On 26 Jun 2011, at 21:58, Rex Allen wrote:
On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 24 Jun 2011, at 17:49, Rex Allen wrote:
Awareness and self-awareness aren't related to the question of
consciousness. They fall well within the realm of the easy
problems.
I have deduced this from some posts. You, and Dennett are begging the
question.
I don't follow you. To which question are you referring?
What I have deduce from some posts, is that many identifies (self)-
awareness with 3-(self)-awareness, a bit like with the OM and 3-OM. We
need always to distinguish 1-awareness, and 3-awareness. With the
classical theory of knowledge, it is mainly the difference between Bp
and Bp & p. The "& p" is crucial, because, although arithmetical" it
is no more definable in arithmetic, and that is the key that most
people miss in the passage from UDA to the arithmetical UDA. The "& p"
makes both the mind and the matter of the machine beyond arithmetic,
provability, etc.
Why should science be based only on observation? What would that
mean?
It means that the primary goal of science is to allow the prediction
of future observations in as convenient and useful a way as possible.
If science didn't do this, there would be no point in messing with it.
That is your (instrumentalist) conception of science.
My, arguably instrumentalist too, conception of *fundamental* science
is that science is for the fun related with the feeling of trying
going toward a bigger picture.
Observation alone does not make sense. Observing needs a theory/
observer/machine/relative-number. Then there is a back and forth
between observation and introspection, or a back and force between "do
you see what I see?" and "do you think what I think?".
The core requirement for a scientific theory is that it must be
consistent with what we have observed in the past, what we currently
observe in the present, and what we will observe in the future.
No problem with that.
Thus, science is based on observation.
No, because it has to be also "graspable-by-me". And then I would like
to grasp how that is possible. If not, I am just not satisfied enough.
However - coming up with stories that are consistent with observation
but which aren't useful for prediction isn't science, though it might
count as entertainment or religion.
Predict is not enough. The real game is "to eat of to be eaten". You
need to predict more quickly than your predator, or you competitor.
That is the reason of "religion", that is, betting on something
unprovable (and hopefully consistent). It is the origin of
consciousness: a powerful instinctive bet in a reality. It is a super
self-accelerator relatively to any universal "reality".
Science, and already observation itself, are based on many layers of
theories, some innate in our brain, some developed through symbolic
reasoning, reflexion and imagination. The computationalist theory
illustrates well that we *can* explain the third person description
of the
first person discourses. So we can make progress.
That computational theory allows us to build third person models of
first person discourses
Well. Not just on their discourses, but on their "truth", once we do
assume the "truth" of mechanism.
is neither here nor there with respect to it's
metaphysical significance.
Don't confuse the computationalist theory (betting on a level of
"Turing-substitution") and computational theories; modeling some 3-
phenomenon by some program.
To abandon the scientific study of consciousness is like to abandon
the
notion of God to the authorities. As I said: it is a form of "shut
up and
calculate". Instrumentalism is about like abandoning the fundamental
questions to the engineering science. Many engineers do understand
that it
will lead in less genuine engineering in the long run, so that
eventually,
even instrumentalists with long term goal can defend a non-
instrumentalist
philosophy here and now.
That less engineering would result is an interesting supposition, but
I doubt that it's true.
Most discoveries have been done in a non instrumentalist mind
(Descartes, Newton, Einstein, ...). In computer science the theory has
been developed from hard philosophical question in the math
foundational crisis. hardy thought that the jewel of math, number
theory, would never have applications, but they did come, and this
after the main discoveries.
This is identical to Christians saying that we need the idea of heaven
and hell in order to keep people in line.
I don't think at all it is identical. In the first case some people
bet on falsifiable theories, and they try to make them as clear as
they want to see falsified or confirmed (not refuted). In the second
case some people decide to exploit human gullibility and miseducation
for getting money and control.
"We need to believe that our theories are approaching some
metaphysically truth, otherwise people will stop trying to improve
them!"
Possible, but unlikely. The practical benefits of more accurate and
useful theories should be more than sufficient to keep people
motivated.
This enhances a "crise du sens". Eventually the machines, if educated
in that spirit, will ask us "useful for who?" (and this if they are
polite enough). The human might end into unaffordable luxe, with
theories like. What is the instrumental value of a baby?
And then, if we assume like Dennett the comp hypothesis, we have
just no
choice than to recover the physical relations by the number relations
(unless there is a flaw ...). Even an instrumentalist cannot ignore
that.
Comp, among other possible everything-like idea, leads to a real
concrete
and terribly complex mathematical measure problem.
Which is?
?
We discuss this since the beginning of the list. I refer you to my
sane04 paper, which handle the everything-theory measure problem to
the computationalist case. But I can explain it in all details.
Actually I am explaining it in other forum, so I will give you the
link. You can also search in this forum archive (on UDA, perhaps: the
archive is big).
