On Aug 12, 5:01 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > On 11 Aug 2011, at 14:16, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > On Aug 11, 1:14 am, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> The conclusion is that such a device is > >> impossible because it leads to conceptual difficulties. > > > Consciousness itself leads to conceptual difficulties. Except for the > > fact that we cannot ignore that it is undeniable, we could never > > logically conceive of consciousness. > > Can we logically conceive a reality?
Sure, as long as it's a reality within our own perceptual relativity frame of reference. The further our imaginary reality is from our own PRIF, the less likely that it could reflect the concrete experiences that would occur there if that reality were manifested physically. > What can be shown is that each of two universal machines put in front > of each other can develop a true and incommunicable belief in a > reality. I think that's consciousness. It is an instinctive belief in > a reality. Self-consciousness is that same belief but with a belief in > a separation between the believer and the believed. I think it depends on what the machines actually are physically as to what they will be able to believe or develop. If you execute the machine in silicon, you're going to have a polite glass sculpture of belief, not a fierce, viscerally passionate belief. The math alone can create a correspondence as-if it were true, but only the physics can create the conditions of true through experience in spite of logic, which is what gives the believer not only separation but something of a trump-card privilege over the believed. In a contest of math v physics, I think the physical can generate novelties in advance of math, so that the arithmetic is an analytical afterthought. Physics cannot be anticipated from the math alone, it can only be reverse engineered from factual physical observations. Math can of course be used to build on physics as well (nuclear fission, etc) but it still requires a priori indexes of atomic behaviors which are independent from pure arithmetic. Craig Craig -- 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.
