to test the postulates of CTM against physical criteria independent of the hypothesis. In fact we have no way of demarcating any homogeneous physical emergents other than at the boundaries of the system, But the boundaries are moveable. If we ask does traveling from A to B by this path produce the same experience as by another path the firs thing we do is move the boundaries in. Do both paths go thru C? thru D? and E? and... So then question then becomes how close together do the intermediate points have to be to constitute the same experience. An interesting question. We might investigate it empirically by noting how closely the brain processes during one experience of X are similar to another experience of X - of course that brings out that to compare two experiences really means to compare one to the memory of the other or the memories of both. because the hypothesis rules this out,
Re: Dreaming On
2009/9/2 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: I'm afraid that still doesn't work. I realise it's counter intuitive, but this is the point - to recalibrate the intuitions. 'Standard' CTM postulates that the mind is a computation implemented by the brain, and hence in principle implementable by any physical process capable of instantiating the equivalent computation. Bruno's 'version' starts with this postulate and then shows that the first part of the hypothesis - i.e. that the mind is computational - is incompatible with the second part - i.e. that it is implemented by some specifically distinguishable non-computational process. That's the step I don't grasp. I see that the MGA makes it plausible that the mind could be a computation divorced from all physical processes - but not that it must be. Maybe you can explain it. I was just re-reading some of this thread (sad, isn't it?) and I just wanted to check the difference of interpretation implied in what you said above. As you say, MGA argues that there could be a valid realisation of a putatively 'experiential computation' that involved no physical processing. It then argues that such an absence of physical processing would in fact mean that associating any experience with such a 'stopped system' is grossly implausible on materialist assumptions. The escape from this impasse it offers, short of abandoning CTM, is consequently that if mind is still to be considered a computation, it now *must* be divorced from all physical processing, and hence from the assumption of PM. The force of the 'must' comes from the contradiction otherwise unavoidable in invoking physical processing as simultaneously both necessary and irrelevant to experience. Sorry if this was already obvious, I just wanted to check for clarification. Does your involvement of the wider environment beyond the narrowly defined computational realisation change the force of the MGA argument as described above, and if so how? David David Nyman wrote: On 1 Sep, 17:09, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: If you don't like this, you have the option of abandoning CTM and with it the notion of a virtual ontology. This is so clear cut that I would expect that you would welcome the opportunity either to accept it or refute it with precise counter-argument. Which is it to be? You have slipped into Bruno's habit of confusing CTM with comp. comp=CTM+Platonism. I'm afraid that still doesn't work. I realise it's counter intuitive, but this is the point - to recalibrate the intuitions. 'Standard' CTM postulates that the mind is a computation implemented by the brain, and hence in principle implementable by any physical process capable of instantiating the equivalent computation. Bruno's 'version' starts with this postulate and then shows that the first part of the hypothesis - i.e. that the mind is computational - is incompatible with the second part - i.e. that it is implemented by some specifically distinguishable non-computational process. That's the step I don't grasp. I see that the MGA makes it plausible that the mind could be a computation divorced from all physical processes - but not that it must be. Maybe you can explain it. 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: You regard doing the same computation as a purely formal (= non-physical) critereon, but I think this is specious. It seems right because we talk about a computation at a very high level of abstraction. But when we ask what makes this causal sequence or that process a computation, in contrast to other sequences or processes that aren't, we find that we must describe the computation as having an effect in the larger physical context. So to say that two physical processes realize the same computation is formal, but it is not *only* formal. It is implicitly physical too. Yes, of course I know it's *implicitly* physical, that's the problem. The point is that evaluating CTM as a physical theory of mind necessitates making the relation between experience and process *explicitly* physical, and actually attempting this inevitably results in a failure to discover any consistent association between specific physics and specific experience. This is not merely unfortunate, it is a direct consequence of the arbitrariness of physical implementation central to the hypothesis. Your point about having an effect in the larger context is unproblematic as long as it is considered from a third person perspective. From this perspective there's no difficulty about the physics of the realisation, since what is relevant is simply that it fulfil the formal criteria in terms of *some* physical implementation, no putative experiential aspect being at issue. I agree that this is the right criterion to discriminate physical computational systems of interest from those that are inconsequential (i.e. rocks etc.). The point at issue with Peter, however, relates to the putatively homogeneous experiential correlate of the heterogeneous physical implementations, not their status as purely physical processes. We seem to be discussing two different issues. Consider what motivates CTM in the first place. The mind-body problem seems in many ways as impenetrable as ever, despite all advances in brain science and on the wider theoretical and experimental front. But wait a moment, we have a nice theory of computation, and we know how to apply it to computers and their programming. We even indulge in metaphor about the thoughts and intentions of our devices (I know I do). Maybe that's what the mind is? Wizard wheeze! But wait again - when we actually think about what these beasties are up to physically in their various realisations - mechanical, hydraulic, electronic, pneumatic - there's a whole raft of promiscuous, uncorrelated physical processes going on down there, and none of them much like our own wetware version. How can we get a consistent physics of consciousness out of this? What to do? I know - it doesn't matter! Great physical theory, eh? David David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/11 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I'm not sure I see what distinction you're making. If as you say the realisation of computation in a physical system doesn't cause consciousness, that would entail that no physically-realised computation could be identical to any mental state. That doesn't follow because causation and identity are different The realisation could be consciousness (fire IS combustion) without causing it (fire CAUSES smoke but it not smoke) So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? This is what follows if one accepts the argument from MGA or Olympia that consciousness does not attach to physical states qua computatio. I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. I agree. Nonetheless, when two states are functionally equivalent one can still say what it is about them that is physically relevant. For example, in driving from A to B it is functionally irrelevant to my experience whether my car is fuelled by petrol or diesel. But there is no ambiguity about the physical details of my car trip or precisely how either fuel contributes to this effect. One can say what it is about physical systems that explains its ability to realise a certain computation. One can't say that there is anything that makes it exclusively able to. Equally one can explain various ways of getting from A to B, but one can't argue that there is only one possible way. The point at issue is not whether there is only one way to realise a computation, or to get from A to B. The point is that in the case of the journey, the transition from physical irrelevance to relevance is at the point where the physical result emerges as identical - i.e. as the same journey form A to B. In the case of the
Re: Dreaming On
David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: You regard doing the same computation as a purely formal (= non-physical) critereon, but I think this is specious. It seems right because we talk about a computation at a very high level of abstraction. But when we ask what makes this causal sequence or that process a computation, in contrast to other sequences or processes that aren't, we find that we must describe the computation as having an effect in the larger physical context. So to say that two physical processes realize the same computation is formal, but it is not *only* formal. It is implicitly physical too. Yes, of course I know it's *implicitly* physical, that's the problem. The point is that evaluating CTM as a physical theory of mind necessitates making the relation between experience and process *explicitly* physical, and actually attempting this inevitably results in a failure to discover any consistent association between specific physics and specific experience. That seems like a category mistake. You're asking for and explicitly physical relation between a computation and a physical process. But a computation isn't physical; the relation has to relate something non-physical to the physical - so obviously it relates the non-physical things like potential action in a context or evolutionary function to the physical process. This is not merely unfortunate, it is a direct consequence of the arbitrariness of physical implementation central to the hypothesis. I don't see the problem. There are arbitrarily many computations of the same function too. Brent Your point about having an effect in the larger context is unproblematic as long as it is considered from a third person perspective. From this perspective there's no difficulty about the physics of the realisation, since what is relevant is simply that it fulfil the formal criteria in terms of *some* physical implementation, no putative experiential aspect being at issue. I agree that this is the right criterion to discriminate physical computational systems of interest from those that are inconsequential (i.e. rocks etc.). The point at issue with Peter, however, relates to the putatively homogeneous experiential correlate of the heterogeneous physical implementations, not their status as purely physical processes. We seem to be discussing two different issues. Consider what motivates CTM in the first place. The mind-body problem seems in many ways as impenetrable as ever, despite all advances in brain science and on the wider theoretical and experimental front. But wait a moment, we have a nice theory of computation, and we know how to apply it to computers and their programming. We even indulge in metaphor about the thoughts and intentions of our devices (I know I do). Maybe that's what the mind is? Wizard wheeze! But wait again - when we actually think about what these beasties are up to physically in their various realisations - mechanical, hydraulic, electronic, pneumatic - there's a whole raft of promiscuous, uncorrelated physical processes going on down there, and none of them much like our own wetware version. How can we get a consistent physics of consciousness out of this? What to do? I know - it doesn't matter! Great physical theory, eh? David David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/11 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I'm not sure I see what distinction you're making. If as you say the realisation of computation in a physical system doesn't cause consciousness, that would entail that no physically-realised computation could be identical to any mental state. That doesn't follow because causation and identity are different The realisation could be consciousness (fire IS combustion) without causing it (fire CAUSES smoke but it not smoke) So what did you mean the reader to conclude from your original argument? You concluded that the realisation of a computation doesn't cause consciousness. But did you also mean to imply that nonetheless the realisation of a computation IS consciousness? If so, why didn't you say so? And how would that now influence your evaluation of CTM? This is what follows if one accepts the argument from MGA or Olympia that consciousness does not attach to physical states qua computatio. I find them both quite contestable If you would risk saying precisely why, you might have a counter-argument. I agree. Nonetheless, when two states are functionally equivalent one can still say what it is about them that is physically relevant. For example, in driving from A to B it is functionally irrelevant to my experience whether my car is fuelled by petrol or diesel. But there is no ambiguity about the physical details of my car trip or precisely how either fuel contributes to this effect. One can say what it is about physical systems that explains its ability to realise a certain
Re: Dreaming On
2009/9/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Yes, of course I know it's *implicitly* physical, that's the problem. The point is that evaluating CTM as a physical theory of mind necessitates making the relation between experience and process *explicitly* physical, and actually attempting this inevitably results in a failure to discover any consistent association between specific physics and specific experience. That seems like a category mistake. You're asking for and explicitly physical relation between a computation and a physical process. But a computation isn't physical; the relation has to relate something non-physical to the physical - so obviously it relates the non-physical things like potential action in a context or evolutionary function to the physical process. This is not merely unfortunate, it is a direct consequence of the arbitrariness of physical implementation central to the hypothesis. I don't see the problem. There are arbitrarily many computations of the same function too. I'm having a really hard time comprehending why we're at such cross-purposes here. I have no difficulty with the formal definition of a computation, its multiple realisations, or with your criterion of relevance to an external context. However none of this is remotely relevant to what's at issue with respect to the status of CTM as a physical theory of *phenomenal experience*, as opposed to observed *behaviour*, which AFAICS is all you are referring to above. Let me put it like this. In any physical account of a particular phenomenon, some physical events will be relevant, and some irrelevant. I gave the example of differently fuelled journeys - I'm sure you can think of a dozen equally good or better examples. In any of these examples you would seek - and should at least in principle be able - to explain what is physically directly relevant to the outcome, what is irrelevant (in the sense of merely generally supportive of) the outcome, and how precisely this demarcation is justified in explicit physical terms. In each case, the line of demarcation would be at the point where some common physical outcome can be identified as emerging from disparate underlying processes Now let's consider CTM on the same terms. We seek to explain an outcome - an experience - that will emerge at some point of demarcation of relevant and irrelevant physical processes. To this end let us attempt to test the postulates of CTM against physical criteria independent of the hypothesis. In fact we have no way of demarcating any homogeneous physical emergents other than at the boundaries of the system, because the hypothesis rules this out, so already this makes the case quite dissimilar to any other, but let this pass for the moment. We will consider only the putative homogeneous experiential correlate of the heterogeneous physical computational processes. What can we employ as the physical criteria for its emergence? That the relevant physical processes should be present. What can we use to identify such processes and establish their relevance in terms of any given realisation? Answer: only the formal premises of CTM. Anything else? Not a thing. Computational theory in purely behavioural guise meets the criterion of equivalence not through homogeneity of physical realisation but in consistency of relation with an environment, as you imply. By contrast, any internal physical processes associated with a computational theory of homogeneous experience can only be identified and justified in terms of its own formal internal premises. Hence any physical justification deployed for this purpose in terms of any specific realisation must be completely circular. We are not supposed to assume our conclusions in our premises, and the inevitable result of so doing is to fail to make any substantive physical commitments independent of the formal presuppositions of the hypothesis itself. It is entirely a consequence of this that reductios such as MGA are able to do their work, because this physical vacuity is what permits grossly implausible realisations to be considered valid by the posits of the theory. This is QED AFAICS. How specifically, and at what point of the argument, would you disagree? David David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: You regard doing the same computation as a purely formal (= non-physical) critereon, but I think this is specious. It seems right because we talk about a computation at a very high level of abstraction. But when we ask what makes this causal sequence or that process a computation, in contrast to other sequences or processes that aren't, we find that we must describe the computation as having an effect in the larger physical context. So to say that two physical processes realize the same computation is formal, but it is not *only* formal. It is implicitly physical too. Yes, of course I know it's *implicitly*
Re: Dreaming On
