On 29 Nov 2011, at 18:44, benjayk wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
I only say that I do not have a perspective of being a computer.
If you can add and multiply, or if you can play the Conway game of
life, then you can understand that you are at least a computer.
So, then I am computer or something more capable than a computer? I
have no
doubt that this is true.
OK. And comp assumes that we are not more than a computer, concerning
our abilities to think, etc. This is what is captured in a quasi
operational way by the "yes doctor" thought experiment. Most people
understand that they can survive with an artificial heart, for
example, and with comp, the brain is not a privileged organ with
respect to such a possible substitution.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
When I look
at myself, I see (in the center of my attention) a biological being,
not a
computer.
Biological being are computers. If you feel to be more than a
computer, then tell me what.
Biological beings are not computers. Obviously a biological being it
is not
a computer in the sense of physical computer.
I don't understand this. A bacteria is a physical being (in the sense
that it has a physical body) and is a computer in the sense that its
genetic regulatory system can emulate a universal machine.
It is also not an abstract
digital computer (even according to COMP it isn't) since a
biological being
is physical and "spiritual" (meaning related to subjective conscious
experience beyond physicality and computability).
But all universal machine have a link with something beyond
physicality and computability. Truth about computability is beyond the
computable. So your point is not valid.
Neither physicality nor spirituality can be reduced to computations.
Indeed. But that is a theorem in the comp theory. So any argument in
favor of this, and not being based on comp, is a confirmation of comp,
not a critics. I give a complete axiomatisation of all what appears,
from the machine's pov, beyond computations and proof. So I agree a
lot with your point here.
Well, I don't know the truth, and I am just saying that what you say
here is a consequence of comp, often not well understood by people
having a reductionist conception of machine and numbers.
Neither
can they be derived from it.
Physicality can be derived. And has to be derived (by UDA). Both
quanta and qualia. Only the "geography" cannot be derived, but the
physical laws can. You might elaborate why you think they can't.
Spirituality is a very large world, so it might depend on what you put
in there. Arithmetical truth cannot be derived from comp nor from
*any* effective theory, and in that or similar sense, I agree with you.
Your reasoning doesn't work (due to the reasons
I already gave and clarify below).
I have not yet seen those reasons. Please, I present an argument in 8
steps, surely you can say which step you disagree on. Up to now I see
only a critic of step "zero" (the definition of comp).
And no, there is no need for any evidence for some non-turing emulable
infinity in the brain. We just need non-turing emulable finite stuff
in the
brain, and that's already there.
I thought you were immaterialist. What is that finite stuff which is
non Turing emulable?
I really try to understand. Sometimes it seems you argue against comp,
and sometimes it seems you argue against the proof that comp entails
the Platonist reversal (to be short).
No one yet succeeded to emulate the brain,
This is not relevant for the reasoning (or show me where and why), in
case you argue against the reasoning.
and we can just assume something can be substituted by an emulation
if we
show that it can be.
This is not true. We might doubt it to be true and make a Pascal like
sort of bet. Many proposition can be true without us being able to
prove them. That's why we have constructive or intuitionist logic,
when we want to avoid the classical ignorance, and the non
constructive proofs, which are hardly avoidable in fundamental studies.
That seems quite unlikely, since already very simple objects like a
stone
can't be emulated.
The notion of stone is no more well defined in the comp theory. Either
you mean the "stuff" of the stone. Then comp makes it non Turing
emulable, because that "apparent stuff" is emerging from an infinity
of computations. So you are right. Or you mean by stone what we can do
with a stone (a functional stone), and this will depend on the
functionality that you ascribe to the stone.
If we simulate a stone, we just simulate our description
of it, we can't actually touch it and use it.
So you were talking about the functional stone. In this case we can
simulate the couple "you + the stone" in a way such that you will not
see the difference (assuming comp).
BTW, I am not saying this non-turing emulable stuff is some mysterious
primitive matter that actually no one can show the existence of.
OK. I guessed that.
It is
consciousness, and you can see for yourself that it exists.
