On 11 Feb 2014, at 00:18, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 10 February 2014 22:30, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
I can't know that either. If you are conscious, you might well
become a
zombie after the substitution, if comp is false for example. I
cannot
know
for sure that comp is true. I can know it in the Theatetus' way,
but this
means only that I believe in comp, and that God knows that it is
true.
But you can know that a particular type of substitution that
preserves
the 3p functional organisation of my brain will also preserve its
consciousness (if it had it to begin with), otherwise we could make
partial zombies, which are absurd. This is an important result. It
is
a proof of comp.
I might still die in the process. The other can be an "impostor"
instead of
a zombie.
Partial zombie does not make sense, but partial impostor might make
sense.
(I must think more about that).
We cannot prove comp, in the same sense that we cannot prove that
we survive
any instant in life. It is "trivial", but that plays some role.
The argument of partial zombie makes non-comp non-plausible, but it
cannot
be said to prove that comp is true. It is easy to build artificial
(ad hoc)
non comp theories to refute the "provability" of comp. Some people
agree
that they will survive if you replace their brain neuron by neuron,
but that
they would die if you copy them and destroy them, and with non
comp, this
might be possible. This does not make sense, IF we assume comp at
the start.
I don't agree. I think it *can* be proved that replacing the brain
neuron by neuron will preserve consciousness with the only assumption
being that the observable behaviour of the neuron is preserved. This
holds whatever theory of consciousness you have; for example, it holds
even if you believe that the brain is animated by God.
So you say that Behavioral mechanism entails computationalism?
I will resist asking in you in which theory.
That result would also prove the logical impossibility of zombie.
My feeling is that you might use comp somehow.
But it is easy to find a counter-example. Take the theory according to
which the brain is animated by God, as you suggest, and God decides to
stop consciousness when 88% of the brain get digital. The person is
transformed in one nanosecond from full consciousness to full
zombihood when that 88% treshold is passed.
Think about what it would mean if, say, the neural pathways
responsible for pain were replaced but the replacement parts were
zombified, dead or impostors. We can imagine that God, who is
omnipotent, creates these parts. If you were subjected to a painful
stimulus you would also honestly believe that you felt the pain, you
would experience anxiety associated with pain, you would yell out and
try to withdraw from the source of the pain, and so on. However, you
would not actually feel any pain!
My point is that this is more easy to conceive for an epiphenomenalist
than for a phenomenalist.
If my 3p-behavioral attempt to withdraw from the source of the pain is
not caused, or at least rationally related to the unpleasant feeling I
am experiencing, am I not already close to a zombie?
If you follow the AUDA "super-thread" (modal logic, self-reference/
diagonalization, ...), my question to you should be
"are the logic of "[°]p = []p & p epiphenomenal on the logic of []p?".
May be I should as you if the truth or falsity that "the machines 678
stops on input 200796" is epiphenomenal on the truth <axioms of
Robinson Arithmetic">. Is G itself epiphenomenal?
It seems to me that the UDA would support that the entire couplings
consciousness/physical-realities is an epiphenomena of arithmetic.
Like "free" in free-will, "epi" does not seem to add something clear.
usually it is sustain by dualist who grasp that interactionist dualism
is inconsistent. But arithmetic can explains the truth of many
statements on the machine that the machine sometimes "know" (by other
and diverse means than proof) and the logic (+UDA/comp) suggests they
describe phenomena, with primitive materiality being a delusion (no
ontologically primitive time, space, energy, particles, waves, fields,
etc.).
It's interesting that you think quantum suicide effects are an
example
of downward causation. It would, in fact, look like magic to a
scientist who observed it. The problem is, there aren't any
scientists
who have observed it and reported it.
Some believe that the origin of life is so improbable, that it
comes from
some "quantum suicide", or analog post-selection effect.
So it remains true that there is
no downward causation in science.