David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Yes, of course I know it's *implicitly* physical, that's the problem. The point is that evaluating CTM as a physical theory of mind necessitates making the relation between experience and process *explicitly* physical, and actually attempting this inevitably results in a failure to discover any consistent association between specific physics and specific experience. That seems like a category mistake. You're asking for and explicitly physical relation between a computation and a physical process. But a computation isn't physical; the relation has to relate something non-physical to the physical - so obviously it relates the non-physical things like potential action in a context or evolutionary function to the physical process. This is not merely unfortunate, it is a direct consequence of the arbitrariness of physical implementation central to the hypothesis. I don't see the problem. There are arbitrarily many computations of the same function too. I'm having a really hard time comprehending why we're at such cross-purposes here. I have no difficulty with the formal definition of a computation, its multiple realisations, or with your criterion of relevance to an external context. However none of this is remotely relevant to what's at issue with respect to the status of CTM as a physical theory of *phenomenal experience*, as opposed to observed *behaviour*, which AFAICS is all you are referring to above. Let me put it like this. In any physical account of a particular phenomenon, some physical events will be relevant, and some irrelevant. I gave the example of differently fuelled journeys - I'm sure you can think of a dozen equally good or better examples. In any of these examples you would seek - and should at least in principle be able - to explain what is physically directly relevant to the outcome, what is irrelevant (in the sense of merely generally supportive of) the outcome, and how precisely this demarcation is justified in explicit physical terms. In each case, the line of demarcation would be at the point where some common physical outcome can be identified as emerging from disparate underlying processes Now let's consider CTM on the same terms. We seek to explain an outcome - an experience - that will emerge at some point of demarcation of relevant and irrelevant physical processes. To this end let us attempt to test the postulates of CTM against physical criteria independent of the hypothesis. In fact we have no way of demarcating any homogeneous physical emergents other than at the boundaries of the system, But the boundaries are moveable. If we ask does traveling from A to B by this path produce the same experience as by another path the firs thing we do is move the boundaries in. Do both paths go thru C? thru D? and E? and... So then question then becomes how close together do the intermediate points have to be to constitute the same experience. An interesting question. We might investigate it empirically by noting how closely the brain processes during one experience of X are similar to another experience of X - of course that brings out that to compare two experiences really means to compare one to the memory of the other or the memories of both. because the hypothesis rules this out, so already this makes the case quite dissimilar to any other, but let this pass for the moment. We will consider only the putative homogeneous experiential correlate of the heterogeneous physical computational processes. What can we employ as the physical criteria for its emergence? That the relevant physical processes should be present. What can we use to identify such processes and establish their relevance in terms of any given realisation? Answer: only the formal premises of CTM. Anything else? Not a thing. Computational theory in purely behavioural guise meets the criterion of equivalence not through homogeneity of physical realisation but in consistency of relation with an environment, as you imply. By contrast, any internal physical processes associated with a computational theory of homogeneous experience can only be identified and justified in terms of its own formal internal premises. Hence any physical justification deployed for this purpose in terms of any specific realisation must be completely circular. We are not supposed to assume our conclusions in our premises, and the inevitable result of so doing is to fail to make any substantive physical commitments independent of the formal presuppositions of the hypothesis itself. It is entirely a consequence of this that reductios such as MGA are able to do their work, because this physical vacuity is what permits grossly implausible realisations to be considered valid by the posits of the theory. This is QED AFAICS. How specifically, and at what point of
Re: Dreaming On
On 10 Sep, 14:56, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/9 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: What you say above seems pretty much in sympathy with the reductio arguments based on arbitrariness of implementation. It is strictly an argument against the claim that computation causes consciousness , as opposed to the claim that mental states are identical to computational states. I'm not sure I see what distinction you're making. If as you say the realisation of computation in a physical system doesn't cause consciousness, that would entail that no physically-realised computation could be identical to any mental state. That doesn't follow because causation and identity are different The realisation could be consciousness (fire IS combustion) without causing it (fire CAUSES smoke but it not smoke) This is what follows if one accepts the argument from MGA or Olympia that consciousness does not attach to physical states qua computatio. I find them both quite contestable But CTM is not engaged on such a project; in fact it entails the opposite conclusion: i.e. by stipulating its type-token identities purely functionally it requires that a homogeneous phenomenal state must somehow be associated with a teeming plurality of heterogeneous physical states. It doesn't suggest that any mental state can be associated with any phsycial state. It doesn't need to say that to be obscure as a physical theory. The point is that it can ex hypothesi say nothing remotely physically illuminating about what causes a mental state. To say that it results whenever a physical system implements a specific computation is to say nothing physical about that system other than to insist that it is 'physical'. ..and it implements a certain computation. That's kind of the point. It is not a criticism of the CTM that it doesn't work like a reductive physcial theory: it;s not suppposed to be. It just supposed to be a phsycialist theory that doesn't have ghosts in the machine It has been accused of overdoing Multiple Realisability, but MR can be underdone as well. I agree. Nonetheless, when two states are functionally equivalent one can still say what it is about them that is physically relevant. For example, in driving from A to B it is functionally irrelevant to my experience whether my car is fuelled by petrol or diesel. But there is no ambiguity about the physical details of my car trip or precisely how either fuel contributes to this effect. One can say what it is about physical systems that explains its ability to realise a certain computation. One can't say that there is anything that makes it exclusively able to. Equally one can explain various ways of getting from A to B, but one can't argue that there is only one possible way. Various arguments - Olympia, MGA, the Chinese Room etc. - seek to expose the myriad physical implausibilities consequential on such implementation independence. But the root of all this is that CTM makes impossible at the outset any possibility of linking a phenomenal state to any unique, fully-explicated physical reduction. That's probably a good thing. We want to be able to say that two people with fine-grained differences in their brain structure can both be (for instance) apprehensiveness. Yes, I agree. But if we're after a physical theory, we also want to be able to give in either case a clear physical account of their apprehensiveness, which would include a physical justification of why the fine-grained differences make no difference at the level of experience. THat would be because they make no computational difference, if CTM is correct. If nothing physical can in principle be ruled out as an explanation for experience, That isn't an implication of CTM. CTM can regard computers as a small subset of physical systems, and conscious computers as a small subset of computers. Yes, but we needn't push nothing physical to the extent of random association to make the point at issue. The relevant point is that, in picking out the subset of physical systems solely qua computatio, no kind of physical realisation is capable of being ruled out in principle. That is unproblematic in the usual case because our interest is restricted to the computational output of such systems, and we are unconcerned by the physical details that occasion this. But if we are seeking a physical explanation of consciousness, then it is precisely the coupling of the physical process and the mental process which requires explication in a physical theory, and this is now obscured from any general resolution by the computational posit. Obscured? It goes in two stages. Physical-.computational and computational-mental. Beyond that, your objectio to CTM seems to be (again) that it is not reductive physicalism. no uniquely-justified physical explanation need - or in practice could - be explicated. I
Re: Dreaming On
On 10 Sep, 23:09, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But isn't that because the computational in CTM is abstracted away from a context in which there is action and purpose. It's the same problem that leads to the question, Does a rock compute every function? When looking at a physical process as a computation one has to ask, Computing what? and the answer is in terms of some interaction with the rest of the world in which the computation is embedded, e.g. the answer will mean something to the programmer who started it and it means something to him because he's a human animal that evolved to have goals and values and can take actions. The level of experience, the finess or coarsenss of physical process, is determined by the level at which there are actions. Yes, I agree with your analysis completely when evaluating any externally observed situation. The trouble is that I think if this approach is followed with mentality then the experiential aspect just gets lost in the processual account. For example your saying the level of experience, the finess or coarsenss of physical process, is determined by the level at which there are actions immediately focuses attention at the interface with the environment, where inputs and outputs can be equivalent for many internally heterogeneous internal processes. This makes perfect sense in the evaluation of a person's, a computer's, or a rock's computational status, if any, because this becomes relevant only at the point where something emerges from the interior to engage with the environment. It's a big leap from that to showing how heterogeneous physical processes are internally experientially equivalent *for clearly explicable physical reasons*. The reason for my emphasis of *physical* is that my problem with CTM, at least in this discussion, is not that it is computational, but that it isn't a physical theory in any standard sense, since it can't justify the attachment of experience to any particular events for other than *functional* reasons. Why would that be inadequate. Note that functional reasons can include fine-graied internal functionalism, not just at-the-edges functionalism. Re-reading the foregoing reminds me of my basic problem with any purely third person approach to mentality, whether physical or functional. Considered from the third person perspective, 'mental' processes have no need to be experiential homogeneous because everything functionally relevant is assumed to be exhausted in the processual account, and hence experience could be nothing but epiphenomenal to this. So what difference could it make? But that is another discussion. OTOH, the experiential doesn;t have to epiphenomenal, It could be identical to some aspect of the real physical process, in which case it has identical causal relevance. However, this requires the phsycialist to give up on the idea that phsycial descriptions are the whole story. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
Brent, I guess you know my reply to this, but I want to make it clear, for the benefit of the general discussion. I add a point though. On 10 Sep 2009, at 21:27, Brent Meeker wrote: But isn't that because the computational in CTM is abstracted away from a context in which there is action and purpose. It's the same problem that leads to the question, Does a rock compute every function? When looking at a physical process as a computation one has to ask, Computing what? and the answer is in terms of some interaction with the rest of the world in which the computation is embedded, e.g. the answer will mean something to the programmer who started it and it means something to him because he's a human animal that evolved to have goals and values and can take actions. The level of experience, the finess or coarsenss of physical process, is determined by the level at which there are actions. If consciousness supervenes on your brain + a part of the world, and you accept CTM (although a non conventional externalist form of CTM), it changes nothing to the reasoning, given that if your (generalized) brain (that is your biological brain + that part of the world) is Turing emulable, he will be accessed by the UD and the reversal will go through. And then the physical world, whatever it is, has to be explained from the number relations/computer science only. This is quite different from your different answer you made in a preceding post, where you make consciousness supervening on some non turing emulable part of the world. In which case you are no more in the comp or CTM frame. Actually, to be really non-computationalist, to invoke a non computable element is not enough, because comp/CTM attached first person subjectivity (and thus consciousness) to an infinity of computations, and predict some geographical non computability, like the first person indeterminacy. So a strictly non comp theory has to attach consciousness to something physical, non computable, and different from what emerge, form the first person view, from a sum on an infinity of computations. This should be testable, and QM without collapse is going in the comp direction. 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/9 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: What you say above seems pretty much in sympathy with the reductio arguments based on arbitrariness of implementation. It is strictly an argument against the claim that computation causes consciousness , as opposed to the claim that mental states are identical to computational states. I'm not sure I see what distinction you're making. If as you say the realisation of computation in a physical system doesn't cause consciousness, that would entail that no physically-realised computation could be identical to any mental state. This is what follows if one accepts the argument from MGA or Olympia that consciousness does not attach to physical states qua computatio. But CTM is not engaged on such a project; in fact it entails the opposite conclusion: i.e. by stipulating its type-token identities purely functionally it requires that a homogeneous phenomenal state must somehow be associated with a teeming plurality of heterogeneous physical states. It doesn't suggest that any mental state can be associated with any phsycial state. It doesn't need to say that to be obscure as a physical theory. The point is that it can ex hypothesi say nothing remotely physically illuminating about what causes a mental state. To say that it results whenever a physical system implements a specific computation is to say nothing physical about that system other than to insist that it is 'physical'. It has been accused of overdoing Multiple Realisability, but MR can be underdone as well. I agree. Nonetheless, when two states are functionally equivalent one can still say what it is about them that is physically relevant. For example, in driving from A to B it is functionally irrelevant to my experience whether my car is fuelled by petrol or diesel. But there is no ambiguity about the physical details of my car trip or precisely how either fuel contributes to this effect. Various arguments - Olympia, MGA, the Chinese Room etc. - seek to expose the myriad physical implausibilities consequential on such implementation independence. But the root of all this is that CTM makes impossible at the outset any possibility of linking a phenomenal state to any unique, fully-explicated physical reduction. That's probably a good thing. We want to be able to say that two people with fine-grained differences in their brain structure can both be (for instance) apprehensiveness. Yes, I agree. But if we're after a physical theory, we also want to be able to give in either case a clear physical account of their apprehensiveness, which would include a physical justification of why the fine-grained differences make no difference at the level of experience. If nothing physical can in principle be ruled out as an explanation for experience, That isn't an implication of CTM. CTM can regard computers as a small subset of physical systems, and conscious computers as a small subset of computers. Yes, but we needn't push nothing physical to the extent of random association to make the point at issue. The relevant point is that, in picking out the subset of physical systems solely qua computatio, no kind of physical realisation is capable of being ruled out in principle. That is unproblematic in the usual case because our interest is restricted to the computational output of such systems, and we are unconcerned by the physical details that occasion this. But if we are seeking a physical explanation of consciousness, then it is precisely the coupling of the physical process and the mental process which requires explication in a physical theory, and this is now obscured from any general resolution by the computational posit. no uniquely-justified physical explanation need - or in practice could - be explicated. I don't think unique justification is a requirement The detailed implausibilities variously invoked all fall out of this. So if a physical theory of mind is what is needed, CTM would seem to fail even as a candidate because its arbitrariness with respect to physical realisation renders it incapable of grounding consciousness in any specific fundamental physical reduction. MR is not complete arbitrariness. I can only suppose that complete arbitrariness would be a random association between physical states and mental states. This is not what is meant by arbitrary realisation. What is meant is that the requirement that a physical system be deemed conscious purely in virtue of its implementing a computation rules out no particular kind of physical realisation. Consequently a theory of this type is incapable of explicating general principles of physical-mental association independent of its functional posit. If CTM had the implication that one material system could realise more than one computation, then there would be a conflict with the phsyical supervenience principle. I agree. But CTM only has the implication that one computation system
Re: Dreaming On