It exists. I agree. Not sure it is a finite thing, and, assuming comp,
a machine can manifest it relatively to another machine, and only this
is needed to understand the reasoning. So here you don't criticize the
reasoning but comp itself. I respect that opinion, but I am personally
agnostic about it. As a scientist I try to show only that comp is
refutable, by showing that it has precise and testable consequences.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
It's harder to dinstinguish
yourself from other simulated selfes than from other biological
selves,
because of the natural biological barriers that we have, that
computers
lack.
Ah?
I can see that I am physically/biologically seperate from you,
You cannot see that.
???
Of course I can see that. We don't share the same brain and body,
relatively
speaking.
Probably, but this is something we have to bet on. We really don't
know, and with comp we are both an internal product of number
relations. We share the initial universal system (be it arithmetic,
combinator, etc).
Of course we can't be seperate in any ultimate way (even just
according to QM), but I don't say that.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
while we
could be both simulated on one computer, without any clear physical
dividing
barrier.
All my point is that once we assume comp, the word "physical" can no
more be taken as granted.
No, that's not your only point as presented by you. You say that
assuming
COMP experience is related only to a measure on the computations.
You can't just assume there is only computational immaterialism and
materialsm.
I assume computationalism. And I prove that it leads to ontological
immaterialism. I explain matter by machine's epistemology. In a
precise way so that computationalism is shown to be refutable.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
You seem to *presuppose* a primary physical universe (Aristotle). I
do
not.
I don't either. Frankly I wonder why you think that, given that I
have taken
a very obvious non-material standpoint in our discussions thus far.
Well, I didn't realize that the stuff you mentioned, was
consciousness, which is rarely described in term of stuff. You were
using more and more terms like "physical, biological" etc. Like if
those word could be taken for granted.
It somehow seems like you pretend that all opinions except your own
and the
ones of your favorite opponents (the ones you can easily refute) do
not
exist.
I don't make my opinion public, and I am mainly agnostic. Then I have
worked on a proof, and people studying it understand it, sometimes
quickly, sometimes it takes a longer time. The step 8 is usually more
difficult for many people, but it is just a question of doing the work
(that's why we do proof). I don't pretend it to be perfect, and thanks
to the discussions the MGA is clearer and clearer. I still don't know
if I have to put the "323 principle" explicitly in the comp definition
of not.
Honestly I am quite stupid to discuss with someone that just chooses
to
plainly ignore everything that doesn't fit into his own preconceived
notions
of what someone that's criticizing is saying.
Just tell me where in the proof you have a problem. All you need is to
assume comp 'for the sake of the reasoning". You just seems acting
like "knowing that comp is false". That might be possible. If comp is
false, it is not excluded that some (infinite) entity can know that.
In that case, it is up to you to explain why you believe or know that
comp is false, and I might change my mind (stopping being agnostic).
If the physics was proved to be Newtonian, I would probably consider
UDA as a refutation of comp, given that comp forbids physics to be
newtonian. Comp *is* highly counter-intuitive. Without Gödel's proof
and quantum mechanics, I would be very much more skeptical on comp.
It is quite strange to say over and over again that I haven't
studied your
arguments (I have, though obviously I can't understand all the
details,
given how complicated they are),
UDA is rather simple to understand. I have never met people who does
not understand UDA1-7 among the scientific academical.
Some academics pretends it is wrong, but they have never accepted a
public or even private discussion. And then they are "literary"
continental philosophers with a tradition of disliking science. Above
all, they do not present any arguments.
while you don't even bother to remember the
most fundamental premise of my argumentation (non-materialism). It
is like I
was saying to you: "Oh it seems to me you just presuppose that we are
material computers, that's why your argument works".
Your argument may work against materialism (I am not sure, I don't
take
materialism seriously anyway - frankly materialism is a joke, since
materialist are not even capable to say what matter is supposed to
be), but
you don't take into account any of the alternatives that can be
taken more
seriously (any sort of non-materialism).
On the contrary, I have always insisted that we agree on that
immaterialism. My point is only that "mechanism implies
immaterialism", and in a constructive way so that by looking on the
way matter behaves in our neighborhood we might refute mechanism.
I don't understand why you dislike the idea that some theory implies
an idea that you appreciate.
It seems very much you presuppose a purely material or computational
ontology.
I don't understand this. I show that both consciousness and matter are
partially non-computational, once we bet that we are Turing emulable.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
We can only say YES if we assume there is no self-referential loop
between
my instantiation and my environment (my instantiation influences
what world
I am in, the world I am in influences my instantiation, etc...).