You mean "in reality"? Which reality? Even arithmetic is full of
downward
causation, like "Deep blue lost the game because it never studied
Nimzovitch
entries".
At some level, there is no downward causation (it is just addition
and
multiplication, or just particles and force), but it is false that
we live
at such level. At the level where we live there are downward
causation. The
physical laws only support my wanting to send you this post. I
don't send
this post due to physical or arithmetical laws, in any genuine
sense. When a
machine is as complex as a Löbian one, their laws of behavior have
nothing
to do with the laws used for their implementation, that would be, I
think, a
confusion of level. With comp, if we reiterate a similar confusion
of level,
you can say that there is no physical causation at all. The reason
why an
apple falls is no more that it obeys gravitation laws, but only that
addition and multiplication makes some number in some relative
state to
believe (correctly) that some computation is more frequent than
others.
Emerging things, even 1p, can be as real, and partially autonomous
with
proper higher level laws, as what they emerge from. In:
"Why did Lola cries this night?" ---"because she made a nightmare"
"Why did Lola cries this night?" ---"because she obeys QM".
The first explanation can make genuine sense. The second is true
(say) but
is true also for "Why did Lola not cry?", and is spurious at the
level where
the crying make sense.
The use of the second explanation to make the first one illusory is
the main
error of the reductionist.
But I wouldn't say the first explanation is illusory, I would say that
it describes a supervenient relationship. If you arrange the matter
just so, Lola will have nightmares and cry.
If you arrange matter like Hitler you will have the social nightmares
too, but that explanation will not figure in a book on WAR II, because
it is irrelevant.
If I ask "Do you understand how did Deep Blue win that game?", or "Do
you understand the algorithm used by Deep Blue in that game", and if
you answer me "yes, I understand, I have translated into assembly
language, here is the code", then I will not been satisfied.
Let me try to put this in an another way. All universal machine can
imitate
all universal machine. A root or bottom universal machine cannot
have a
downward causation on herself. But she can imitate another
universal system
having downward causation, even complete in the sense that the second
machine can be allowed to modify itself completely.
Brain are like that: it cannot modify itself by its own will, but
the mind
can do that to some extent (nature put obvious barriers, but then
we do
modify the brain in some downward way, by taking an aspirin, for
example).
To say that consciousness is epiphenomenal is like to say that
someone took
an aspirin because of QM, but this explains nothing (even if true):
the
genuine reason is that the guy has an unpleasant conscious
experience that
he want to ease.
The laws of physics or arithmetic makes it possible for you to
express your
point, but the content of your post is explained by your awareness
of the
questions, your taste for the field, your pleasure to argue
rationally, your
personality, etc. It is not explained by QM, as this explains all
posts on
all lists in all forums in an empty way. Your answer can be
supported by the
laws, but the laws does not explain your answer at the level where
your
answer can make sense to me.
I guess I will stubbornly stick to the idea that if the laws of
physics are sufficient for me to explain my point then my mind is
reducible to the laws of physics or arithmetic; and if they are not
sufficient then there is something missing.
I agree with that reductionism (in the form that it is the whole laws-
mind+laws of matter which "supervenes" on arithmetic).
But the capital point (indeed captured in AUDA by the difference
between p and []p), is that the explanation by physics or arithmetics,
although sufficient for god, or from the 0-person points of view, or
truth, it cannot be sufficient for *you*, and you cannot use that
explanation in practice, and it seems to me right now (I have no
certainty!) vacuously true *in theory*.
With UDA, matter is as much, epiphenomenal than mind, and due to the
reversal, if mind is epiphenomenal, matter begins to look epi-
epiphenomenal, somehow.
There is only the arithmetical truth, all the rest is arithmetic seen
from inside, from different points of view. For example, the
"observable" theory is described by the modality []p & <>t & p, with p
sigma_1 (shape = ExP(x, y, z, ...)), and "[]" is Gödel's beweisbar).
Bruno
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Stathis Papaioannou
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