David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/9 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: What you say above seems pretty much in sympathy with the reductio arguments based on arbitrariness of implementation. It is strictly an argument against the claim that computation causes consciousness , as opposed to the claim that mental states are identical to computational states. I'm not sure I see what distinction you're making. If as you say the realisation of computation in a physical system doesn't cause consciousness, that would entail that no physically-realised computation could be identical to any mental state. This is what follows if one accepts the argument from MGA or Olympia that consciousness does not attach to physical states qua computatio. But CTM is not engaged on such a project; in fact it entails the opposite conclusion: i.e. by stipulating its type-token identities purely functionally it requires that a homogeneous phenomenal state must somehow be associated with a teeming plurality of heterogeneous physical states. It doesn't suggest that any mental state can be associated with any phsycial state. It doesn't need to say that to be obscure as a physical theory. The point is that it can ex hypothesi say nothing remotely physically illuminating about what causes a mental state. To say that it results whenever a physical system implements a specific computation is to say nothing physical about that system other than to insist that it is 'physical'. It has been accused of overdoing Multiple Realisability, but MR can be underdone as well. I agree. Nonetheless, when two states are functionally equivalent one can still say what it is about them that is physically relevant. For example, in driving from A to B it is functionally irrelevant to my experience whether my car is fuelled by petrol or diesel. But there is no ambiguity about the physical details of my car trip or precisely how either fuel contributes to this effect. Various arguments - Olympia, MGA, the Chinese Room etc. - seek to expose the myriad physical implausibilities consequential on such implementation independence. But the root of all this is that CTM makes impossible at the outset any possibility of linking a phenomenal state to any unique, fully-explicated physical reduction. That's probably a good thing. We want to be able to say that two people with fine-grained differences in their brain structure can both be (for instance) apprehensiveness. Yes, I agree. But if we're after a physical theory, we also want to be able to give in either case a clear physical account of their apprehensiveness, which would include a physical justification of why the fine-grained differences make no difference at the level of experience. Consider what a clear physical account of apprehensiveness might be: There's an increased level of brain activity which is similar to that caused by a strange sound when along in the dark, a slight rise in adrenaline, a tensing of muscles that would be used to flee, brain patterns formed as memories while watching slasher movies become more excited. Fine-grained differences below these levels, as might differ in others, are irrelevant to the experience. For comparison consider a Mars rover experiencing apprehension: Sensor signals indicate lack of traction which implies likely inability to reach it's next sampling point. Extra battery power is put on line and various changes in paths and backtracking are calculated. Mission control is apprised. The soil appearance related to poor traction is entered into a database with a warning note. Notice how the meaning, the content of 'apprehension' comes from the context of action and purpose and interaction with an external world. We summarize these things as a single word 'apprehension' which we then take to describe a strictly internal state. But that is because we have abstracted away the circumstances that give the meaning. There are difference cirmcustances that would give the same hightened states. 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: Dreaming On
David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Yes, I agree. But if we're after a physical theory, we also want to be able to give in either case a clear physical account of their apprehensiveness, which would include a physical justification of why the fine-grained differences make no difference at the level of experience. Consider what a clear physical account of apprehensiveness might be: There's an increased level of brain activity which is similar to that caused by a strange sound when along in the dark, a slight rise in adrenaline, a tensing of muscles that would be used to flee, brain patterns formed as memories while watching slasher movies become more excited. Fine-grained differences below these levels, as might differ in others, are irrelevant to the experience. For comparison consider a Mars rover experiencing apprehension: Sensor signals indicate lack of traction which implies likely inability to reach it's next sampling point. Extra battery power is put on line and various changes in paths and backtracking are calculated. Mission control is apprised. The soil appearance related to poor traction is entered into a database with a warning note. Notice how the meaning, the content of 'apprehension' comes from the context of action and purpose and interaction with an external world. We summarize these things as a single word 'apprehension' which we then take to describe a strictly internal state. But that is because we have abstracted away the circumstances that give the meaning. There are difference cirmcustances that would give the same hightened states. Whilst I am of course in sympathy with the larger import of you're saying, Brent, I'm not sure how it's relevant to the intentionally more restricted focus of the current discussion. It is by definition true that fine-grained differences below these levels, as might differ in others, are irrelevant to the experience. My point still is that a complete physical theory of consciousness would be capable of explicating - both in general physical principles and in detail - the relation between coarse and fine-grained physical accounts of an experiential state, whatever the wider context in which it might be embedded. Or IOW, of explaining what physical principles and processes are responsible for the fineness of fine graining and the coarseness of coarse graining. CTM doesn't appear to offer any physically explicit route to this goal. David But isn't that because the computational in CTM is abstracted away from a context in which there is action and purpose. It's the same problem that leads to the question, Does a rock compute every function? When looking at a physical process as a computation one has to ask, Computing what? and the answer is in terms of some interaction with the rest of the world in which the computation is embedded, e.g. the answer will mean something to the programmer who started it and it means something to him because he's a human animal that evolved to have goals and values and can take actions. The level of experience, the finess or coarsenss of physical process, is determined by the level at which there are actions. Brent Bretn --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But isn't that because the computational in CTM is abstracted away from a context in which there is action and purpose. It's the same problem that leads to the question, Does a rock compute every function? When looking at a physical process as a computation one has to ask, Computing what? and the answer is in terms of some interaction with the rest of the world in which the computation is embedded, e.g. the answer will mean something to the programmer who started it and it means something to him because he's a human animal that evolved to have goals and values and can take actions. The level of experience, the finess or coarsenss of physical process, is determined by the level at which there are actions. Yes, I agree with your analysis completely when evaluating any externally observed situation. The trouble is that I think if this approach is followed with mentality then the experiential aspect just gets lost in the processual account. For example your saying the level of experience, the finess or coarsenss of physical process, is determined by the level at which there are actions immediately focuses attention at the interface with the environment, where inputs and outputs can be equivalent for many internally heterogeneous internal processes. This makes perfect sense in the evaluation of a person's, a computer's, or a rock's computational status, if any, because this becomes relevant only at the point where something emerges from the interior to engage with the environment. It's a big leap from that to showing how heterogeneous physical processes are internally experientially equivalent *for clearly explicable physical reasons*. The reason for my emphasis of *physical* is that my problem with CTM, at least in this discussion, is not that it is computational, but that it isn't a physical theory in any standard sense, since it can't justify the attachment of experience to any particular events for other than *functional* reasons. Re-reading the foregoing reminds me of my basic problem with any purely third person approach to mentality, whether physical or functional. Considered from the third person perspective, 'mental' processes have no need to be experiential homogeneous because everything functionally relevant is assumed to be exhausted in the processual account, and hence experience could be nothing but epiphenomenal to this. So what difference could it make? But that is another discussion. David David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/10 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Yes, I agree. But if we're after a physical theory, we also want to be able to give in either case a clear physical account of their apprehensiveness, which would include a physical justification of why the fine-grained differences make no difference at the level of experience. Consider what a clear physical account of apprehensiveness might be: There's an increased level of brain activity which is similar to that caused by a strange sound when along in the dark, a slight rise in adrenaline, a tensing of muscles that would be used to flee, brain patterns formed as memories while watching slasher movies become more excited. Fine-grained differences below these levels, as might differ in others, are irrelevant to the experience. For comparison consider a Mars rover experiencing apprehension: Sensor signals indicate lack of traction which implies likely inability to reach it's next sampling point. Extra battery power is put on line and various changes in paths and backtracking are calculated. Mission control is apprised. The soil appearance related to poor traction is entered into a database with a warning note. Notice how the meaning, the content of 'apprehension' comes from the context of action and purpose and interaction with an external world. We summarize these things as a single word 'apprehension' which we then take to describe a strictly internal state. But that is because we have abstracted away the circumstances that give the meaning. There are difference cirmcustances that would give the same hightened states. Whilst I am of course in sympathy with the larger import of you're saying, Brent, I'm not sure how it's relevant to the intentionally more restricted focus of the current discussion. It is by definition true that fine-grained differences below these levels, as might differ in others, are irrelevant to the experience. My point still is that a complete physical theory of consciousness would be capable of explicating - both in general physical principles and in detail - the relation between coarse and fine-grained physical accounts of an experiential state, whatever the wider context in which it might be embedded. Or IOW, of explaining what physical principles and processes are responsible for the fineness of fine graining and the coarseness of coarse graining. CTM doesn't appear to offer any
Re: Dreaming On
On 9 Sep, 01:39, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 1. Computationalism in general associates that consciousness with a specific comptuer programme, programme C let's say. 2. Let us combine that with the further claim that programme C causes cosnciousness, somehow leveraging the physical causality of the hardware it is running on. 3. A corrolary of that is that running programme C will always cause the same effect. 4. Running a programme on hardware is a physical process with physical effects. 5. It is in the nature of causality that the same kind of cause produces the same kind of effects-- that is, causaliy attaches to types not tokens. 6. Running a programme on hardware will cause physical effects, and these will be determined by the kind of physical hardware. (Valve computers will generate heat, cogwheel computers will generate noise, etc). 7. Therefore, running programme C on different kinds of hardware will not produce a uniform effect as required by 1. 8. Programmes do not have a physical typology: they are not natural kinds. In that sense they are abstract. (Arguably, that is not as abstract as the square root of two, since they still have physical tokens. There may be more than one kind or level of abstraction). 9. Conclusion: even running programmes are not apt to cause consciousness. They are still too abstract. What you say above seems pretty much in sympathy with the reductio arguments based on arbitrariness of implementation. It is strictly an argument against the claim that computation causes consciousness , as opposed to the claim that mental states are identical to computational states. As you say above consciousness might depend on specific properties of hardware, of matter. If so, this would demand an explicitly physical theory of mind, and such a 'Searlian' project would consequently seek to associate a specific phenomenal state with specific physical events. But CTM is not engaged on such a project; in fact it entails the opposite conclusion: i.e. by stipulating its type-token identities purely functionally it requires that a homogeneous phenomenal state must somehow be associated with a teeming plurality of heterogeneous physical states. It doesn't suggest that any mental state can be associated with any phsycial state. It has been accused of overdoing Multiple Realisability, but MR can be underdone as well. Various arguments - Olympia, MGA, the Chinese Room etc. - seek to expose the myriad physical implausibilities consequential on such implementation independence. But the root of all this is that CTM makes impossible at the outset any possibility of linking a phenomenal state to any unique, fully-explicated physical reduction. That's probably a good thing. We want to be able to say that two people with fine-grained differences in their brain structure can both be (for instance) apprehensiveness. If nothing physical can in principle be ruled out as an explanation for experience, That isn't an implication of CTM. CTM can regard computers as a small subset of physical systems, and conscious computers as a small subset of computers. no uniquely-justified physical explanation need - or in practice could - be explicated. I don't think unique justification is a requirement The detailed implausibilities variously invoked all fall out of this. So if a physical theory of mind is what is needed, CTM would seem to fail even as a candidate because its arbitrariness with respect to physical realisation renders it incapable of grounding consciousness in any specific fundamental physical reduction. MR is not complete arbitrariness. Indeed defences of functionalism against its various critics never cite any physical grounds for the plausibility of conscious supervenience on the physical composition of, say, the Chinese room, but focus instead on defending the functional relevance of various features of the experimental setup. Hence, without an explicitly physical, as opposed to functional, criterion for what counts as a 'physical' explanation, it is hard to see how CTM is compatible with any intelligible notion of materialism. It is compatible with materialism because brains and computers are material. If CTM had the implication that one material system could realise more than one computation, then there would be a conflict with the phsyical supervenience principle. But CTM only has the implication that one computation system could be realised more on more than one material system. Indeed, its success could only be in direct opposition to the principles of materialist reductive theory. I don't think that follows at all. Isn't that a reasonable conclusion? David --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to
Re: Dreaming On
On 3 Sep, 09:41, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/3 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 3 Sep, 01:26, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: and is thus not any particular physical object. A specific physical implementation is a token of that computational type, and is indeed a physical object, albeit one whose physical details can be of any variety so long as they continue to instantiate the relevant computational invariance. Hence it is hard to see how a specific (invariant) example of an experiential state could be justified as being token-identical with all the different physical implementations of a computation. I was right. A mental type can be associated with a computational type. Any token of a mental type can be associated with a token of the corresponding computational type. But what difference is that supposed to make? The type association is implicit in what I was saying. All you've said above is that it makes no difference whether one talks in terms of the mental type or the associated computational type because their equivalence is a posit of CTM. And whether it is plausible that the physical tokens so picked out possess the causal efficacy presupposed by CTM is precisely what I was questioning. question it then. what's the problem? But even on this basis it still doesn't seem possible to establish any consistent identity between the physical variety of the tokens thus distinguished and a putatively unique experiential state. The variety of the physical implementations is reduced by grouping them as equivalent computational types. Computation is abstract. Abstraction is ignoring irrelevant details. Ignoring irrelevant details establishes a many-to-one relationship : many possible implementations of one mental state. Again, that's not an argument - you're just reciting the *assumptions* of CTM, not arguing for their plausibility. you're not arguing against its plausibility The justification of the supposed irrelevance of particular physical details is that they are required to be ignored for the supposed efficacy of the type-token relation to be plausible. That doesn't make it so. why not? we already know they can be ignored to establish computational equivalence. On the contrary, any unbiased a priori prediction would be of experiential variance on the basis of physical variance. Yes. The substance of the CTM claim is that physical differences do not make a mental difference unless they make a computational difference. That is to say, switching from one token of a type of computation to another cannot make a difference in mentation. That is not to be expected on an unbiased basis, just because it is a substantive claim. Yes it's precisely the claim whose plausibility I've been questioning. You haven't said anything specific about what is wrong with it at all. The variety of the physical implementations is reduced by grouping them as equivalent computational types. Computation is abstract. Abstraction is ignoring irrelevant details. Ignoring irrelevant details establishes a many-to-one relationship : many possible implementations of one mental state. Yes thanks, this is indeed the hypothesis. But simply recapitulating the assumptions isn't exactly an uncommitted assessment of their plausibility is it? Saying it is not necessarily correct is not a critique That can only immunise it from criticism. There is no whiff in CTM of why it should be considered plausible on physical grounds alone. Hence counter arguments can legitimately question the consistency of its claims as a physical theory in the absence of its type-token presuppositions. If you mean you can criticise the CTM as offering nothing specific to resolve the HP, you are correct. But I *thought* we were discussing the MG/Olympia style of argument, which purportedly still applies even if you restrict yourself to cognition and forget about experience/qualia. Are we? Look, let me turn this round. You've said before that you're not a diehard partisan of CTM. What in your view would be persuasive grounds for doubting it? I'll explain below. But the claim I am interested in is that CTM somehow disproves materalism (Maudlin, BTW takes it the other way around-- materialism disproves CTM). I have heard not a word in support of *that* claim. ust an Artificial Intellence be a Computer ? An AI is not necessarily a computer. Not everything is a computer or computer-emulable. It just needs to be artificial and intelligent! Then it's no more *CTM*. (C means Computational) I know. I am not defending CTM against all-comers. I am trying to find out why some people think it is incompatible with mateialsim.
