Le 04-oct.-06, à 18:09, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit :
"That is how YOU formulate these concepts in YOUR mind (i.e.
comprehension),"
Yes, but I make that comprehension sharable by being clear on the hypotheses.
I would say that this is how science work. We make theories, which can only just be hypothetical. Then we derive theorems, that is consequences, and we compare them with the facts.
"Puzzles me: are WE not ALL machines? Can we 'comprehend' the limitations of some "bigger" (=more comprehensive <G>) construct of which we are part of?"
That is all the point of the limitation phenomena in "digital machine theory" (computer science). Once a machine complexity is higher than a precise "logical" threshold, then the machine can prove its own incompleteness theorem: "If I am consistent then I cannot prove that I am consistent". Still, the machine can bet on such
So, machine which introspect themselves sufficiently closely can not only guess the existence of something "bigger", but the machine can study the mathematical structure of its ignorance border.
I think most people understand the first seven steps of the eight [UDA] steps
"(Do I envy them)"
(May be you are perhaps just ironical, but I will answer like you were not).
You can ask question, even on the first step, or on the hypotheses. The basic idea is simple. As David reminds us the game is to search the consequence of comp which is the digital version of the very old mechanist assumption: we are machine. It means there is no part of our body which cannot be substituted at some level by functional artificial (and digital) device. This is the "yes doctor" guess. Then the steps of the UDA follows gently, except the last one which is harder (I talk about the version in 8 steps).
My original motivation for the UDA was only to explain that the "mind-body" problem is *far* from being solved, but that a simple and natural hypothesis makes it translatable in mathematics; and of course the math appearing there are NOT simple as we can expect. I got results though, like the fact that although comp makes it possible to comprehend the whole of the third person describable reality, it makes impossible to comprehend the whole of any first person reality. I have also results showing that the first person plural reality obeys quantum-like rules. Those are tiny bits of confirmation of the comp hypothesis (not a proof, obviously).
Only atheist have reason to dislike the consequence of comp. Not because they would be wrong, but because their belief in "nature" is shown to need an act of faith (and atheists hate the very notion of faith).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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