Why? Such loops obviously exist (statistically), and the relative
proportion statistics remains unchanged, when doing the
substitution
at the right level. If such loop plays a role in consciousness, you
have to enlarge the digital "generalized" brain. Or comp is wrong,
'course.
I think it is self-refuting if we not already take the conclusion
for
granted (saying YES only based on the faith we are already purely
digital).
Imagine substituting our whole generalized brain (let's say the
milky way).
Then you cannot have access to the fact that the whole milky way was
substituted,
In the reasoning we use the fact that you are told in advance. That
you cannot see the difference is the comp assumption.
Ah, OK. If you can't notice you are being substituted the very
statement
that you are being substituted is meaningless.
Why? I can say yes to the doctor, and tell him that it seems that the
artificial brain is 100% OK, because I don't notice the difference,
and then he can show me a scan of my skull, and I can see the
evidences for the artificial brain. So I can believe that I have
perfectly survived with that digital brain.
If I can't know or believe
(based on any kind of evidence) that I am being substituted, what do
we base
the statement that we are being substituted on? It is as abitrary as
saying
that I am the pink unicorn.
It is the same for the artificial heart, that we are already using.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
because otherwise the whole milky way would have to appear to
be a computer running a simulation of the milky way, making our
experience
drastically different (which is not possible, given that our
experience
should remain invariant). But if we don't have access to the fact/
the way
that we are being substituted, it makes no sense to say YES, because
we
can't even say whether are being substituted. If a substitution is
not
taking place subjectively, the question of saying YES becomes
meaningless
(making COMP meaningless).
Of course not. You talk like a doctor who would provides artificial
brain without asking the permission of the patient. Then comp entails
that, if the doctor is choosing the right subst level, the patient
will not see the difference. But that's part of the point.
If the patient can't see the difference, the doctor is of no help,
since he
will be the same after the operation as before.
I just answered this above.
If his brain was damaged,
the doctor will make the computer simulate a damaged brain, what a big
success!
Then take a non damaged brain. The damaged brain is used only for
providing a motivation for the substitution in the definition of comp.
In that case it is implied that the brain disease will not be copied.
It might be a disease appearing at a lower level than the substitution
level, so the artificial brain will not inherit this. This is non
relevant for the reasoning. In step 1 I use teleportation, and this
could have been used for the definition. Your critic sticks on details
which are not used in the course of the reasoning.
So the only option that is remotely rational is to say NO (since if
he says
YES he has nothing to gain but much to lose), that's why saying YES
is close
to meaningless.
As I said, you might say yes just for using classical digital
teleportation to accept a job on Mars.
It is as meaningful as saying yes to a magician that
transforms you into a pink unicorn that will experience the same way
as you
did.
If we still say YES, we just have faith that nothing will happen, even
though it is pretty clear that something will happen.
That will be clear when you see the doctor's bill, the pictures, etc.
If we have that faith,
we believe in abitrary mysterious occurences.
We believe just that the brain is a sort of machine, and that we can
substitute for a functionnally equivalent machine. This cannot be
proved and so it asks for some faith. But it might not need to be
blind faith. You can read books on brain, neuro-histology, and make
your own opinion, including about the subst level. The reasoning uses
only the possibility of this in theory. It is theoretical reasoning in
a theoretical frame.
You can't derive anything from
that. Especially you can't derive that we surived due to the
instantiation
of the right computations.
I cannot derive that.
Indeed, I can derive that we can never derive from any theory that we
can survive a substitution or not. But science is not truth, it is
"reasonable belief". To refute comp, you have to show that it leads to
a contradiction (not to counter-intuitive facts).
Bruno Marchal wrote:
The only way we could know we are being substituted is if there is
something
other than the milky way to communicate with (which can see we are
being
substituted).
Yes. Like the doctor.
But we have no basis whatsoever to believe the statement of the
doctor that
substituted you, unless he gives you evidence that you actually DID
change,
and in this case your experience can't remain invariant (because you
become
aware that your brain has changed).
By looking at the scan. By looking at the bill. I can have indirect
evidences. All evidences are always indirect. Most people believe in
comp. The problem is only that most of them believe also in
materialism, or physicalism, and I show them wrong.
