On 17 February 2014 03:19, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 16, 2014 9:07:06 PM UTC-5, David Nyman wrote: > >> On 17 February 2014 00:29, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> You don't suggest that I can't understand comp, but you suggest that I am >>> impervious to reasoned argument about it...why would that be the case if I >>> understood comp as you seem to think it deserves to be understood? >> >> >> You said that I understood that you could not possibly understand comp. I >> have never said that nor do I believe it. I do however expect that you will >> persist in attacking a parody of comp of your own devising as long as you >> fail to engage with the genuine argument in its own terms and this is not >> necessarily so easy. >> > > Then that means you are accusing me of understanding comp but pretending > not to so that I can attack a straw man. > You misunderstood my meaning. I said that I don't believe that you cannot *possibly* understand comp, assuming you ever give it proper consideration, but I see no evidence that *in fact* you have ever understood it sufficiently well to refute it. Indeed your peremptory dismissals always seem to me to be based on one misunderstanding or another, but you never consistently engage with the argument to the point where these misunderstandings could be resolved. > If you are convinced of that there's nothing that I can say, but from my > perspective, if you think that I'm attacking a straw man, all that you have > to do is explain the difference between what I am attacking and the full > strength position of comp. > See below. > I do use examples which are hyperbole to make my point obvious, but that > doesn't mean my points are invalid just because the context becomes more > sophisticated. The problem with the disconnection of mathematics from > either consciousness (if we use a physical primitive) or physics (if we use > a phenomenal primitive) remains no matter what. If computation can create > consciousness, then consciousness has to be superfluous to consciousness, > and if computation can create superfluous phenomena which are not > computational then there is no basis to consider computation any different > than any other brute-emergence religious faith. > But computation cannot create consciousness. This is a gross misconception and we have touched on it before. What the comp argument elucidates is a principled reciprocity between a domain of function and a domain of appearance. The first is modelled as arithmetic (representing any first-order combinatorial system) and the second as a class of indexical arithmetical truths. The fact that the latter is encountered after the former *in the argument* should not mislead you into supposing that this recapitulates some actual sequence of creation, or that one is more "fundamental" than the other. That would be to mistake the argument for the thing argued for. So granting that comp can indeed faithfully represent the necessary reciprocity between function and appearance entails the acceptance (i.e. of the force of the cumulative argument) that the latter *just is* coterminous with arithmetical truth in some adequate sense and that this is *necessarily* the case from the outset. It is not a bolt-on extra to computation. > >> But not only is genuine understanding not equivalent to acceptance, it is >> the only generally accepted route to refuting any argument on reasonable >> grounds. When I previously suggested this, you deflected my proposal with >> some slightly disturbing remarks about seduction and Kool-Aid (which I >> presume to be some delightful US beverage unfortunately unavailable in my >> neighbourhood). Oh, and some tendentious psycho-babble about too-clever >> people losing touch with common sense, as I recall. >> > > References to Kool-Aid generally have to do with its availability in > Guyana, rather than the US. > Ah, I hadn't made the connection with Jonestown. What a revolting comparison. I'm not sure what it is that you think I don't understand. I get accused of > not understanding something very important about comp, but when pressed for > more details, all that I have ever gotten is that it can only be understood > by studying the very principles which I am saying supervene on more > primitive sense for their very existence. > Then you make the whole argument into a circle. To understand comp in its own terms you must cut the circle, start from the stated assumptions and convince yourself that, assuming the comp theory of mind, there is a *necessary* relation between function and sense. As I argue above, this does not entail any discrimination between the two as to which is the more fundamental; if anything it is the entire system of reciprocity that is fundamental, in a Platonic rather than an Aristotelian sense. > >> >> I don't know whether you regard me as a die-hard defender of comp, but I >> certainly don't see myself in that light. My own original predilections >> tended towards sensory-motive ideas and the so-called computational theory >> of mind seemed to me to be obviously wrong-headed, based on arguments not >> dissimilar to Searles' classic Chinese Room. The idea of the reversal of >> comp-physics simply hadn't occurred to me before I encountered Bruno's >> theory and I have spent the last six or seven years, off and on, trying to >> follow the ramifications of his argument, which goes well beyond the >> mind-body problem in isolation. In fact, the comp-physics reversal places >> observation at the axis of the world-problem as a whole, something that is >> now curiously reflected in recent developments in cosmological theory. But, >> like any theory, it is permanently open to refutation. >> > > I don't understand what is special about the comp-physics reversal. It > seems like old news to me. I have no problem with physics falling out of > computation, > Well, a lot of other people apparently do. The devil is in the details. > but sensory experience doesn't fall out of either one - not unless you > smuggle the possibility of it in before the fact. > But that is not