Dear Stephen (- and Friends, especially Bruno) you quoted from Mauldin's p. 409: -------------------------------- “If an active physical system supports a phenomenal state, how could the presence or absence of a causally disconnected object effect that state? How could the object enhance or impede or alter or destroy the phenomenal state except via some causal interaction with the system? Since the phenomenal state is entirely realized at the time of the experience, only the activity of the system at that time should be relevant to its production. The presence or absence of causally isolated objects could not be relevant. This is all the supervenience thesis needs to say.” ------------------------------------ which pushed me back into my doubts for 'causality': whatever we consider as "causes" - of course WITHIN our mindset (=knowledge so far acquired about anything) are parts of that knowledge of WITHIN (exclusivity, (rather "inclusivity") what we sort of agreed upon during the past days). What does NOT restrict the (unknown? unconsidered? not yet learned) content of totality from influencing items 'within' (in our circle we include into our 'causality') from 'without' our limited knowledge circle. Influencing = causing change etc., EXACTLY interacting - of what is in our view of today a "causally isolated object - contrary to the Mauldin text above. Such argument requires (my?) totally interlaced (interactive?) complexity image of the entire wholeness (aka "everything"). --------------------------------- A remark to your PS-mentioned reincarnation of souls: I used to be a reincarnationalist in my young years until I started to question the WHAT is reincarnating? Carne = flesh, forget it. A teletransportation is more usable, but "of what"? The "soul" is a religious item to imply fear of not following the rules. The body dissipates at death, the atoms are re-used many times over, the functions (mainly mental, what we don't understand today at all) are attributes to certain body-parts (that disiipate), not "ding an sich" activities without substrate. Or are they? Do we have a menbtality irrespective of our bodily built? Does a dead person's "mind" (oops: soul!) live on and function? in what connection to the dead (and annihilated) body? If we do not remember any past 'incarnations', why would our present body/complexity carry on to the future? People die with very relevant ideas halfway thought out. Why are they not completed? Gone forever. - Teleportation ideas are no better: if the teleported mental activity (SIC!) is continuing its existence (?) and THINKS that would change the original 'persona' connection completely. So common sense does not support the today thinkable reincarnation ideas. It is only 'believable' in faith without raising any "HOWs".
John M On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 4:04 AM, Stephen Paul King <stephe...@charter.net>wrote: > Dear Bruno and Friends, > > I was re-reading the Mauldin paper again and something struck me that I > had not noticed before. I hope that I am not way over my head on this one, > but I think that there is something of a straw man in Mauldin’s definition > of the supervenience thesis! He assumes the principle of > Locality<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_locality>. > > > We read on page 409 of “Computation and Consciousness”: > > “If an active physical system supports a phenomenal state, how could > the presence or absence of a causally disconnected object effect that state? > How could the object enhance or impede or alter or destroy the phenomenal > state except via some causal interaction with the system? Since the > phenomenal state is entirely realized at the time of the experience, only > the activity of the system at that time should be relevant to its > production. The presence or absence of causally isolated objects could not > be relevant. This is all the supervenience thesis needs to say.” > > Now, let us take a look at Bell’s theorem. From the wiki article > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem > > “Bell's theorem has important implications for physics and the philosophy > of science <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science> as it > indicates that every quantum theory must violate either > locality<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_locality>or counterfactual > definiteness <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_definiteness>. > In conjunction with the experiments verifying the quantum mechanical > predictions <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments> of > Bell-type systems, Bell's theorem demonstrates that certain quantum effects > travel faster than light <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal> and > therefore restricts the class of tenable hidden variable theories to the > nonlocal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlocality> variety.” > end quote > > While we are considering the idea of “causal efficacy” here and not > hidden variable theories, the fact that it has been experimentally verified > that Nature violates the principle Locality. Therefore the assumption of > local efficacy that Mauldin is using for the supervenience thesis is not > realistic and thus presents a flaw in his argument. We cannot claim that > only those objects in some near distance or time of flight to the system > that we propose is a generator of phenomenal states are the only ones that > are involved in the emergence of the phenomenal states. > We have overwhelming experimental evidence that the classical > assumptions must be carefully examined to be sure that they are correct. The > locality assumption is flawed. So what if instead we question the > contrafactual definiteness aspect? If we disallow for the definiteness of > contrafactuals then Mauldin cannot construct Olympia and thus his argument > does not work either. > > Onward! > > Stephen > > PS, It is interesting that you mention reincarnation, Bruno. I too am > friendly toward that idea and I am a little bit motivated in my questions > about interactions with you by something that my wife mentioned to me in a > conversation that we had about the idea of reincarnation of souls. She asked > me” “Could bodies be necessary so that souls can interact with each other > and thus evolve?” By the way, the Syfy television channel’s series “Caprica” > explored a very cool computational version of reincarnation that you might > find amusing. > > -- > 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<everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- 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.