You seem to want the consequence (immaterialism) but not some premise
(mechanism).
When the doctor says he substituted you, he either lies,
That can happen. That is why I often add the default hypothesis: the
doctor is skillful, he has bet on the right level (or below), no
asteroid strikes the hospital, etc. In the step seven you need only to
assume a universe with a UD running in it (and at step 8, you need
only arithmetic, and of course the idea that "you" (in any third
person sense) are digitally emulable, even if your generalized brain
is as big as the physical universe).
or believes that
substitution=non-substitution,
? (then he is inconsistent).
or he just asserts that he substituted the
way he interfaces with you (or simulates you) - in which case we
ourselves
remain unsubstituted.
That is not what he/she is supposed to do.
If you say we take the doctor on faith, than fine, you base your whole
argument on absolute blind faith.
Why? I might on the contrary consult many doctors, and follow the one
who give me the best argument. That some faith is at play is a theorem
of the theory. Comp is not provable: it *is* a theological assumption.
I am just honest by making that clear. Now, you need some faith for
*any* operation in any hospital.
Unfortunately then we could as well base
the argument on "1+1=3" or "there are pink unicorn in my room even
though I
don't notice them", so it's worthless.
This does not follow. We do have biological evidence that the brain is
a Turing emulable entity. It is deducible from other independent
hypothesis (like the idea that QM is (even just approximately)
correct, for example).
You don't seem to realize, a bit like Craig, that to define a non-comp
object, you need to do some hard work.
Note, I agree it is not meaningless
to say YES or NO to a substitution, just in the particular way you
need it
in order for your argument.
At which step does the argument becomes invalid?
Bruno Marchal wrote:
But then we have no reason to suspect that this other will
remain invariant, because from its perspective we have shifted from
being
the milky way to being a computer running a simulation of a milky
way, which
is such a big difference that it will inevitably totally change its
response
(to the point of not being the same other / the same relative world
anymore
- a a totally different interaction s taking place).
You beg the question. Assuming comp he will say "thanks doctor, I
feel better now".
No, he can't say that, since, as you just wrote youself, *he can't
notice
the difference*.
This is not relevant. In that case we can suppose that he copied the
brain minus the disease. The disease might occur at a lower level
than the subst. level. Also brain disease are non sensitive.
It is stupid to say thanks for a doctor that didn't change
anything.
I might feel exactly the same, and the difference is just that I have
a longer life time expectation.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Or we just *believe* we are being substituted (for whatever reason)
and say
YES to that, without any evidence we actually are being substituted,
but
then we are not saying YES to an actual substitution but to the
conclusion
(I am just a digital machine that is already equal to the
substitution).
Please just study the proof and tell me what you don't understand. I
don't see the relevance of the paragraph above, nor can I see what
you
are arguing about.
I studied your proof. Of course your proof works if you assume the
conclusion at the start
In that case the proof does not work, of course. I don't put the
conclusion in the hypothesis, or show me where. Show me the precise
line which makes you feeling so.
or assume something nonsensical (like saying YES to
a substitution that doesn't subjectively happen).
The whole point of comp, is that we survive without any subjective
change to such a substitution, done by other people (so that witness
can attest it).
My point is that either
you are just proving your assumption (we say YES due to a belief in
our
digital, that is, we say YES because we already are digitally
substituted),
Assumption: the brain is a machine
Conclusion: Aristotle metaphysics is wrong, and Plato-Pythagorus is
correct (physics become a branch of number theory).
or your proof doesn't work (because actually the patient will notice
he has
been substituted, that is, he didn't survive a substitution, but a
change of
himself - if he survives).
He might notice it for reason which are non relevant in the reasoning.
He might notice it because he got a disk with a software making him
able to uploading himself on the net, or doing classical
teleportation, or living 1000 years, etc.
I guess I will abandon the discussion, if in the next post you also
don't
bother to respond to anything essential I said.
Let us try to agree on what is it that we disagree on. I see only that
you are skeptical on comp, which is not a problem, (I am too). Indeed
the whole point of the reasoning consists in showing that comp is
refutable. My goal is to show that we can reason in that fundamental
domain.