Re: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 23:48, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 17:46, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: time capsules are just what I am talking about. Why would you need anythign more for the specious present than a snapshop some of which is out of date? Well, as well as the question of what constitutes the qualitative character of such snapshots, one might also wonder about the curious fact that such 'frozen' capsules nonetheless appear to us as possessing internal temporal duration and differentiation. Easily explained if perceptual data are timestamped. This seems to appeal simultaneously to aspects of both flux and block models of time whilst being entirely consistent with neither. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 02 Sep 2009, at 03:17, Brent Meeker wrote: But only by isolating a bit of computation from the rest of universe. And it doesn't show that a computation supervenes on zero physical activity. And even if it did show that, it would not follow that mental computation *does* supervene on computation realized in Platonia with zero physical activity. Maudlin's Olympia shows that a computation can be realized with zero *computational* physical activity, and this means that if we keep associating the consciousness to the computation, the physical activity has no role there. MGA shows that if we associate consciousness to the physical activity implementing a computation, then we have to associate that consciousness in real time to a description of that computation, which can be seen as absurd in different ways. We can come back on this, but I think it is better I explain what mathematician means by computations. MGA and MGA-like argument can be seen as an extension of what is done in UDA1-6. It shows that a universal machine cannot see the difference between real, virtual and then arithmetical. But like the notion of virtual emulation has to be grasped for the step 6, the notion of arithmetical computation has to be grasped before, and that is why I am explaining the mathematician definition of universal machine and its computations. This is an absurd conclusion, so the hypothesis that motivates it - i.e. CTM+PM - is thus shown to be contradictory and must be abandoned, not merely in this case, but in general: i.e. the exception has broken the rule. This is forced unless you can show where the logic goes wrong. No, even if the conclusion is wrong that only shows that *some* step in the argument is wrong NOT that the conjunction of the computationalist theory of mind and primary matter is self contradictory. You can say this for any proof by reduction ad absurdo. But if someone pretend having done a reduction of absurdo of A+B, that is, pretend to have provide a proof, or argument, that A+B - false, then if you disagree that this leads to ~(A+B), you have to *find* at which step the error is. That's the very idea of proving. Of course in a difficult applied subject, you can always find some loophole of the kind invisible horses driving cars, and it is a matter of pedagogy to explains things spirit, instead of big set of formalities capable of satisfying everyone in the first strike. In the present case, you can always develop a sufficiently ridiculous notion of matter and physical computation to block the proof, but it should be clear that a strong change of the meaning of the hypothesis is done. I don't even see where the argument uses PM to reach its conclusion. Note that PM is used in all UDA1-7, and at that stage, you can still argue that the supposedly existing physical universe is too little to run a big part of the UD, (but we have already the result that comp entails indeterminacy and non-locality). The step 8 just shows that the move toward a little physical universe does not really work, in the sense that the physical supervenience thesis, in the comp frame, entails that we can show the physical activity non relevant with respect to the computation. You have to believe that consciousness in real time is related to static description of such computation, which is perhaps not contradictory, but is non sensical. You can no more say yes to the doctor 'qua computatio'. Maybe CTM+UD is a simpler explanation of the world, a return to Platonic idealism, but I don't see that its contrary is contrdictory. It is contradictory with the idea that consciousness is related to both the computation and the physical activity, in the PM sense of physical activity. A movie of a brain become conscious qua computation and without computation. It is not a mathematical contradiction, but a conceptual difficulty preventing saying yes to the doctor by appealing to the notion of computation. Like invisible horses pulling cars could throw doubt to the thermodynamical explanation of car motor. As I have always said, MGA does not eliminate completely some use of Occam; it minimizes it, but, like always in applied math, you can imagine a sufficiently bizarre notion of physical computation to stuck the logic of the applied proof, a bit like your own move of associating your consciousness to a non computable physical object outside your brain. But with the generalized brain, this is taking into account. If your consciousness, to exist, needs that uncomputable object, you are no more in the comp frame. It is like the collapse of the wave packet. It shows that the many- worlds does not follow logically from the SWE, and the collapse is so badly defined, that you can hardy evacuate it (like the God-of-the-gap in physics), yet, I do think that the many-words follows directly from
Re: Dreaming On
2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Well, as well as the question of what constitutes the qualitative character of such snapshots, one might also wonder about the curious fact that such 'frozen' capsules nonetheless appear to us as possessing internal temporal duration and differentiation. Easily explained if perceptual data are timestamped. Yes, that would appear to be the specification, more or less. What's the implementation? David On 1 Sep, 23:48, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 17:46, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: time capsules are just what I am talking about. Why would you need anythign more for the specious present than a snapshop some of which is out of date? Well, as well as the question of what constitutes the qualitative character of such snapshots, one might also wonder about the curious fact that such 'frozen' capsules nonetheless appear to us as possessing internal temporal duration and differentiation. Easily explained if perceptual data are timestamped. This seems to appeal simultaneously to aspects of both flux and block models of time whilst being entirely consistent with neither. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/2 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But the physical implementation (cause?) is invariant in it's functional relations. That's why two physical implementations which are different at some lower level can be said to implement the same computation at a higher level. I see nothing incoherent is saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. So if mental states are certain kinds of computations (either physically realized or in Platonia) they can be realized on different, i.e. non-invariant physical processes. What's incoherent about that? I wonder what you mean by either physically realized or in Platonia? ISTM that there is not one assumption here, but two. If computation is restricted to the sense of physical realisation, then there is indeed nothing problematic in saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. We can understand what is meant without ambiguity; 'different' is indeed different, and any identity is thus non-physical (i.e. relational). But 'realisation' of such relational identity in Platonia in the form of an invariant experiential state is surely something else entirely: i.e. if it is a supplementary hypothesis to PM it is dualism. The point of Bruno's argument is to force a choice between the attachment of experience to physical process or computation; but not both at the same time. And that's where my idea that the context/environment is essential. It defines the level at which functions must be the same; in other words when we say yes to the doctor we are assuming that he will replace our brain so that it has the same input/ouput at the level of our afferent and efferent nerves and hormones (roughly speaking). Then we would continue to exist in and experience this world. This is why we would hesitate to say yes to the doctor if he proposed to also simulate the rest of world with which we interact, e.g. in a rock, because it would mean our consciousness would be in a different world - not this one, which due to it's much greater complexity would not be emulable. Yes, this could make sense. But what you're saying is that if we knew the correct substitution level, be it at the level of our afferent and efferent nerves and hormones, or some different or finer analysis, we would in effect have reproduced whatever is 'physically' relevant to consciousness. Whether this is indeed possible at any functional level above the atomic may in the end be resolvable empirically, it can't simply be assumed a priori on the basis of computational theory. In point of fact you haven't actually appealed to software here, but rather to highly specific details of physical implementation, and this is a hardware issue, as we computer programmers are wont to say. But I guess the 'yes doctor' is really about where the distinction between hardware and software merges experientially. And then the import of MGA is that if the gap closes at any level above atom-for-atom substitution, any attachment of experience to 'PM' below that level becomes spurious for CMT. David David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/2 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com I'm afraid that still doesn't work. I realise it's counter intuitive, but this is the point - to recalibrate the intuitions. 'Standard' CTM postulates that the mind is a computation implemented by the brain, and hence in principle implementable by any physical process capable of instantiating the equivalent computation. Bruno's 'version' starts with this postulate and then shows that the first part of the hypothesis - i.e. that the mind is computational - is incompatible with the second part - i.e. that it is implemented by some specifically distinguishable non-computational process. That's the step I don't grasp. I see that the MGA makes it plausible that the mind could be a computation divorced from all physical processes - but not that it must be. Maybe you can explain it. Well, I'll recapitulate what insight I possess. As I see it, both MGA and Olympia are intended to show how postulating, on the basis of PM, that invariant mental states supervene qua computatio, as Bruno would say, on non-invariant physical causes is flatly incoherent - i.e. it leads to absurd consequences. But the physical implementation (cause?) is invariant in it's functional relations. That's why two physical implementations which are different at some lower level can be said to implement the same computation at a higher level. I see nothing incoherent is saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. So if mental states are certain kinds of computations (either physically realized or in Platonia) they can be realized on different, i.e. non-invariant physical processes. What's incoherent about that? And that's where my idea that the context/environment is essential. It defines the level at which functions must be the same; in
Re: Dreaming On
On 2 Sep, 16:58, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Well, as well as the question of what constitutes the qualitative character of such snapshots, one might also wonder about the curious fact that such 'frozen' capsules nonetheless appear to us as possessing internal temporal duration and differentiation. Easily explained if perceptual data are timestamped. Yes, that would appear to be the specification, more or less. What's the implementation? Is that a philosophical question? On 1 Sep, 23:48, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 17:46, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: time capsules are just what I am talking about. Why would you need anythign more for the specious present than a snapshop some of which is out of date? Well, as well as the question of what constitutes the qualitative character of such snapshots, one might also wonder about the curious fact that such 'frozen' capsules nonetheless appear to us as possessing internal temporal duration and differentiation. Easily explained if perceptual data are timestamped. This seems to appeal simultaneously to aspects of both flux and block models of time whilst being entirely consistent with neither. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 2 Sep, 16:56, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But the physical implementation (cause?) is invariant in it's functional relations. That's why two physical implementations which are different at some lower level can be said to implement the same computation at a higher level. I see nothing incoherent is saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. So if mental states are certain kinds of computations (either physically realized or in Platonia) they can be realized on different, i.e. non-invariant physical processes. What's incoherent about that? I wonder what you mean by either physically realized or in Platonia? ISTM that there is not one assumption here, but two. If computation is restricted to the sense of physical realisation, then there is indeed nothing problematic in saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. We can understand what is meant without ambiguity; 'different' is indeed different, and any identity is thus non-physical (i.e. relational). But 'realisation' of such relational identity in Platonia in the form of an invariant experiential state is surely something else entirely: i.e. if it is a supplementary hypothesis to PM it is dualism. Why would a believer in CTM need to make that additional step? (You seem to be talkign about the abstract computaitonal state having exitence independent from its concrete physcial isntantiations). The point of Bruno's argument is to force a choice between the attachment of experience to physical process or computation; but not both at the same time. I see no problem with mental states attaching to phsycial processes via the computaitons instantiated by them. AFAICS that is still CTM. Since every instance of a computation *is* an instance of a phsycial process as well, there is no either/or. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 2 Sep, 17:56, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I wonder what you mean by either physically realized or in Platonia? ISTM that there is not one assumption here, but two. If computation is restricted to the sense of physical realisation, then there is indeed nothing problematic in saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. We can understand what is meant without ambiguity; 'different' is indeed different, and any identity is thus non-physical (i.e. relational). But 'realisation' of such relational identity in Platonia in the form of an invariant experiential state is surely something else entirely: i.e. if it is a supplementary hypothesis to PM it is dualism. Why would a believer in CTM need to make that additional step? (You seem to be talkign about the abstract computaitonal state having exitence independent from its concrete physcial isntantiations). No, I was querying whether Brent was implying this by his reference to mental states realised in Platonia but nonetheless deemed to supervene on physical process. But without such dual supervention, where does that leave CTM+PM? Either we're appealing to experience=computation=invariant, or we're appealing to experience=physical process=variant. Well, I've asked before, but what does (in) variant mean here? If we seek refuge in both, then in what sense can we maintain an identity? Does invariant=variant? But if what is meant by this is that physical process is only relevant to experience *inasmuch as it functionally instantiates a computation* - i.e. only the non-physical aspects make any difference - then precisely what remains of experience that is physical? The term Bruno sometimes uses for any such sense of 'physical' is 'spurious', and I think that about sums it up. David i suspect you are mixing types and tokens. But I await an answer to the question --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I wonder what you mean by either physically realized or in Platonia? ISTM that there is not one assumption here, but two. If computation is restricted to the sense of physical realisation, then there is indeed nothing problematic in saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. We can understand what is meant without ambiguity; 'different' is indeed different, and any identity is thus non-physical (i.e. relational). But 'realisation' of such relational identity in Platonia in the form of an invariant experiential state is surely something else entirely: i.e. if it is a supplementary hypothesis to PM it is dualism. Why would a believer in CTM need to make that additional step? (You seem to be talkign about the abstract computaitonal state having exitence independent from its concrete physcial isntantiations). No, I was querying whether Brent was implying this by his reference to mental states realised in Platonia but nonetheless deemed to supervene on physical process. But without such dual supervention, where does that leave CTM+PM? Either we're appealing to experience=computation=invariant, or we're appealing to experience=physical process=variant. If we seek refuge in both, then in what sense can we maintain an identity? Does invariant=variant? But if what is meant by this is that physical process is only relevant to experience *inasmuch as it functionally instantiates a computation* - i.e. only the non-physical aspects make any difference - then precisely what remains of experience that is physical? The term Bruno sometimes uses for any such sense of 'physical' is 'spurious', and I think that about sums it up. David On 2 Sep, 16:56, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: But the physical implementation (cause?) is invariant in it's functional relations. That's why two physical implementations which are different at some lower level can be said to implement the same computation at a higher level. I see nothing incoherent is saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. So if mental states are certain kinds of computations (either physically realized or in Platonia) they can be realized on different, i.e. non-invariant physical processes. What's incoherent about that? I wonder what you mean by either physically realized or in Platonia? ISTM that there is not one assumption here, but two. If computation is restricted to the sense of physical realisation, then there is indeed nothing problematic in saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. We can understand what is meant without ambiguity; 'different' is indeed different, and any identity is thus non-physical (i.e. relational). But 'realisation' of such relational identity in Platonia in the form of an invariant experiential state is surely something else entirely: i.e. if it is a supplementary hypothesis to PM it is dualism. Why would a believer in CTM need to make that additional step? (You seem to be talkign about the abstract computaitonal state having exitence independent from its concrete physcial isntantiations). The point of Bruno's argument is to force a choice between the attachment of experience to physical process or computation; but not both at the same time. I see no problem with mental states attaching to phsycial processes via the computaitons instantiated by them. AFAICS that is still CTM. Since every instance of a computation *is* an instance of a phsycial process as well, there is no either/or. