On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Stephen P. King <stephe...@charter.net>wrote:
> On 2/11/2012 6:29 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 11 Feb 2012, at 07:32, Stephen P. King wrote: > > Hi ACW, > > Thank you for the time and effort to write this up!!! > > On 2/9/2012 3:40 PM, acw wrote: > > Bruno has always said that COMP is a matter of theology (or religion), > that is, the provably unprovable, and I agree with this. However, let's try > and see why that is and why someone would take COMP as an assumption: > > - The main assumption of COMP is that you admit, at some level, a digital > substitution, and the stronger assumption that if you were to implement/run > such a Turing-emulable program, it would be conscious and you would have a > continuation in it. Isn't that a strong theological assumption? > > [SPK] > Yes, but it is the "substitution" of one configuration of "stuff" with > another such that the functionality (that allows for the > implementation/running of the Turing-emulable (Turing equivalence!)) > program to remain invariant. One thing interesting to point out about this > is that this substitution can be the replacement of completely different > kinds of stuff, like carbon based stuff with silicon based stuff and does > not require a continuous physical process of transformation in the sense of > smoothly morphism the carbon stuff into silicon stuff at some primitive > level. B/c of this it may seem to bypass the usual restrictions of physical > laws, but does it really? > What exactly is this "physical stuff" anyway? If we take a hint from > the latest ideas in theoretical physics it seems that the "stuff" of the > material world is more about properties that remain invariant under sets of > symmetry transformations and less and less about anything like "primitive" > substances. So in a sense, the physical world might be considered to be a > wide assortment of bundles of invariants therefore it seems to me that to > test COMP we need to see if those symmetry groups and invariants can be > derived from some proposed underlying logical structure. This is what I am > trying to do. I am really not arguing against COMP, I am arguing that COMP > is incomplete as a theory as it does not yet show how the appearance of > space, time and conservation laws emerges in a way that is invariant and > not primitive. > > > So you miss the UDA point. The UDA point is that if COMP is true, it has > to be complete as a theory, independently of the fact that the shorter time > to derive physics might be 10^1000 millenia. Comp explains, by the UDA, > that whatever you add to comp, or to RA, or to the UD, cannot play any role > in consciousness, including the feeling that the worlds obeys some role. So > if comp is correct the las of physics have to be derived from arithmetic > alone. Then AUDA makes a non trivial part of the derivation. We have > already the symmetry of the core bottom physics, the quantum indeterminacy, > non locality, non cloning. But this is just for illustrating the > consistency: the UDA conclusion is that no matter what, the appearance of > matter cannot use any supplementary assumption to comp and/or arithmetic. > You can sum up the UD by "comp is not completable". It is the Bell-von > Neuman answer to Einstein, in your analogy below. Arithmetic is made > conceptually complete. Whatever you add to it will prevent the comp > solution of the mind-body problem, a bit like evruthing you add to the SWE > will reintroduce the measurement problem in quantum physics. Comp and > arithmetic are conceptually complete, but of epistemologically highly > incomplete and uncompletable. > > Also, once you agree that stuff is not primitive, you have to define it > from your primitive terms, which I don't see possible given that your > primitive is the word "existence" which is not defined, nor even a theory. > > > Hi Bruno, > > You are still not addressing my questions and what I see as a problem. > The speed issue and completeness is not just addressing from an internal > perspective since we have to have invariance over many different internal > perspectives and these can vary over speed and complexity. This is > illustrated by the discussion of how "stuff" can vary while preserving the > functionality. The 'theory' of existence follows naturally from neutral > monism, you just need spend the effort to understand it. > Think of this another way, we have a choice between belief that "COMP > is true" or "COMP is false". In order to have a coherent notion of a bet, > both "COMP is True" and "COMP is false" have to exist side by side as > equivalently possible. > Yet ""COMP is true" AND "COMP is false"" is necessarily false. > If we consider that they only can have this "side by side equivalence" in > the mind, then we obtain the situation that their truth value is dependent > on the choice, > How? Just because you bet on something doesn't make it a correct bet. Just because you hold two contradictory propositions to have equal credence, doesn't make them both correct. I don't see where this is coming from. > but that would contradict COMP since built into it is the postulate that > truth is independent of belief. We have to look at COMP from the point of > view of many minds and not just one, but so far you have stoically resisted > doing this. Why? > > > > OTOH, I am not arguing for any kind of return to naive realism or that > the physical world is the totality of existence. I do know that I am just a > curious amateur, so I welcome any critique that might help me learn. > > > Comp like QM does not admit supplementary axioms, or variables, to > reinstall a physical realism. > > > This makes no sense to me. QM disallows for any particular realism in > the sense of property definiteness prior to observation. We do not need to > go through all of the no-hidden-variable theorems again, I hope! In fact, > the logic of QM is proven to not be faithfully capture in any one form