Consciousness is not like life. We can say that molecular biology
has solved
the conceptual problem of life, and this has evacuate vitalism. But
comp,
per se, does not solve the consciousness problem: it transforms it
into a
conceptual matter problem, which can be solved only by evacuating
materialism, by reducing the origin of matter to a machine
psychological
self-perception problem.
You're assuming that there is some explanation for consciousness which
exists beyond consciousness. But this isn't warranted.
I assume my brain is Turing at some level. Like the materialist. Then
I show that the mind body problem is reduced into a body problem in
computer science/number science. I provide a constructive formulation
of the mind body problem. It is constructive because I show exactly
how the laws of nature develop from the numbers. The theory explains
the how and why of consciousness, and this by manitaining its non
definability, and non global Turing emulability.
Only "religious" people try to ignore it.
You give me the feeling that you have not yet really study it.
Conscious experience is a fact.
It is a 1-fact.
It is not, and cannot be seen as a 3-fact, in *any* theory coherent
with comp, or even a transfinity of weakening of comp.
That I can extrapolate from past
observations to predict future observations using calculational
frameworks is a fact.
What? No, that is not a fact, that is a theory. You already bet,
conjecture, hope, "believe", etc.
But there are no further facts beyond this, and none are needed.
I do not understand.
What's real is the world of experience. Everything else is (sometimes
useful) fiction.
That is solipsisme. It is 1-true (non trivially) but 3-false,
trivially given that we assume the truth of the addition and
multiplication laws and their (inexhaustibly rich) arithmetical
consequences.
The 1-truth' complexity grows quicker than the 3-truth complexity.
More generally assuming the "truth" of computationalism entails "we"
inherit the laws of computer science. The discovery of the universal
'numbers" (Babbage, Post, Turing, Church, Markov, ...) is a key in
that theory. And the logic of self-reference makes possible to
formulate a part of the measure problem.
I have no clue, nor perhaps interest, in the truth of comp. I use comp
*because* I can apply theoretical computer science and mathematical
logic, to *formulate* a problem.
The reduction of the mind-body problem into the arithmetical bodies
appearance problem *has* been done.
The fact that minds and bodies can be represented arithmetically
doesn't mean that they *are* arithmetic in nature.
Indeed. That *is* the point. More precisely if the 3-I have universal
local level n digital 'truncation', then the 1-I 'escapes', takes part
of, the arithmetical realm. Comp can explains why the "illusions" of
the analytical and physical comes from, and explains why such
"illusions" obeys laws and when they can defined possible realities.
The fact that minds and bodies can be so represented
Nobody can *know* that. It is a bet you made. It is between you and
your doctor. I insist that it needs a basic act of faith. Comp, as an
axiom, is inconsistent. Only comp? is consistent. Proselytism would be
criminal, for example. Comp is "saying yes" to the doctor, but the
ethic of comp is the right to say no to the doctor.
just tells us
about the representational power of arithmetic...which is to say, the
representational power of the human mind, which is what arithmetic
reduces to.
You can, but then you explain the simple (arithmetic) by the complex
(human).
With comp, arithmetic explains the coupling consciousness/material-
realities, and this without representing any of them in arithmetic,
indeed, showing why they can't be represented in arithmetic.
I can do that because I do assume more than arithmetic: I assume
arithmetic + Church Thesis + "Yes doctor". And I exploit "known"
results (Gödel, Löb, Solovay, Grzegorczyk, ...). Comp makes the mind-
body problem a body problem in arithmetic. We can already listen to
what the universal machine, the Löbian one, can say on this, and
cannot say on this, but is still true, and consistently inferable.
If you grasp it, you can have a shock, but it is "not much more" that
the shock of DeWitt realizing that he is multiplied by 10^100 at each
instant. Are we not a list of everythingers? And, again, comp might be
wrong. I insist that I just reduce a problem into another problem, as
we do in the non ontological commitment framework. The math part
should interest any positivists.
Am I saying something new? That "science" has not yet decided between
the theology of Aristotle and the one by Plato? Comp does perturbate
the balance, yes.
Are you aware (conscious) about the arithmetical interpretation of
Plotinus I suggest in my "Plotinus paper" (accessible at the front
page of my url)? It is both extracted from arithmetic, and testable by
observation, given that physics is a precise part of that theology;
and that the logic of observable has been derived at the propositional
level. I thought *that* would have been refuted quite quickly!
If you prevent science from approaching a fundamental problem, you
will let the "authoritative argument" handle them, for you.
I am not pretending any truth. I make clear the theoretical
(hypothetical) framework.
You look like a philosopher who says to a scientist: "sorry but there
is nothing to look here!", or "no picture!", "no diary!", "no
account", "no theory", etc.
With the incompleteness we have, at least, a "model" of how a machine/
process can grasp the roots of its ignorance, and the immensity of it.
And eventually the role of what we are ignorant about.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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