necessarily so, as I argue above. I must admit that it used to seem obvious to me that this must be so, and indeed the force of arguments like Searle's depend on this native intuition, or common sense if you prefer. My position was that sense is sui generis and irreducible and that neither of these characteristics could conceivably be successfully captured by any objective model except as an optional extra that could just as easily be omitted. But I am less certain of that now, and the reasons for this stem from a range of considerations that tend to the same conclusion. I've mentioned some of these before, but perhaps chief amongst them is the fact that the entities captured by comp plead for their own incontrovertible access to indexical truth precisely as we do ourselves and hence to deny them that truth begins to seem tantamount to solipsism, or worse. I can't absolutely rule out the possibility that I'm merely succumbing to some arithmetical version of the pathetic fallacy, but I no longer think that this is as "obvious" as it might at first appear. > With the sense primitive, physics and comp reflect each other and overlap > each other, and the overlap can be inverted to triangulate sense. Physics > gives form, comp gives function, but you need something else to allow forms > to be appreciated and functions to be participated in. If forms and > functions could exist without that, they certainly would, and the > possibility awareness developing would not arise under any plausible > circumstance. Turn it around, and the primitive sensory-motive interactions > could easily be presented qualitatively as forms and functions. There's no > need to complicate it, it is a matter of comparing the most basic > possibilities and seeing which one makes the most sense. > Easily? I think it is not so easy and this is the continuing weakness of your position and that of related theories. As I suggest above we need to do more than propose some vaguely plausible connection between function and appearance; we need to elucidate a principled reciprocity between them, or at least the general shape of one. This is where I think panpsychist ideas tend most often to reveal their lack of traction on the core problems and indeed it is why I gave up on them. Just how are we to suppose such primitive sensory-motive interactions relate to everything else that we seek to explain? Are we to suppose that they are simply the interiority of what manifests as exterior interactions? If so, this might suggest a sort of primitive inner view of physics, but what further motive is there to conclude that any arrangement of micro-views carved at those particular joints would result in a qualitatively singularised view of a macroscopic world? Conceptual issues of this kind are often summarised under the grain and binding problems and I have never seen any proposed panpsychist resolution of them that really convinced me it had much traction (although I must admit that Gregg Rosenberg gets closer than most). > >> I suspect that much of your own opposition to comp (or what you imagine >> it entails) is, in effect, political and indeed you yourself have sometimes >> suggested as much. >> > > Not at all. Like you, I was not always a supporter of the position that I > have now. For most of my life I had reasoned that of course our phenomenal > experience was merely the computational product of a brain, and I looked > forward to a future in which people will be uploaded, live in simulated > worlds, etc. I didn't ask for my mind to be changed, and I have never had > any sentimental attachment to being a human or for the specialness of the > human species. I don't know what political agenda that you imagine I could > have, but to me, that accusation is an excuse to dismiss my position > without having to understand it. > Then let me offer you a sample ".. it is my understanding that our progress as a species depends on our realization that the fact that comp cannot be proved wrong is actually proof that it is wrong.". This is fairly representative of your manifesto. It is also unfortunately typical of such statements in that it is based on a false premise. As to understanding your position, I am perfectly open to such an understanding if you could only help me towards it by answering questions about it as clearly and directly as you can. From what I have read of your website I would say that you are clearly aware of much of the historical material on the topic but I haven't read anything there that convinces me that you have either an original or a satisfactory take on the problems. If you wish you might start by addressing the combinatorial issues I outlined in my preceding comment. > >> This prior commitment is reflected in your manner of deflecting arguments >> and questions somewhat in the manner of a lawyer defending his brief, even >> when they concern the details of your own theory. But frankly, I still >> don't understand why you wouldn't risk a sip of the Kool-Aid just out of >> native curiosity. What have you to lose? >> > > If I sound like a lawyer, it's not to evade questions, but to show why > they are irrelevant. > But you haven't succeeded in showing that. You have merely reiterated it. Over and over. > Most people here are focusing on the details of where I claim the comp > argument goes wrong, but that is a total waste of time. It is like looking > at an Escher drawing and demanding to know why waterfalls cant flow upside > down since they appear to be accurately rendered as doing so in the > picture. Over and over it is the same sleight of hand - looking at the > Liar's paradox from inside its broken logic instead of seeing the whole > statement as for the neither true-nor-false non sequitur that it is. Comp > is the identical non sequitur - a hall of mirrors which has no entrance and > no exit that invites us to imagine that the absence of ourselves within it > means that it is we who are not what we think, rather than the empty hall. > Oh deary me. Propaganda is such a poor substitute for argument. David > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