of > Boolean representation because it is only representable as an Orthocomplete > Lattice. An OL is similar but not surjective to an infinite number of > Boolean Algebras and there does not exist a way to pick out one of them in > an a priori way. There is also the isomorphism between any dualization of a > finite vector space and between Hilbert spaces of the same # of dimension > that shows this same property. > OTOH, we can use the SSA idea to pick out a Boolean algebra by > identifying some sub-lattice of the OL, but this only works if we have many > observers, each with a set of local observables so that the collection acts > like the questioners in a Surprise 20 Questions game. > > > > I think it is, but at the same time, it has solid consequences and a > belief in it can be justified for a number of reasons: > a) Fading qualia thought experiment, which shows that consciousness is > utterly fickle if it doesn't follow a principle of functional / > organizational invariance. Most of our sense data tends to point that such > a principle makes sense. Avoiding it means consciousness does not > correspond to brain states and p. zombies. > > > Certainly! We need a precise explanation for psycho-physical > parallelism. > > > But there is no psycho-physical parallelism. The metaphysical physical > *is* an illusion, naïve or not. The physical itself is arithmetical truth > see from the observable point of view (suggested to be handled by the > logics of observation Bp & Dt (& p), at the G and G* levels). > > > But cannot you see that this claim that "there is no psycho-physical > parallelism" completely undermines the entire result? An illusion cannot > act as a coherent substrate upon which representations can be implemented. > So in effect you are denying the existence of the computer monitor with > which you are reading this email, and the whiteboards upon which you write > your symbolic systems of equations and your eyes that read this and > everything else that acts as a relatively stable substrate upon which one > arithmetic truth can be compared to another. > The UDA only shows that they cannot be ontologically primitive, or "fundamental". Consider an (unrealistically long) dream wherein the dreamer observes several violations of the real-life laws of physics (wrong proton mass, broken glasses reassembling themselves, whatever.). He then reasonably concludes that he is dreaming. In other words he reduces his experience in the dream to a "more fundamental" physical reality wherein he is asleep, his brain is in state X, and so on. He is therefore denying the primitiveness of his dream -- it is, in your terminology, an illusion. It seems to me that by your reasoning, the idea that the dreamer is dreaming undermines the result itself, so that no one can ever legitimately say "I am dreaming". If I see a cup of coffee getting hotter on a cold day, or have conversations with long-dead relatives, I cannot say that I am dreaming, because if I am dreaming then there is no reason to take my reasoning seriously. (A lot of lucid dreamers would beg to differ!) Is this a misrepresentation of your view? It is a somewhat subtle issue. > The physical cannot be just the arithmetic truth for such is > singular, it has to be at least the comparison between a pair of arithmetic > truths and for this to be possible there has to be a relatively stable > substrate. There is no escape from this necessity. > How do you know this? > > > > > My tentative explanation is that at our level a form of dualism holds. A > dualism quite unlike that of Descartes, since instead of "separate > substances", it is proposed that the logical and the physical are two > distinct aspect of reality that follow on equal yet anti-parallel tracks. > As Vaughan Pratt explains in his papers, the logical processes and the > physical processes have dynamics that have arrows that point in opposite > directions. Schematically and crudely we can show a quasi-category theory > diagram of this duality: > > ---- > X -----> Y -----> > | | > <----- A <------B <----- > > > I am OK with this. This is already derivable from the many dualisms > contained in the octalist machines points of view, notably between > "intelligible" (Bp) and (matter intelligible Bp & Dt). It does reverse the > arrow in a way akin to Pratt. It is not a parallelism, or anti-parallelism, > though, for the 1p and 3p are not symmetrical. Then the qualia, and the > first person plural quanta, are given by the machine's semantics for the > logic obeyed by Bp & Dt & p. > > > The diagram is strictly 3p. It would be helpful if you wrote up an > informal article on the octolism. It is very difficult to comprehend it > from just your discussion of the hypostases. > I agree, this would be very helpful. I wouldn't mind if it got a little technical, either. > > > I have no idea what your neutral monism refer too, except a sort of > vague God-like notion of Existence, but that's not a (scientific) theory, > yet. And, by UDA, whatever it adds to comp and arithmetic has to refute > the comp physics, or comp itself. Craig is, at least, coherent on this: he > abandon comp, to save an unintelligible notion of matter and mind (alas). > > > Read the discussion of neutral monism by Bertrand Russell and others. > http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/ is a good overview > (even though the pluralism of neutral entities assumption is problematic as > Spinoza understood). It would be helpful to you and the rest of us if you > spent some time refreshing your understanding of what theology is by > comparing the many theologies that already exist or by learning from the > wisdom of those that have done such studies. I hope that Bertrand Russell > is someone that you can respect as I respect your skills and understanding > of modal logics. > > Onward! > > Stephen > > -- > 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. > -- Joseph Knight -- 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.