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: i suspect you are mixing types and tokens. But I await an answer to the question Well, a computation is a type, and is thus not any particular physical object. A specific physical implementation is a token of that computational type, and is indeed a physical object, albeit one whose physical details can be of any variety so long as they continue to instantiate the relevant computational invariance. Hence it is hard to see how a specific (invariant) example of an experiential state could be justified as being token-identical with all the different physical implementations of a computation. It might appear that a defence against the foregoing is to say that only the appropriate functionally-distinguished subsets of the entire implementing substrate need be deemed tokens of the relevant computational type, and that actual occasions of experience can be considered to be token-identical with these subsets. But even on this basis it still doesn't seem possible to establish any consistent identity between the physical variety of the tokens thus distinguished and a putatively unique experiential state. On the contrary, any unbiased a priori prediction would be of experiential variance on the basis of physical variance. Hence continuing to insist on physically-based token-identity seems entirely ad hoc. The unique challenge facing us, on the assumption of primitive materiality, is the personally manifest existence of an experiential state associated with a physical system. The first person gives us a unique insight in this instance which is unavailable for other type-token analyses. Ordinarily, picking out functional invariance in physical systems is unproblematic, because the invariance is one of type, not of token. The token may vary but the type-token association is unharmed. But, uniquely, this doesn't hold for a theory of mind based on primitive materiality, because now we have a unique token-identity - mind-body - and thus it is inconsistent to expect to substitute an entirely different type of body and expect no substantive change on the other side of the identical doublet. The resort of desperation is of course to disregard this unique distinction, or worse to relegate experience to mere typehood; but in that case we eliminate it from concrete existence. David No, I was querying whether Brent was implying this by his reference to mental states realised in Platonia but nonetheless deemed to supervene on physical process. But without such dual supervention, where does that leave CTM+PM? Either we're appealing to experience=computation=invariant, or we're appealing to experience=physical process=variant. Well, I've asked before, but what does (in) variant mean here? David On 2 Sep, 17:56, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I wonder what you mean by either physically realized or in Platonia? ISTM that there is not one assumption here, but two. If computation is restricted to the sense of physical realisation, then there is indeed nothing problematic in saying that two physically different computers perform the same computation. We can understand what is meant without ambiguity; 'different' is indeed different, and any identity is thus non-physical (i.e. relational). But 'realisation' of such relational identity in Platonia in the form of an invariant experiential state is surely something else entirely: i.e. if it is a supplementary hypothesis to PM it is dualism. Why would a believer in CTM need to make that additional step? (You seem to be talkign about the abstract computaitonal state having exitence independent from its concrete physcial isntantiations). No, I was querying whether Brent was implying this by his reference to mental states realised in Platonia but nonetheless deemed to supervene on physical process. But without such dual supervention, where does that leave CTM+PM? Either we're appealing to experience=computation=invariant, or we're appealing to experience=physical process=variant. Well, I've asked before, but what does (in) variant mean here? If we seek refuge in both, then in what sense can we maintain an identity? Does invariant=variant? But if what is meant by this is that physical process is only relevant to experience *inasmuch as it functionally instantiates a computation* - i.e. only the non-physical aspects make any difference - then precisely what remains of experience that is physical? The term Bruno sometimes uses for any such sense of 'physical' is 'spurious', and I think that about sums it up. David i suspect you are mixing types and tokens. But I await an answer to the question --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to
Re: Dreaming On
On 2 Sep, 21:20, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: i suspect you are mixing types and tokens. But I await an answer to the question Well, a computation is a type, A type of computation is a type. A token of a type of computation is a token. and is thus not any particular physical object. A specific physical implementation is a token of that computational type, and is indeed a physical object, albeit one whose physical details can be of any variety so long as they continue to instantiate the relevant computational invariance. Hence it is hard to see how a specific (invariant) example of an experiential state could be justified as being token-identical with all the different physical implementations of a computation. I was right. A mental type can be associated with a computational type. Any token of a mental type can be associated with a token of the corresponding computational type. The difficulty comes from mixing types and tokens. It might appear that a defence against the foregoing is to say that only the appropriate functionally-distinguished subsets of the entire implementing substrate need be deemed tokens of the relevant computational type, and that actual occasions of experience can be considered to be token-identical with these subsets. But even on this basis it still doesn't seem possible to establish any consistent identity between the physical variety of the tokens thus distinguished and a putatively unique experiential state. The variety of the physical implementations is reduced by grouping them as equivalent computational types. Computation is abstract. Abstraction is ignoring irrelevant details. Ignoring irrelevant details establishes a many-to-one relationship : many possible implementations of one mental state. On the contrary, any unbiased a priori prediction would be of experiential variance on the basis of physical variance. Yes. The substance of the CTM claim is that physical differences do not make a mental difference unless they make a computational difference. That is to say, switching from one token of a type of computation to another cannot make a difference in mentation. That is not to be expected on an unbiased basis, just because it is a substantive claim. Hence continuing to insist on physically-based token-identity seems entirely ad hoc. Identity of what with what? The unique challenge facing us, on the assumption of primitive materiality, is the personally manifest existence of an experiential state associated with a physical system. The first person gives us a unique insight in this instance which is unavailable for other type-token analyses. Ordinarily, picking out functional invariance in physical systems is unproblematic, because the invariance is one of type, not of token. Uhhhexactly how does the first person insight break the invariance-of-type-with-variance-of-token thing? The token may vary but the type-token association is unharmed. So long as it is a token of the same type, yes. But, uniquely, this doesn't hold for a theory of mind based on primitive materiality, because now we have a unique token-identity - mind-body - and thus it is inconsistent to expect to substitute an entirely different type of body and expect no substantive change on the other side of the identical doublet. Why? I see nothing there except blunt dogmatic insistence. In general, randomly selecting another body will lead to another mind. But that is not different from saying that randomly selecting differently configured hardware will lead to a different computation. The point of CTM is that making a non-random substitution -- that is, picking another token of the same type of computation -- will also automatically amount to picking another token of the same type of mentation. I have no idea why you think introducing a first person would make a difference. The resort of desperation is of course to disregard this unique distinction, or worse to relegate experience to mere typehood; but in that case we eliminate it from concrete existence. David No, I was querying whether Brent was implying this by his reference to mental states realised in Platonia but nonetheless deemed to supervene on physical process. But without such dual supervention, where does that leave CTM+PM? Either we're appealing to experience=computation=invariant, or we're appealing to experience=physical process=variant. Well, I've asked before, but what does (in) variant mean here? And i still haven't found 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
Re: Dreaming On
2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: and is thus not any particular physical object. A specific physical implementation is a token of that computational type, and is indeed a physical object, albeit one whose physical details can be of any variety so long as they continue to instantiate the relevant computational invariance. Hence it is hard to see how a specific (invariant) example of an experiential state could be justified as being token-identical with all the different physical implementations of a computation. I was right. A mental type can be associated with a computational type. Any token of a mental type can be associated with a token of the corresponding computational type. But what difference is that supposed to make? The type association is implicit in what I was saying. All you've said above is that it makes no difference whether one talks in terms of the mental type or the associated computational type because their equivalence is a posit of CTM. And whether it is plausible that the physical tokens so picked out possess the causal efficacy presupposed by CTM is precisely what I was questioning. But even on this basis it still doesn't seem possible to establish any consistent identity between the physical variety of the tokens thus distinguished and a putatively unique experiential state. The variety of the physical implementations is reduced by grouping them as equivalent computational types. Computation is abstract. Abstraction is ignoring irrelevant details. Ignoring irrelevant details establishes a many-to-one relationship : many possible implementations of one mental state. Again, that's not an argument - you're just reciting the *assumptions* of CTM, not arguing for their plausibility. The justification of the supposed irrelevance of particular physical details is that they are required to be ignored for the supposed efficacy of the type-token relation to be plausible. That doesn't make it so. On the contrary, any unbiased a priori prediction would be of experiential variance on the basis of physical variance. Yes. The substance of the CTM claim is that physical differences do not make a mental difference unless they make a computational difference. That is to say, switching from one token of a type of computation to another cannot make a difference in mentation. That is not to be expected on an unbiased basis, just because it is a substantive claim. Yes it's precisely the claim whose plausibility I've been questioning. The variety of the physical implementations is reduced by grouping them as equivalent computational types. Computation is abstract. Abstraction is ignoring irrelevant details. Ignoring irrelevant details establishes a many-to-one relationship : many possible implementations of one mental state. Yes thanks, this is indeed the hypothesis. But simply recapitulating the assumptions isn't exactly an uncommitted assessment of their plausibility is it? That can only immunise it from criticism. There is no whiff in CTM of why it should be considered plausible on physical grounds alone. Hence counter arguments can legitimately question the consistency of its claims as a physical theory in the absence of its type-token presuppositions. Look, let me turn this round. You've said before that you're not a diehard partisan of CTM. What in your view would be persuasive grounds for doubting it? David On 2 Sep, 21:20, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/2 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: i suspect you are mixing types and tokens. But I await an answer to the question Well, a computation is a type, A type of computation is a type. A token of a type of computation is a token. and is thus not any particular physical object. A specific physical implementation is a token of that computational type, and is indeed a physical object, albeit one whose physical details can be of any variety so long as they continue to instantiate the relevant computational invariance. Hence it is hard to see how a specific (invariant) example of an experiential state could be justified as being token-identical with all the different physical implementations of a computation. I was right. A mental type can be associated with a computational type. Any token of a mental type can be associated with a token of the corresponding computational type. The difficulty comes from mixing types and tokens. It might appear that a defence against the foregoing is to say that only the appropriate functionally-distinguished subsets of the entire implementing substrate need be deemed tokens of the relevant computational type, and that actual occasions of experience can be considered to be token-identical with these subsets. But even on this basis it still doesn't seem possible to establish any consistent identity between the physical variety of the tokens thus distinguished and a putatively
Re: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 01:25, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/31 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Peter, surely you must see that in saying abstracta are arrived at by ignoring irrelevant features of individual objects you are simply agreeing with Quentin that if everything is reduced to physical interaction then computations aren't real. The instances are real, the kind is not. His argument clearly shows that by not real he means that under PM there is no final appeal to some 'abstract causal structure' beyond the physical. Who needs it? It certainly isn't needed for anything in Computer Science But since I've never detected anything of this sort in your own views, what precisely are you disputing? No coherent causal account in terms of PM is at liberty to ignore irrelevant features in perpetuity. Who says it does? The deal with PM is that, though such abstracted schemata are indeed borrowed promiscuously, such loans are made on the strict understanding of their being ultimately repayable in fully reduced physical coin. Every instance is 100% physical. Abstraction is a process performed by minds which are then cashed out as brains. Otherwise ignoring their material constitution is tantamount to ignoring their existence. It is not ingnored when dealing with the instance/token, only when dealing with the class/type Consequently, CTM in the context of PM is simply not a *physical* explanation - in fact, it treats PM as *irrelevant* to the attribution of consciousness. That doesn't remotely follow from anything you have said. What it would take to make it a physical explanation would be a method of showing exactly how each specific instantiation of a putatively invariant computational consciousness is separately reducible to a justified physical causal account of consciousness. Huh? The whole point of CTM is that physical details are unnecessary to explain consciousness beyond their ability to implement the right software. Hence it doesn't matter what a person had fro breakfast or what colour an AI's casing is. But this is infeasible for two reasons. Firstly CMT under PM is a brute apriori assumption that makes no direct reference to physical causality, and hence eludes any justification in terms of it. That's a non-sequitur. Just about any claim has an implicit background structure. CTM can rest on a standard account of how computers work physically. That is just engineering and not really the same are if concern. not explicitly mentioning does not mean inexplicable in terms of Secondly, it is precisely this non-physical postulate of CMT that masks what is a direct contradiction in terms. What non-physical postulate? Under strictly physical analysis, the equivalence it postulates - i.e. that arbitrarily many heterogeneous PM dispositions (a) instantiate the same homogeneous physical state (b) It doesn't postulate physcial equivalence, it postulates computatioal equivalence. - simply evaporates, since in making any plausible appeal to direct physical explanation (a) and (b) could only coherently be characterisations of identical physical systems. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 01:21, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 Aug, 15:14, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I would not put AR on the same par as PM(*). I know that Peter have problem with this, but AR does not commit you ontologically. It is just the idea that arithmetical propositions are either true or false. Yes, I think I finally understand your view on this. It relies on the denial of CTM+PM as a theory of mind, I thought it was supposed to be a disproof Anyone can deny something but does not thereby rule out the conceivability of a level of zero-virtuality supervening on PM. Rather it shows that, for any putative computational realisation of mind, any such attribution is both absolutely unknowable and causally irrelevant. I have argued that it is unknowable in the sense that sceptical hypotheses sucha s the BIV are undisprovable, We generally disregard them anyway, since, for one thing, we would have no idea which to accept. This clearly unmasks any such notion of PM as a superfluous assumption with respect to CTM, and Occam consequently dictates that we discard it as any part of the theory. Au contraire, occam requires us to throw away the assumptions that we are 1 level deep, 2 levels deep... in a virtualisation. Real reality is the simplest assumption IOW it is the prior assumption of CTM itself that drives the chain of inference, as you have always claimed. And I further agree that *on the basis of CTM* it then follows that no meaning of 'exist' should be taken literally. It is very much to your credit that you have laid bare these hidden implications of CTM, as I think they are central to most of the myriad confusions that surround it. If people have a complaint about the implications, they cannot now dodge the fact that this disquiet is unavoidably entailed by CTM itself. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 00:46, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/31 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: It's more an attempt to characterise our metaphysical *situation*: i.e. the intuition that it is enduring, immediate, self-referential and self-relative. Actually, reflecting on exchanges with Bruno, I wonder if one might well say that this position is globally solipsistic. That reads like a contradiction in terms to me Etc, etc Peter, I must say that I sometimes find your style of commenting unhelpful. Any attempt to set out one's ideas - however inadequate the result may be - must rely on some sequencing of thought in which an earlier statement may depend on a later. Consequently when you interpolate the flow of the narrative with constant expostulations of this sort I have to wonder how much time you permit to elapse before concluding that what I say must be incoherent, deluded, or simply wrong. Does that mean you gave an explanation of global solipsism somewhere? Any of the foregoing might indeed be true, but since I don't force you to make comments on what I write, we might both gain more from the exercise if you made it more readily apparent that you reach your conclusions a little less precipitately. I think you should be more concerned about the long passages I am not commenting on. That is becuase I find them completely incomprehensible. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 00:09, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/31 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: That says nothing about qualia at all. It would be helpful if we could deal with one issue at a time. Most of the passage you commented on was intended - essentially at your provocation - as a contextual exploration of possible conditions for recallable consciousness experience, not an explication of qualia per se. But the context of the thread was you asking me about Chalmer's theory of intrinsic qualia. I answered that relevantly. You appear to have drifted off. But you haven't commented on this. OK. Memory is relevant to consciousness. It is relevant specifically to access consciousness. it is also easily explained physically and not therefore part of the HP and not therefore of much philosophical interest. By the way, if you have a simple extrinsic account of the phenomena of the specious present, I'd be genuinely interested in more detail. I think I gave one. Slow communications in the brain=short term information storage=specious present You could hardly *not* have one. As to qualia, I've said before that I believe qualitative instantiation to be beyond extrinsic explanation (though not beyond indirect reference) for the simple reason that all explanation takes place in terms of it That couldn't be more wrong. Mathematical/structural/functional thinking is qualia-free, and the HP is the problem of recovering qualia from a description in those terms (if you're wondering what this means I trust a little introspection will suffice). Done that, came to opposite conclusion. Do you think Chalmers suggestion that qualia are intrinsic properties of fundamental particles is feasible or not? I doubt, despite standard usages suited to technical ends, that talk of properties is helpful in this regard. Are you ever going to say what this problem with properties is? There are fundamental problems with any attempt to attach first-person consciousness to matter, PM or material structures and processes? for the obvious reason that matter cannot be reduced to individually identifiable entities. PM or material structures and processes? Consequently, the self-referential I is attachable only contextually to some overall schema in which fundamental differentiation - physical or otherwise (e.g. 'computational') can then play a processual role. Can't matter have processes? I've remarked before that 'knowledge' must be regarded in the final analysis as ontic - i.e. we *instantiate* what we know - the subject-object distinction in mentality is merely a metaphor inferred from the polarisation of roles. When I've said this in other contexts you've usually reacted with bewilderment, so if this still seems opaque perhaps you could specify what is unclear. Anyway, on this basis we might think of qualitative instantiation as consisting in peculiarly differentiated ways-of-being, as distinct from the unbroken symmetry of the undifferentiated context. As an aid to intuition, you could think of this distinction in broadly similar terms to those you have proposed for 'property-less' materiality as an enduring existential substrate for extrinsic physical properties. Err yeah. How about you explain this property issue. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I think you should be more concerned about the long passages I am not commenting on. That is becuase I find them completely incomprehensible. In that case you may wish to reconsider whether there is any point in your commenting at all. I don't see how it helps anyone's understanding - mine, yours or any other reader's - if you seize on fragments isolated from a background of incomprehension. David On 1 Sep, 00:46, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/31 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: It's more an attempt to characterise our metaphysical *situation*: i.e. the intuition that it is enduring, immediate, self-referential and self-relative. Actually, reflecting on exchanges with Bruno, I wonder if one might well say that this position is globally solipsistic. That reads like a contradiction in terms to me Etc, etc Peter, I must say that I sometimes find your style of commenting unhelpful. Any attempt to set out one's ideas - however inadequate the result may be - must rely on some sequencing of thought in which an earlier statement may depend on a later. Consequently when you interpolate the flow of the narrative with constant expostulations of this sort I have to wonder how much time you permit to elapse before concluding that what I say must be incoherent, deluded, or simply wrong. Does that mean you gave an explanation of global solipsism somewhere? Any of the foregoing might indeed be true, but since I don't force you to make comments on what I write, we might both gain more from the exercise if you made it more readily apparent that you reach your conclusions a little less precipitately. I think you should be more concerned about the long passages I am not commenting on. That is becuase I find them completely incomprehensible. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 10:58, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I think you should be more concerned about the long passages I am not commenting on. That is becuase I find them completely incomprehensible. In that case you may wish to reconsider whether there is any point in your commenting at all. I don't see how it helps anyone's understanding - mine, yours or any other reader's - if you seize on fragments isolated from a background of incomprehension. Well, not commenting at all is indeed the only other option -- or the only other one I can initiate. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: This clearly unmasks any such notion of PM as a superfluous assumption with respect to CTM, and Occam consequently dictates that we discard it as any part of the theory. Au contraire, occam requires us to throw away the assumptions that we are 1 level deep, 2 levels deep... in a virtualisation. Real reality is the simplest assumption Peter, you need to keep firmly in mind that the superfluity of PM follows on the *assumption* of CTM. The razor is then applied on the basis of that assumption. If you prefer a theory of mind based on real reality, fair enough, but then you must face the conclusion that CTM is no longer tenable in that role. David On 1 Sep, 01:21, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 Aug, 15:14, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I would not put AR on the same par as PM(*). I know that Peter have problem with this, but AR does not commit you ontologically. It is just the idea that arithmetical propositions are either true or false. Yes, I think I finally understand your view on this. It relies on the denial of CTM+PM as a theory of mind, I thought it was supposed to be a disproof Anyone can deny something but does not thereby rule out the conceivability of a level of zero-virtuality supervening on PM. Rather it shows that, for any putative computational realisation of mind, any such attribution is both absolutely unknowable and causally irrelevant. I have argued that it is unknowable in the sense that sceptical hypotheses sucha s the BIV are undisprovable, We generally disregard them anyway, since, for one thing, we would have no idea which to accept. This clearly unmasks any such notion of PM as a superfluous assumption with respect to CTM, and Occam consequently dictates that we discard it as any part of the theory. Au contraire, occam requires us to throw away the assumptions that we are 1 level deep, 2 levels deep... in a virtualisation. Real reality is the simplest assumption IOW it is the prior assumption of CTM itself that drives the chain of inference, as you have always claimed. And I further agree that *on the basis of CTM* it then follows that no meaning of 'exist' should be taken literally. It is very much to your credit that you have laid bare these hidden implications of CTM, as I think they are central to most of the myriad confusions that surround it. If people have a complaint about the implications, they cannot now dodge the fact that this disquiet is unavoidably entailed by CTM itself. 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: Dreaming On
Exactly, if mind is a computational process, there is no way for it to know it is being simulated on the level 0 of the real (if there is one). There would be *no difference* for it if it was simulated on virtual machine running on a virtual machine running on a virtual machine running on this level 0. Peter claims that level 0 is needed... but why ? If mind is computation, level 0 plays no role in consciousness. If CTM is true, I could run Peter with an abacus and that Peter would still forcelly argues that HE IS ON LEVEL 0... which is totally untrue in that case. Regards, Quentin 2009/9/1 David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: This clearly unmasks any such notion of PM as a superfluous assumption with respect to CTM, and Occam consequently dictates that we discard it as any part of the theory. Au contraire, occam requires us to throw away the assumptions that we are 1 level deep, 2 levels deep... in a virtualisation. Real reality is the simplest assumption Peter, you need to keep firmly in mind that the superfluity of PM follows on the *assumption* of CTM. The razor is then applied on the basis of that assumption. If you prefer a theory of mind based on real reality, fair enough, but then you must face the conclusion that CTM is no longer tenable in that role. David On 1 Sep, 01:21, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 Aug, 15:14, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I would not put AR on the same par as PM(*). I know that Peter have problem with this, but AR does not commit you ontologically. It is just the idea that arithmetical propositions are either true or false. Yes, I think I finally understand your view on this. It relies on the denial of CTM+PM as a theory of mind, I thought it was supposed to be a disproof Anyone can deny something but does not thereby rule out the conceivability of a level of zero-virtuality supervening on PM. Rather it shows that, for any putative computational realisation of mind, any such attribution is both absolutely unknowable and causally irrelevant. I have argued that it is unknowable in the sense that sceptical hypotheses sucha s the BIV are undisprovable, We generally disregard them anyway, since, for one thing, we would have no idea which to accept. This clearly unmasks any such notion of PM as a superfluous assumption with respect to CTM, and Occam consequently dictates that we discard it as any part of the theory. Au contraire, occam requires us to throw away the assumptions that we are 1 level deep, 2 levels deep... in a virtualisation. Real reality is the simplest assumption IOW it is the prior assumption of CTM itself that drives the chain of inference, as you have always claimed. And I further agree that *on the basis of CTM* it then follows that no meaning of 'exist' should be taken literally. It is very much to your credit that you have laid bare these hidden implications of CTM, as I think they are central to most of the myriad confusions that surround it. If people have a complaint about the implications, they cannot now dodge the fact that this disquiet is unavoidably entailed by CTM itself. David -- 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Peter, I've considered whether anything is to be gained from my responding further, and much as I regret coming to this conclusion, I don't think we can make any further progress together on this topic. If such were possible, I suspect it would require a great deal more patience and willingness to consider world-views more comprehensively, probably on both our parts, rather than reciprocal logic-chopping that strikes me as fundamentally at cross-purposes. David On 1 Sep, 00:09, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/31 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: That says nothing about qualia at all. It would be helpful if we could deal with one issue at a time. Most of the passage you commented on was intended - essentially at your provocation - as a contextual exploration of possible conditions for recallable consciousness experience, not an explication of qualia per se. But the context of the thread was you asking me about Chalmer's theory of intrinsic qualia. I answered that relevantly. You appear to have drifted off. But you haven't commented on this. OK. Memory is relevant to consciousness. It is relevant specifically to access consciousness. it is also easily explained physically and not therefore part of the HP and not therefore of much philosophical interest. By the way, if you have a simple extrinsic account of the phenomena of the specious present, I'd be genuinely interested in more detail. I think I gave one. Slow communications in the brain=short term information storage=specious present You could hardly *not* have one. As to qualia, I've said before that I believe qualitative instantiation to be beyond extrinsic explanation (though not beyond indirect reference) for the simple reason that all explanation takes place in terms of it That couldn't be more wrong. Mathematical/structural/functional thinking is qualia-free, and the HP is the problem of recovering qualia from a description in those terms (if you're wondering what this means I trust a little introspection will suffice). Done that, came to opposite conclusion. Do you think Chalmers suggestion that qualia are intrinsic properties of fundamental particles is feasible or not? I doubt, despite standard usages suited to technical ends, that talk of properties is helpful in this regard. Are you ever going to say what this problem with properties is? There are fundamental problems with any attempt to attach first-person consciousness to matter, PM or material structures and processes? for the obvious reason that matter cannot be reduced to individually identifiable entities. PM or material structures and processes? Consequently, the self-referential I is attachable only contextually to some overall schema in which fundamental differentiation - physical or otherwise (e.g. 'computational') can then play a processual role. Can't matter have processes? I've remarked before that 'knowledge' must be regarded in the final analysis as ontic - i.e. we *instantiate* what we know - the subject-object distinction in mentality is merely a metaphor inferred from the polarisation of roles. When I've said this in other contexts you've usually reacted with bewilderment, so if this still seems opaque perhaps you could specify what is unclear. Anyway, on this basis we might think of qualitative instantiation as consisting in peculiarly differentiated ways-of-being, as distinct from the unbroken symmetry of the undifferentiated context. As an aid to intuition, you could think of this distinction in broadly similar terms to those you have proposed for 'property-less' materiality as an enduring existential substrate for extrinsic physical properties. Err yeah. How about you explain this property issue. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 11:09, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: This clearly unmasks any such notion of PM as a superfluous assumption with respect to CTM, and Occam consequently dictates that we discard it as any part of the theory. Au contraire, occam requires us to throw away the assumptions that we are 1 level deep, 2 levels deep... in a virtualisation. Real reality is the simplest assumption Peter, you need to keep firmly in mind that the superfluity of PM follows on the *assumption* of CTM. The razor is then applied on the basis of that assumption. If you prefer a theory of mind based on real reality, fair enough, but then you must face the conclusion that CTM is no longer tenable in that role. No, none of that follows from CTM alone. Bruno is putting forward the Sceptical Hypothesis that I am being simulated on a UD. However, if I am entiteld to assign a very low likelihood to that SH along with all the many others, alowing me to know in a good-enough way that matter is real, reality is real etc. It is very important in these arguments to distinguish between certain knowledge and good-enough knowledge. BTW--why doens't O's R cut away Platonia in favour of a smaller material 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 10:49, Flammarion wrote: Can't matter have processes? But in that line of discussion, the question should be: can primary matter have processes. You said yourself that primary matter is propertyless. How something without property can implement processes, with or without qualia? I begin to think that your primary matter is even incompatible with physicalism. Comp justifies the belief of a more primary matter than the one allowed, at first sight, by current physics, given that matter, with comp is an a priori complete indeterminate mess of infinities of computations. It is not something describable by its parts, like naturalist Aristotelian substances. But it is the bearer of potentialities, and this defines the subjectively stable first person. Your notion of matter could be closer to the comp-matter, than physicists' notion, except it is not primary or fundamental. But it certainly *looks* primary from the observer's point of view. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 11:16, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Exactly, if mind is a computational process, there is no way for it to know it is being simulated on the level 0 of the real (if there is one). There would be *no difference* for it if it was simulated on virtual machine running on a virtual machine running on a virtual machine running on this level 0. Peter claims that level 0 is needed... but why ? I claim that that is a *possiblity* and as such is enough to show that CTM does not necessarily follow from the computability of physics. If mind is computation, level 0 plays no role in consciousness. If CTM is true, I could run Peter with an abacus and that Peter would still forcelly argues that HE IS ON LEVEL 0... which is totally untrue in that case. And if I were a wizard I could trapsort you to Narnia and make you believe you were still in France. The CTM does indeed have hypotetical implciations about virtualisation, but nothing follows from that. There is no implication from I might be virtualised to I am virtualised any more than from I might be BIV.. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 11:56, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 10:49, Flammarion wrote: Can't matter have processes? But in that line of discussion, the question should be: can primary matter have processes. You said yourself that primary matter is propertyless. How something without property can implement processes, with or without qualia? PM has no essential properties, but is the bearer of all otther properties. It can implement a computation in just the same way it can be red. (Althoguh the combinatin PM+red is of course not PM. It is only PM as a bare substrate). I begin to think that your primary matter is even incompatible with physicalism. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 11:19, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Peter, I've considered whether anything is to be gained from my responding further, and much as I regret coming to this conclusion, I don't think we can make any further progress together on this topic. If such were possible, I suspect it would require a great deal more patience and willingness to consider world-views more comprehensively, probably on both our parts, rather than reciprocal logic-chopping that strikes me as fundamentally at cross-purposes. Yeah. Or you could just answer my questions. