On 04 Jan 2014, at 19:42, Richard Ruquist wrote:
On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 1:06 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 04 Jan 2014, at 16:36, Edgar L. Owen wrote:
Pierz,
It may not be "physics" by your definition but both the Present
moment and Consciousness are certainly part of reality, in fact
they are basic aspects of reality.
Reality subsumes physics, if you want to define physics as just
what is mathematically describable.
Not all of reality is mathematical, but it is all logical since its
computed.
Obviously even a silicon software program is a logical structure
but not all of that logic is mathematical operations.
Logic is a branch of mathematics. Roughly, any other branch is
equivalent with logic (usually classical, but not always) + the non
logical supplementary axioms.
For applied mathematics, we usually relate the axiom with facts that
we infer (or believe in for any reason), assuming some reality (to
which the axioms and consequence are supposed to be applied).
For example, we all have a good intuition of the structure (N, +,
*), and we can axiomatize it by classical logic (= a set of axioms
and inference rules) + the supplementary axioms, in the language of
first order logic, with variables, with equality, union {0, s, +, *}:
0 ≠ s(x)
s(x) = s(y) -> x = y
x+0 = x
x+s(y) = s(x+y)
x*0=0
x*s(y)=(x*y)+x
If you accept Church thesis, computability is a purely mathematical
notion. Even an arithmetical notion, which means that you can define
it in that {0, s, +, *} language, and already prove something in
that theory. In fact that theory is "universal" with respect to
computability. It is a full complete programming language. It is not
complete with respect to provability, as no effective theory can be,
by Gödel incompleteness.
Not all reality is mathematical, indeed. This can be proved in the
weak comp theory I work on. The first person notion that we can
associate to machine escapes in some sense the "mathematical". But
that escape itself is mathematical. Mathematics cannot prove the
existence of something non mathematical, but it can prove that comp
entails the existence of some machine's attribute which are non
mathematically definable by the machine, yet "real" from the
machine's point of view.
HERE COMP IS AT LEAST CONSISTENT WITH THE CONCEPT OF EMERGENCE, BOTH
WEAK AND STRONG.
Opps. Sorry for the caps. But perhaps they were meant to be, one of
my superstitions, regarding at least my higher self.
I propose an argument showing that IF your consciousness is
invariant for a substitution of your "brain" at some description
level, (or any finite 3p description you want) by a digital
computer, THEN a weak form of computationalism is incompatible with
a weak form of physicalism. This can be used to reduce the mind-body
problem to a problem of justifying the beliefs in a physical reality
by the average universal number/machine. (I identify machines with
their number indice in some fixed universal enumeration).
I am agnostic about the existence of a primitive physical reality,
but "atheist" with respect to this when working in the
computationalist theory.
I have still no idea of what you assume. You seem to assume some
physical or psychological computational space, which makes not sense
to any ideally correct introspecting machines relatively to its most
probable universal implementations and neighbors. The + and * laws
above describe already the unique possible computational space, by
the Church-Turing-Post thesis/law. By its big but subtle
redundancies, it defines in arithmetic a "matrix" of
"dreams" (computations seen in the 1p view), and the physical and
psychological realities develop from there, in a relative indexical
way. Computationalism can exploit computer science and mathematical
logic to justify such proposition, even constructively, making the
comp theory falsifiable (up to some technical nuances).
Many physicists assume (not always consciously) a primitive physical
reality. Do you? It seems you said that you do not, but then how you
define term like moment, time, present moment, etc. And from what?
It looks like you take for granted some hybrid 1p and 3p notions.
You seem also to assume special relativity? What does that mean if
you don't assume some physics?
You talk often about something you call reality. Is not reality
exactly what we are searching and what we should not taken for
granted?
In "science" we start from what we agree on, if only momentarily,
and proceed. If not, there is no genuine attempt to communicate.
I hope you will succeed in clarifying your assumptions. I have still
no idea of your basic ontology. Keep in mind that with Church
Thesis, or with any known formal definitions, computation is a
purely arithmetical notion. You might keep in mind also that the
arithmetical reality is vastly greater than the "computable
reality", but both interact/interfere in many relative ways.
Bruno,
If "arithmetic reality" is the 3rd-person static block-universe
Platonic being,
is then "computable reality" the dynamic first-person comp-matrix of
numerous conscious beings
and yet the "vastly greater "arithmetic reality"" may do the
computations??
Not really. The computable reality is just the tiny sigma_1 part of
arithmetic. This is more or less standard in computer science. It is a
3p space. It does do all computations, in the 3p way.
But the first person points of view, and the higher order attributes
of the person supported by the computations will depend on the whole
arithmetical reality, with the non computable elements within it.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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