Apparently you are
dogmatically insisting that everyone that criticizes your argument
doesn't
understand it and is wrong, and therefore you don't actually have to
inspect
what they are saying.
On the contrary, I answer all objection of all kind. I do not impose
any view. But if the proof is not valid, you have to say at which line
it becomes invalid. All what I see is that you believe that comp is
false, but strictly speaking, this means you have another theory, and
you are free to expose it.
Don't talk like if my work is problematical. It is not, except for
dogmatic people insisting on keeping mechanism and materialism (and I
have not met any such person in the academic scientists, with once
recent exception who wrote a text full with many errors in elementary
propositional calculus).
I might still be wrong, but then help us to find the invalidity.
If this is the case a discussion is quite futile. Up
to know I just had the faith that you know better than that and will
sooner
or later give an actual response, but now I am not so sure anymore.
You are the one saying that a reasoning is wrong. Could you please be
specific about where the reasoning seems wrong to you.
I am doing it on the FOR list (with variable interruption, but this
progress steadily), and on the EDOT (now ENET forum), where I will
send a summary soon.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Either way, our experience doesn't remain invariant, or we have no
way to
state we are being substituted (making COMP meaningless).
This point is not valid. We can say "yes" for a substitution in
advance. Then, in that case, just surviving a fatal brain illness
will
make the difference.
But you just said that this can't happen, because he himself will
subjectively remain unchanged.
What is the relevance of this for the reasoning. The illness might not
be sensible. So the difference is just that the person will live a
longer time, and that difference is not relevant for the reasoning.
His fatal brain illness will still be there,
because we have to include it in the substitution.
This is not valid. Counter-example: the illness appears below the
substitution level.
Otherwise you are not
substituting, you are changing him.
The substitution is done at some level. So the body undergoes some
change. Surviving means that the person keep his memories,
personality, relative consciousness, etc. Like with any artificial
objects, there might be side-effects, which are not relevant with the
reasoning. At the step seven, there is no more any substitution. The
doctor and the teleportation are used only as pedagogical tools to
explain the first person indeterminacy, the non locality, the
invariance for the physical or virtual reconstitution, etc. All those
tools are no more needed when the concrete UD is introduced (and then
itself eliminated at the step 8).
And in this case he will "survive" as
what he changed into (even if this is just a collection of misfiring
transistors). But then we obviously don't know whether he really
survives in
any sense of the word,
We never know that. We can only collect evidence and reason in a
theory. I cannot prove that I survive when I drink orange juice
either. You are correct but again I miss the relevance concerning the
validity of the reasoning.
and if, in what sense he did survive (since this
depends in which way we changed him).
He survives in the usual clinical sense. Comp is well illustrated in
this movie "father and son game"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMHWSQLtds8
Bruno Marchal wrote:
How is that not a reductio ad absurdum?
The only situtation where COMP may be reasonable is if the
substitute is
very similar in a way beyond computational similarity - which we can
already
confirm due to digital implants working.
The apparent success of digital implants confirms that we don't need
to go beyond computational similarity.
It doesn't, because the surrounding neurons may make additional
connections
to interpret the computations that are happening.
In that case.
I can understand that you cannot follow the reasoning if you cannot
give sense to the comp hypothesis. But here you are pleading again for
the falsity or the senselessness of comp.
This just works as long as
the neurons can make enough new connections to fill the similarity
gap.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
This would make COMP work in a quite special case scenario, but
wrong in
general.
It is hard to follow you.
I am not saying anything very complicated.
You seem to oscillate between "comp is nonsense" and "there is
something wrong with the reasoning".
You need to be able to conceive that comp might be true to just follow
the reasoning.
It is only hard to follow because
your are insisting on some theoretical situtation which is non-
sensical in
reality.
Reality? This is something we are searching a theory for, not
something we know, except for consciousness.
If you do insists that we say YES in the way you would like us to,
we either
say YES to your conclusion,
That's the point of a logical reasoning.
or we just say YES to something that doesn't
happen (which doesn't allow any conclusion to be drawn).
What does that mean? We reason from a starting assumption. Those are
propositions, and the truth or falsity of it has no relevance at all
for the reasoning. That is the point of logic and math: we reason in a
way independent of truth and interpretations.
Like the french scientist, you confuse the notion of truth and the
notion of validity.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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