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Peter, you need to keep firmly in mind that the superfluity of PM follows on the *assumption* of CTM. The razor is then applied on the basis of that assumption. If you prefer a theory of mind based on real reality, fair enough, but then you must face the conclusion that CTM is no longer tenable in that role. No, none of that follows from CTM alone. Bruno is putting forward the Sceptical Hypothesis that I am being simulated on a UD. However, if I am entiteld to assign a very low likelihood to that SH along with all the many others, alowing me to know in a good-enough way that matter is real, reality is real etc. It is very important in these arguments to distinguish between certain knowledge and good-enough knowledge. Well, the either the Olympia/MGA reductios entail this consequence, or they don't. You imply that they don't, but you still haven't put forward a clear refutation in a fully explicit form that could be considered here on its merits. Until you can do this, it isn't a question of certain or good-enough knowledge, but rather about the logical entailment of CTM itself. This is an extremely non-trivial point: the burden of the argument is that CTM entails a reversal in world-view; it is fundamentally incompatible with a materialist metaphysics. BTW--why doens't O's R cut away Platonia in favour of a smaller material universe? That is a tenable view. But not with the simultaneous assumption of CTM. That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM David On 1 Sep, 11:09, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: This clearly unmasks any such notion of PM as a superfluous assumption with respect to CTM, and Occam consequently dictates that we discard it as any part of the theory. Au contraire, occam requires us to throw away the assumptions that we are 1 level deep, 2 levels deep... in a virtualisation. Real reality is the simplest assumption Peter, you need to keep firmly in mind that the superfluity of PM follows on the *assumption* of CTM. The razor is then applied on the basis of that assumption. If you prefer a theory of mind based on real reality, fair enough, but then you must face the conclusion that CTM is no longer tenable in that role. No, none of that follows from CTM alone. Bruno is putting forward the Sceptical Hypothesis that I am being simulated on a UD. However, if I am entiteld to assign a very low likelihood to that SH along with all the many others, alowing me to know in a good-enough way that matter is real, reality is real etc. It is very important in these arguments to distinguish between certain knowledge and good-enough knowledge. BTW--why doens't O's R cut away Platonia in favour of a smaller material 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 13:26, David Nyman wrote: Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. I don't think I have ever said that. All what I propose is a (constructive) proof of the following equivalent propositions: - CTM implies physics is a branch of computer science (alias machine theology, number theory, etc...) - CTM Physicalism entails (constructively) that 0 = 1 - Physicalism entails that any theory of mind should rely on actual big infinities The proof is constructive: CTM implies that physics, in all its precision, can be found in this way . (self-reference logic, etc.). But the proof can be indeed weakened. We have still the reversal with transfinite weakening of comp. Hypermachine, oracles, etc. does not change the result. To keep physicalism intact we need a mind close to being, not a god, but *the * God, if that is not inconsistent. Who knows? In that case, comp, or CTM, is false. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 12:26, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Peter, you need to keep firmly in mind that the superfluity of PM follows on the *assumption* of CTM. The razor is then applied on the basis of that assumption. If you prefer a theory of mind based on real reality, fair enough, but then you must face the conclusion that CTM is no longer tenable in that role. No, none of that follows from CTM alone. Bruno is putting forward the Sceptical Hypothesis that I am being simulated on a UD. However, if I am entiteld to assign a very low likelihood to that SH along with all the many others, alowing me to know in a good-enough way that matter is real, reality is real etc. It is very important in these arguments to distinguish between certain knowledge and good-enough knowledge. Well, the either the Olympia/MGA reductios entail this consequence, or they don't. You imply that they don't, but you still haven't put forward a clear refutation in a fully explicit form that could be considered here on its merits. No-one's put forward a clear statement of it either. Until you can do this, it isn't a question of certain or good-enough knowledge, but rather about the logical entailment of CTM itself. It's about both. It can have entail possibilities that are very unlikely. This is an extremely non-trivial point: the burden of the argument is that CTM entails a reversal in world-view; it is fundamentally incompatible with a materialist metaphysics. BTW--why doens't O's R cut away Platonia in favour of a smaller material universe? That is a tenable view. But not with the simultaneous assumption of CTM. Because? That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: I claim that that is a *possiblity* and as such is enough to show that CTM does not necessarily follow from the computability of physics. It may be easy to lose sight, in the flurry of debate, that the argument is against CTM+PM. AFAICS nobody is claiming that the assumption of CTM is *forced* by the computability of physics, although the contrary would of course argue against it. Rather, *once CTM is assumed* the entailment on the basis of UDA-8 is that PM is false, or at best superfluous. If we can't get past this point, we're doomed to go round in circles. The CTM does indeed have hypotetical implciations about virtualisation, but nothing follows from that. There is no implication from I might be virtualised to I am virtualised any more than from I might be BIV.. On the contrary, the insight that Bruno points out is that the force of CTM consists precisely in the *assumption* that I am virtualised; else it has no force. This is the point. UDA-8 is then designed to expose the entailment that my generalised environment is virtualised is thereby also forced. Consequently the CTM is forced to be a theory of mind-body, or else nothing. This insight has replaced my previous assessment that CTM was merely vacuous as a theory of mind. You however have been non-committal as to the validity of CTM on the basis of PM. What would it take to convince you one way or the other? AFAICS in and of itself I might be BIV makes no explicit reference to a theory of mind. David On 1 Sep, 11:16, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Exactly, if mind is a computational process, there is no way for it to know it is being simulated on the level 0 of the real (if there is one). There would be *no difference* for it if it was simulated on virtual machine running on a virtual machine running on a virtual machine running on this level 0. Peter claims that level 0 is needed... but why ? I claim that that is a *possiblity* and as such is enough to show that CTM does not necessarily follow from the computability of physics. If mind is computation, level 0 plays no role in consciousness. If CTM is true, I could run Peter with an abacus and that Peter would still forcelly argues that HE IS ON LEVEL 0... which is totally untrue in that case. And if I were a wizard I could trapsort you to Narnia and make you believe you were still in France. The CTM does indeed have hypotetical implciations about virtualisation, but nothing follows from that. There is no implication from I might be virtualised to I am virtualised any more than from I might be BIV.. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 31 Aug, 15:38, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 31 Aug 2009, at 15:47, Flammarion wrote: On 30 Aug, 07:54, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 29 Aug 2009, at 20:34, Flammarion wrote: On 28 Aug, 18:02, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 28 Aug 2009, at 17:58, Brent Meeker wrote: If the physical laws are turing emulable, then whatever is responsible for my consciousness can be Turing emulable at some level (I assume some form of naturalism/materialism or computationalism).OK? If not, your brain (generalized or not) does not obeys to the laws of physics. That may buy you no more than mere simulation. The CTM is a stronger claim than the computability of physics. it means that you will get actual implementation (strong AI) and not just simulation (weak AI) In that sense, I am OK here. Actually strong AI is even weaker than CTM. Be that as it may, neither is directly implied by the computability of physics We agree on this. My reconstitution can believe wrongly that he is me, yet conscious. But I was assuming some naturalism here, and if the physical laws are computable, and I still say no to the doctor, then my identity is no more defined by the computation, but by the actual matter which constitutes me, That is one reason for saying no. But then biology makes you at most seven years old. We do have evidence that our body molecules are replaced rather quickly. Another is that your identity *is* given by the computation (in line with the idea that PM is propertiless), and that the computation needs to run on the metal (at 0 levelsof virtualisation) to be genuinely conscious and not just an ersatz functional equivalent. But then you say no the digit-doctor and CTM is abandoned. Yes, it is supposed to be a reason for sayign no. The point is that it si a reason compatible with teh computability of physics. People who say no do not have to be assuming uncomputatiblity as you keep insisting. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 31 Aug, 15:14, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 30 Aug 2009, at 23:21, David Nyman wrote: 2009/8/28 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Ok, so you want to solve the hard problem right at the beginning by taking conscious thoughts as the basic elements of your ontology. No I don't - that's why I said I'd rather not use the word consciousness. What I have in mind at this point in the argument is a primitive, not an elaborated, notion - like PM vis-a-vis materialism, or AR vis-a-vis comp. I would not put AR on the same par as PM(*). I know that Peter have problem with this, but AR does not commit you ontologically. if it doesn't, there is no UD, and no existential conclusions follow from your arguments. It is just the idea that arithmetical propositions are either true or false. It is an initial segment of all theories capable to prove the existence of universal machine (be it quantum mechanics, Newtonian Physics, real numbers + trigonometry, etc.). Only philosopher of mathematics can doubt it, and even here, few doubt it. A slightly variant of AR works for intuitionism. I really think you have to be an ultrafinitist to believe that AR is false. AR is used implicitly by formalist, and formalist can use formal version of AR, except the day they do say consciopusly (aware of the risk) yes to a digitalist doctor Bivalence (AR qua truth) is indeed used by a lot of people, but it doesn't buy you an ontologically exisiting UD. PM is a metaphysical commitment that a primary substance exists. It is already part of a theology, in the large sense of the word. AR is used by everyone, PM is argued by theologians and philosophers. PM does not really appears in the theories by physicists. AR is explicitly used by them. AR is used when you say that sin2pix = 0 has an infinity of solutions, for example. You can doubt it, of course, but then you have to accept ultra-finitism, or something like that. CT is a principle already far stronger and far more counter-intuitive than AR. yet I have never met someone doubting CT, and as I will show in detail soon enough, CT just makes no sense at all without AR. Bruno (*) AR = Arithmetical realism, PM = primary substance exists CT = Church's Thesis (Post's law, Turing's thesis, Church-Turing's thesis, etc.). 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. I don't think I have ever said that. No, you're right. However I was referring to the fact that you sometimes attach certain, presumably in-your-view problematic, entailments to it (see below). - Physicalism entails that any theory of mind should rely on actual big infinities The proof is constructive: CTM implies that physics, in all its precision, can be found in this way . (self-reference logic, etc.). But the proof can be indeed weakened. We have still the reversal with transfinite weakening of comp. Hypermachine, oracles, etc. does not change the result. To keep physicalism intact we need a mind close to being, not a god, but *the * God, if that is not inconsistent. Who knows? In that case, comp, or CTM, is false. Does your comment above about big infinities and *the* God correspond in any way to Plotinus's view of the One, or the poetic idea that the universe is the mind of God? IOW that the context of mind would have to encompass *everything physical* (however we might express this in terms of current theory) rather than be based on some definable computational subset such as AR? In this case, I guess there might still be a way to recover the first-person I as attachable to physically-differentiated viewpoints within such a maximally generalised context. The WR problem might still be present with a vengeance, depending on choice of QM interpretation, and in any case current physicalist assumptions about mind IMO make light both of persons and mental appearances. Is there some more-or-less coherent way to characterise the dichotomies between CTM and physicalist theories of mind on some such basis? BTW, discussion of the strong entailment against PM as explanatory of the appearance of matter within CTM is still stalled on Peter's complaint that there has not been a clear demonstration of the validity of the UDA-8 MGA/Olympia arguments. Is there anything further that can be done to resolve this? I note that, in addition to your own papers, there have been many extensive threads on this topic on the list. Is there some way to summarise these that would aid the situation, or do you perhaps feel that sufficient has been published to place the burden of proof on the dissenter? David On 01 Sep 2009, at 13:26, David Nyman wrote: Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. I don't think I have ever said that. All what I propose is a (constructive) proof of the following equivalent propositions: - CTM implies physics is a branch of computer science (alias machine theology, number theory, etc...) - CTM Physicalism entails (constructively) that 0 = 1 - Physicalism entails that any theory of mind should rely on actual big infinities The proof is constructive: CTM implies that physics, in all its precision, can be found in this way . (self-reference logic, etc.). But the proof can be indeed weakened. We have still the reversal with transfinite weakening of comp. Hypermachine, oracles, etc. does not change the result. To keep physicalism intact we need a mind close to being, not a god, but *the * God, if that is not inconsistent. Who knows? In that case, comp, or CTM, is false. 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 13:04, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 11:56, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 10:49, Flammarion wrote: Can't matter have processes? But in that line of discussion, the question should be: can primary matter have processes. You said yourself that primary matter is propertyless. How something without property can implement processes, with or without qualia? PM has no essential properties, but is the bearer of all otther properties. How could something without property be a bearer of property? It can implement a computation in just the same way it can be red. How ? Without properties, I don't see how it could implement a computation. (Althoguh the combinatin PM+red is of course not PM. It is only PM as a bare substrate). I begin to think that your primary matter is even incompatible with physicalism. Could you give any reference of a text in physics which uses the notion of primary matter? Could you give just a physical fact or proposition which would accredit the existence of primary matter? What is the relation between primary matter and space, time, and energy? Does primary matter have mass? 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 14:59, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:49, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 13:04, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 11:56, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 10:49, Flammarion wrote: Can't matter have processes? But in that line of discussion, the question should be: can primary matter have processes. You said yourself that primary matter is propertyless. How something without property can implement processes, with or without qualia? PM has no essential properties, but is the bearer of all otther properties. How could something without property be a bearer of property? How can you write on blank paper? Because blank paper has the property of retaining ink, being stable on my desk. It can implement a computation in just the same way it can be red. How ? By bearing properties How ? Without properties, I don't see how it could implement a computation. It can bear the propreties of any physical coputer you care to mention. (Althoguh the combinatin PM+red is of course not PM. It is only PM as a bare substrate). I begin to think that your primary matter is even incompatible with physicalism. Could you give any reference of a text in physics which uses the notion of primary matter? Could you give just a physical fact or proposition which would accredit the existence of primary matter? What is the relation between primary matter and space, time, and energy? Does primary matter have mass? Mass is a property. But the existence of conserved quantities is a clue to PM. PM must be endduring because it has not proeprties to change. Matter is a bare substrate with no properties of its own. The question may well be asked at this point: what roles does it perform ? Why not dispense with matter and just have bundles of properties -- what does matter add to a merely abstract set of properties? The answer is that not all bundles of posible properties are instantiated, that they exist. In which theory? What does it mean to say something exists ? ..exists is a meaningful predicate of concepts rather than things. I could agree with that. But concept are typically non material. The thing must exist in some sense to be talked about. in some sense. Sure. No need to restricted oneself on a speculative ontological sense. But if it existed full, a statement like Nessie doesn't exist would be a contradiction ...it would amount to the existing thing Nessie doesnt exist. However, if we take that the some sense in which the subject of an ...exists predicate exists is only initially as a concept, we can then say whether or not the concept has something to refer to. Thus Bigfoot exists would mean the concept 'Bigfoot' has a referent. What matter adds to a bundle of properties is existence. No, it is physical existence, you usually mean, and this does not work, or there is an error in MGA. A non- existent bundle of properties is a mere concept, a mere possibility. Thus the concept of matter is very much tied to the idea of contingency or somethingism -- the idea that only certain possible things exist. Yes, that is my favorite definition of matter, quite close to Plotinus 'Platonist correction' of Aristotle. Yet, with comp, and actually with quantum mechanics, such existence are necessarily relative. No need, and no possibility of using such matter for justifying the absolute bearer of contingency (as your PM is). You look like the Bohmian of comp (and take this as a compliment). Like Bohm you add something, PM, to select a reality, where comp explain how the selection has to be done by the observer only. The other issue matter is able to explain as a result of having no properties of its own is the issue of change and time. For change to be distinguishable from mere succession, it must be change in something. It could be a contingent natural law that certain properties never change. However, with a propertiless substrate, it becomes a logical necessity that the substrate endures through change; since all changes are changes in properties, a propertiless substrate cannot itself change and must endure through change. In more detail here ? Anyway, I was hoping to be able to guess where your PM would jeopardize the movie-graph, because I have no clue. You may consider this: you have not yet told anyone at which line of MGA you have a problem with. You just repeat vague statement according to which there is something implicit, like the ontological existence of a UD, and don't answer my question of where such ontological existence is used in the reasoning. I could give bad notes to my students just by telling them that their work is full of invisible faults. Easy! Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Re: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 12:04, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Yeah. Or you could just answer my questions. The problem is the world of assumption contained in your use of just. There is no possibility of a context-free 'objective' exchange of views. There must be some sympathetic matching of contexts of understanding, even if only for the honourable purpose of comprehending a viewpoint as intended in order to discount it with a clear conscience. Popper is my touchstone for this, in that he always attested - and demonstrated - the commitment to attack arguments only in their *strongest* form, often explicitly strengthening the received version before going on to criticize it on that basis. In my experience, those who have been most successful in changing my views have done so by demonstrating such a superior insight into my own position that I was able to see my own error. Please don't misunderstand my remarks as any personal criticism. If you review the thread I'm sure you wouldn't dispute that I have been ready to respond to your questions. I do however conclude on this evidence that, considered as a dialogue, it seems unlikely to arrive at any concurrence of view, or even a clear understanding over the essence of the divergence. And this is all the more to be regretted as I feel, based on more considered presentations of your ideas (e.g. your website, occasionally abstracted here), that our views are often more compatible than would seem likely in the heat of these more fractious skirmishes. David On 1 Sep, 11:19, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Peter, I've considered whether anything is to be gained from my responding further, and much as I regret coming to this conclusion, I don't think we can make any further progress together on this topic. If such were possible, I suspect it would require a great deal more patience and willingness to consider world-views more comprehensively, probably on both our parts, rather than reciprocal logic-chopping that strikes me as fundamentally at cross-purposes. Yeah. Or you could just answer my questions. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. Now, one obviously has the option *precisely in virtue of this* to dismiss CTM as itself vacuous. But this is the value of the insight: its force is to commit you to these explicit choices, and hence to cease vacillating between incompatible theoretical conjunctions. David On 1 Sep, 12:26, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: Peter, you need to keep firmly in mind that the superfluity of PM follows on the *assumption* of CTM. The razor is then applied on the basis of that assumption. If you prefer a theory of mind based on real reality, fair enough, but then you must face the conclusion that CTM is no longer tenable in that role. No, none of that follows from CTM alone. Bruno is putting forward the Sceptical Hypothesis that I am being simulated on a UD. However, if I am entiteld to assign a very low likelihood to that SH along with all the many others, alowing me to know in a good-enough way that matter is real, reality is real etc. It is very important in these arguments to distinguish between certain knowledge and good-enough knowledge. Well, the either the Olympia/MGA reductios entail this consequence, or they don't. You imply that they don't, but you still haven't put forward a clear refutation in a fully explicit form that could be considered here on its merits. No-one's put forward a clear statement of it either. Until you can do this, it isn't a question of certain or good-enough knowledge, but rather about the logical entailment of CTM itself. It's about both. It can have entail possibilities that are very unlikely. This is an extremely non-trivial point: the burden of the argument is that CTM entails a reversal in world-view; it is fundamentally incompatible with a materialist metaphysics. BTW--why doens't O's R cut away Platonia in favour of a smaller material universe? That is a tenable view. But not with the simultaneous assumption of CTM. Because? That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. Now, one obviously has the option *precisely in virtue of this* to dismiss CTM as itself vacuous. But this is the value of the insight: its force is to commit you to these explicit choices, and hence to cease vacillating between incompatible theoretical conjunctions. No incompatibility has been demonstrated. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 14:40, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 12:04, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Yeah. Or you could just answer my questions. The problem is the world of assumption contained in your use of just. Really? There is no possibility of a context-free 'objective' exchange of views. There must be some sympathetic matching of contexts of understanding, even if only for the honourable purpose of comprehending a viewpoint as intended in order to discount it with a clear conscience. it is standard practice for lecturers to ask for quesitons when they have finished. They do that because it works -- it clears up misudnerstandings. Assuming that miscommunication has to be the audiences fault doesn;t work. I have never seen that in a professional settign but it is quite common on usenet. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. There's no bottom. Why would you need one ? It's turtle all the way down ! The bottom of the stack is a *relative* notion. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. Now, one obviously has the option *precisely in virtue of this* to dismiss CTM as itself vacuous. But this is the value of the insight: its force is to commit you to these explicit choices, and hence to cease vacillating between incompatible theoretical conjunctions. No incompatibility has been demonstrated. -- 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 15:50, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. There's no bottom. Why would you need one ? It's turtle all the way down ! That's another version of Platonia and therefore still an ontological commitment. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: it is standard practice for lecturers to ask for quesitons when they have finished. They do that because it works -- it clears up misudnerstandings. Assuming that miscommunication has to be the audiences fault doesn;t work. I have never seen that in a professional settign but it is quite common on usenet. Yes of course, naturally I welcome such questions; it's why I post in the first place, and it's why I do my best to answer them. But it takes two to tango to avoid merely trampling on each others' toes. For example, I read quesitons, misudnerstandings, and settign in the spirit of trying to comprehend what you mean, rather than literally what you write! And of course to impute 'fault' to the audience would in itself be unhelpfully contentious. I do however observe - based on much experience both good and bad - that in any context, professional or otherwise, increased comprehension is ultimately better served by the outcome of a mutually engaged approach. In particular, outside the professional context, it is much more problematic to assume compatibility in terminology and philosophical background. For example, you may have noticed that I sometimes enquire of someone perhaps when you say such and such you mean this or that? because their words seem to assume some unspecified context and my proposal may suggest to them where I have progressed in my understanding of their viewpoint, whilst providing an opportunity to provide a wider frame in responding. I must say it is when you yourself have done something of this sort that I find it easiest to respond in kind. David On 1 Sep, 14:40, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 12:04, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: Yeah. Or you could just answer my questions. The problem is the world of assumption contained in your use of just. Really? There is no possibility of a context-free 'objective' exchange of views. There must be some sympathetic matching of contexts of understanding, even if only for the honourable purpose of comprehending a viewpoint as intended in order to discount it with a clear conscience. it is standard practice for lecturers to ask for quesitons when they have finished. They do that because it works -- it clears up misudnerstandings. Assuming that miscommunication has to be the audiences fault doesn;t work. I have never seen that in a professional settign but it is quite common on usenet. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. So you have a problem with the indexical approach of time, and space. Of course it is the milk of the everything-list basic idea. And MGA, certainly not just MGA, shows that comp entails the indexical approach. Actually X is indeed just consistent X as seen from inside. Now, one obviously has the option *precisely in virtue of this* to dismiss CTM as itself vacuous. But this is the value of the insight: its force is to commit you to these explicit choices, and hence to cease vacillating between incompatible theoretical conjunctions. No incompatibility has been demonstrated. Given the references to text and posts, we are still waiting a justification of this statement. A scientist would say: your going from this line to this line is invalid for this reason. B. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 15:32, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. Yes, it sounds logically compelling when you put it like that, doesn't it? But the entailment of CTM - and this is why it's so important for you to clarify your objections to this - is that there is nothing that can be said about the bottom of the stack that is not vacuous with respect to computational theory. CTM forces us to face the issue of the incompatibility of what we think we want out of an ontology, and what we can actually get on the basis of a given theory. CTM forces you - by Occam - to disregard any effects of a non-virtual ontology. Beyond this, there's nothing to stop you making an additional claim that it must nonetheless supervene on 'real matter' in order to be really real. But in that case, after the application of the razor, it's you who are invoking pixies. If you don't like this, you have the option of abandoning CTM and with it the notion of a virtual ontology. This is so clear cut that I would expect that you would welcome the opportunity either to accept it or refute it with precise counter-argument. Which is it to be? Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. CTM does not only suggest this, it forces the conclusion, or else collapses. Saying no to the doctor implies either that you distrust his command of theory or praxis, or alternatively that you don't believe in CTM - this is still your option. This is such a crucial point that at this stage ISTM that it requires either clear acceptance on the basis of truth, or clear refutation on the basis of error. AFAICS these discussions are absolutely pointless on any other basis. Now, one obviously has the option *precisely in virtue of this* to dismiss CTM as itself vacuous. But this is the value of the insight: its force is to commit you to these explicit choices, and hence to cease vacillating between incompatible theoretical conjunctions. No incompatibility has been demonstrated. Well, I and others have argued at some length that it has, and Bruno in particular has argued with great precision that it has. The floor is yours. David On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. Now, one obviously has the option *precisely in virtue of this* to dismiss CTM as itself vacuous. But this is the value of the insight: its force is to commit you to these explicit choices, and hence to cease vacillating between incompatible theoretical conjunctions. No incompatibility has been demonstrated. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 16:53, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 15:50, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/1 Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com: On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. There's no bottom. Why would you need one ? It's turtle all the way down ! That's another version of Platonia and therefore still an ontological commitment. No, it is the same arithmetical truth, but from the first person perspective. For this you need step seven + step eight. You have not yet answer to the question about step seven I ask yesterday. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 16:32, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. So you have a problem with the indexical approach of time, and space. i don't know what you mean by 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 14:52, David Nyman wrote: 2009/9/1 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. I don't think I have ever said that. No, you're right. However I was referring to the fact that you sometimes attach certain, presumably in-your-view problematic, entailments to it (see below). - Physicalism entails that any theory of mind should rely on actual big infinities The proof is constructive: CTM implies that physics, in all its precision, can be found in this way . (self-reference logic, etc.). But the proof can be indeed weakened. We have still the reversal with transfinite weakening of comp. Hypermachine, oracles, etc. does not change the result. To keep physicalism intact we need a mind close to being, not a god, but *the * God, if that is not inconsistent. Who knows? In that case, comp, or CTM, is false. Does your comment above about big infinities and *the* God correspond in any way to Plotinus's view of the One, or the poetic idea that the universe is the mind of God? Yes. I suggest to interpret the ONE of Plotinus by arithmetical truth. This is a highly non computable object. It is provably the one of little Löbian machine, and it is still an open problem if it could be ours. Typically, human have in appearance stronger provability power than Pean Arithmetic (my lobian machine pet). IOW that the context of mind would have to encompass *everything physical* (however we might express this in terms of current theory) rather than be based on some definable computational subset such as AR? AR extends the computable. AR is the belief that arithmetical truth makes sense, but it is far bigger than what machines can ever prove. This will be made more precise in the seventh step series thread. And the physical world becomes even more complex. Even undecidable in company of an oracle for arithmetical truth. Plato's nous, Plotinus intellect is bigger than God, actually. In this case, I guess there might still be a way to recover the first-person I as attachable to physically-differentiated viewpoints within such a maximally generalised context. The WR problem might still be present with a vengeance, depending on choice of QM interpretation, I don't really believe there is any intepretation problem of QM. QM is the discovery of the quantum parallel universes, and right at the start the founder have put a principle (collapse) so that such universes disappears, but this has never been shown tenable. And then the works of Everett, Deutsch, to Zurek, shows that QM solves the white rabbit problem, except for the comp first person white rabbits, which needs the extraction of QM (SWE) from numbers. and in any case current physicalist assumptions about mind IMO make light both of persons and mental appearances. Is there some more-or-less coherent way to characterise the dichotomies between CTM and physicalist theories of mind on some such basis? Roughly speaking, because it is a vast subject, but for being short argument against Everett are of the same type than argument against comp. Comp is an ally to Everett, except it shows that Everett has not been enough radical. It is really Church thesis which asks for such a radicality in the 'indexical approach. BTW, discussion of the strong entailment against PM as explanatory of the appearance of matter within CTM is still stalled on Peter's complaint that there has not been a clear demonstration of the validity of the UDA-8 MGA/Olympia arguments. Is there anything further that can be done to resolve this? Certainly, especially at the pedagogical problem. It is subtle matter. I note that, in addition to your own papers, there have been many extensive threads on this topic on the list. Is there some way to summarise these that would aid the situation, or do you perhaps feel that sufficient has been published to place the burden of proof on the dissenter? If the dissenter does not say where he has a problem, this is difficult to answer. 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 17:46, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 16:32, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. So you have a problem with the indexical approach of time, and space. i don't know what you mean by that. The indexical approach of time is that now, is any moment as see as from that moment point of view. Similar ideas have been used by Galilee, Everett, Einstein, and there is a modern movement in philosophy of physics which vindicates a more general use, like the one I am using where actuality is possibility or consistency as seen from inside. All block universe approaches are based on that idea. See for example: Now, Time, and Quantum Mechanics, edited by Michel Bitbol and Eva Ruhnau, Frontière, Paris, 1994. 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: Dreaming On
On 1 Sep, 16:55, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 17:46, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 16:32, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote: On 1 Sep, 15:00, David Nyman david.ny...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 Sep, 13:08, Flammarion peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: That is the point. I should say that my starting position before encountering Bruno's views was against the tenability of CTM on the basis of any consistent notion of physical process. Bruno hasn't yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind on some such basis is actually untenable. But he has awakened me to the reverse realisation that a non-materialist world-view can tenably be founded on CTM coupled with Platonism. With respect, Peter, you continue to miss the point. What Bruno has demonstrated is that CTM as a mind-body theory (which is what UDA-8 shows it must be) makes no ontological commitment *by its very virtuality*. Or rather, any such commitment is shown to be vacuous. There's got to be somehting at the bottom of the stack. Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. If there is nothing at the bottom of the stack, there are no virtualisations running higher up. Consequently under CTM, one is committed to RITSIAR=virtual, not RITSIAR=platonic. CTM only suggests that I *could* be virtualised. Alternatively I could be running on the metal. I do wish you guys would undertand that Possible X = actually X is a fallacy. So you have a problem with the indexical approach of time, and space. i don't know what you mean by that. The indexical approach of time is that now, is any moment as see as from that moment point of view. Similar ideas have been used by Galilee, Everett, Einstein, and there is a modern movement in philosophy of physics which vindicates a more general use, like the one I am using where actuality is possibility or consistency as seen from inside. All block universe approaches are based on that idea. See for example: I don't see what that has to do with the possible=actual fallacy Now, Time, and Quantum Mechanics, edited by Michel Bitbol and Eva Ruhnau, Frontière, Paris, 1994. 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: Dreaming On
On 01 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote: Bruno wants to substitue matetr with Platonia as the substrate. Not at all. This definitely convinces me that you have not even try to begin to read the proof. Ontically you can say there is a bottom. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, (that is 0 and the successor axioms). Then it is structured by addition and multiplication, only. This is enough for defining internal observer (as relative universal machine), and their physical reality. This one appears, as a theorem, not having any bottom (from the machine view, what happens below its substitution level depends on the whole set of computations going through her state). There is just no need, nor any possible use of any substrate. You can read the mathematical part of work without leaving your formalist cocoon. You need the yes doctor only for linking your experiences with the theory. But you can just study the physics of the universal machines, if you want not commit yourself to CTM. Platonia, is just the so-called standard model of arithmetic. It is (N, +, x). A highly undecidable structure, but not more than what we play with when doing trigonometry at school. Things like functional analysis are far more 'big'. It has virtually nothing to do with Plato, unlike AUDA which relies on Theaetetus definitions of knowledge. There is no substrate at all. Physics becomes the science of the universal machine observables, and what is observed are invariant pattern bearing on projection of infinity of computations. UDA1-7 explains this, before the abandon of physicalism. 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 -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
