On 12/6/2011 2:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 05 Dec 2011, at 19:03, benjayk wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am just not arguing at all for what
your argument(s) seeks to refute.
I know that. It might be your problem. You have independent reason to
*believe* in the conclusion of comp. You just seems uncomfortable that
those conclusions can be extracted from comp. It looks like you feel
like this should force you to accept comp, but I have *never* say so.
The point is that I can conceive to say YES, at least in theory.
I am not uncomfortable that those conclusions can be extracted from comp,
they just can't. I pointed out your flaws in your argument over and over
again, and you simply avoid them by stating some assumption that you
don't
make explicit in the reasoning (only the computational state can
matter) and
then saying it is equivalent to COMP.
Where do I say that only the computational state can matter?
Not in the assumption. Where existence of concrete material brain, and
skillful doctor, and some luck (for the level), etc. does matter, a
priori.
I might say something similar to what you say, but I say it only after
the step 7 and/or 8, which explains the reason why I are led to that idea.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
(things are made of spatially defined and non-fuzzy
stuff, like bricks or something).
Weak materialism is the statement that primitive matter exists
ontologically. It might be fuzzy, non local, even magical, etc.
If it is like that, what is the difference to immaterialism?
The main difference is that matter (or physics) single out (or try to
single out) one universal system, where comp explains that such a
universal physical system has to be justified from a measure, on all
computations, invariant for all universal machine points of view,
which includes the working of an infinity of universal systems.
The other difference is that by extracting physics from a
computational measure constrained by the logic of self-reference, we
get a natural distinction between qualia and quanta (even if quanta
appears as special case of qualia by the first person plural nature of
physical histories).
[SPK]
But this measure simply does not exist! The set of all computable
functions is of measure zero in the set of all functions. What are you
going to do about this fact? We cannot simply postulate a measure that
is not contained by the requirements of our physical world. The solution
is to understand that our physical world is what determines a local
measure on the computations. A search for a "global" or universal
measure is quixotic at best.
You didn't refute magical materialism, BTW. You 8 steps assumes nothing
magical is going on, and the MGA argument just refutes physical
supervenience (not physicality and consciousness are magically related).
I was just saying that I refute comp + consistency of *some* magical
materialism. I do not refute magical materialism per se, nor the comp
+ sufficiently magical materialism. This is obvious, and that is why
after step 8 a computationalist can throw such extreme magic away with
Occam razor. Thermodynamic does not refute the idea that car are
pushed by invisible and discrete Kangaroos. Artificial Magic is rarely
scientifically refutable, nor interesting.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
[SPK]
You do seem to vastly underestimate the powerful constraint induced
by our physical world. You tuck the physical world into the "Yes Doctor"
and never give it another thought, but such things are not so easily
dismissed by nitpicking curmugeons like me. ;-)
Onward!
Stephen
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