On 06 Sep 2011, at 02:26, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Sep 5, 1:01 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
May be Mechanism will be refuted, but meanwhile it illustrates that
some explanation exists. If mechanism is correct it does explains
completely gravity, time, space, quanta, and it does explain almost
completely the qualia, except for a gap, which can been made as
little
as you wish, and which (the gap) can be justified entirely in the
theory (like we can explain why we have a blind spot).
When you say that mechanism explains qualia almost completely, are you
talking about the 1-p (plural) sequestering of it, the non
computability of it, or is there something else? Does this mechanism
rely on the idea that meaning is transferred from something like a
person to a machine purely by a machine 'acting like' a person seems
to act?
No. You need to duplicate the behavior of the components of the
machine at some right level of substitution.
"acting like" might be enough, but is somehow hard to define.
You would agree though that a ventriloquist does not transfer
the ability to feel, see, and understand to his dummy, I assume, so
doesn't that mean that the difference between a wooden dummy and a
machine capable of human feeling is just a matter of degree of
complexity.
No. The dummy should behave the same in presence and absence of the
ventriloquist. But even more, the "dummy" body should do the right
computations.
If so, I think to claim that explains qualia almost
completely is not only premature, but, to my mind, somewhat deceptive.
It's a con. (Sorry, not accusing you personally - just the presumption
of the position).
The theory explains why numbers develop many sort of beliefs. Some of
them being lived as self-referentially true but non communicable, or
non provable. They also follows axioms or theorems in theories of
qualia done independently of comp.
I think the hard problem is 99% solved, and 100% metasolved. And
given
that the solution predicts how matter appears and behave, the only
thing to do to get the whole picture is to derive physics from self-
reference/machine's theology. This might lead to a refutation of
comp,
or to a refutation of the classical theory of knowledge (although I
doubt this can be possible).
I think that the way it approaches the hard problem is itself self-
referential. By equating consciousness with computation to begin with,
it makes sense that computation can be used to find itself to be the
source of consciousness. To me, the fact that consciousness is private
and non-computable are the least descriptive possible aspects of them.
The theory explains the role of consciousness: it speeds up UMs
relatively to other UMs.
It diminishes the relevance of how significance is achieved through
qualia, minimizes the intensity of biological commitment to survival
and things like the difference between pain and pleasure.
I have no clue why you say so.
I don't see
that a number can be spectacularly painful. Unless you're talking
about a particular arithmetic configuration that explains misery and
ecstasy or blue versus red?
I don't see any problem here, other than mathematical questions. You
can't refute Newton physics by saying that it cannot predict weather.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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