On 18 Feb 2014, at 15:06, David Nyman wrote:
On 17 February 2014 17:46, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
On 17 Feb 2014, at 14:13, David Nyman wrote:
On 16 February 2014 16:17, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
The whole schema - "physics" included - would then have to be
considered an epiphenomenon of some inaccessible ur-physics.
Exactly.
I'm not sure that it's exactly a contradiction just because of
that, though, as in practice any putative ontological base -
numbers included - must be inaccessible in this sense, except to
theory.
It illustrates, perhaps better than step 8, the difficulty of
wanting a primitive matter having a primitive ontological reality
capable of singularizing a conscious person capable to refer to it.
I have to think more about this.
I must say that it is this form of argument that most forcefully
persuades me that the reversal of comp-physics is necessary if CTM
is to be salvageable.
Interesting.
ISTM that MGA or Maudlin-style arguments tend to lead to somewhat
ad hoc quibbling over the role of counterfactuals or the like.
Strictly speaking MGA avoids the counterfactuals, but Maudlin does.
And as quantum logic can be seen as a sort of logic of conditionals,
or even counterfactuals, I am not sure if that confrontation with
the counterfactuals is not interesting per se.
There might be some sense in the quibble.
Here, we see that the very notion of "epiphenomenon" is related to a
notion of causality, with his typical one way (matter ->
consciousness) causality.
But this asks for a notion of causality (which usually rise up the
notion of counterfactuals).
With comp (with the consequences) we can derive the main notion of
causality for the indexical type of points of view "[]" (when A -> B
is a law: in all worlds where A is true, B is true: that is [](A ->
B).
I must admit it hasn't been entirely clear to me why you decided
that the MGA can go through without addressing the counterfactuals,
especially since Maudlin felt he had to address them in his
alternative formulation.
I "trap" logically the audience when making them accepting that comp +
physical supervenience, makes a "sane" computer equivalent with a
disfunctioning computers helped by the relevant "lucky" cosmic rays.
They have to throw out counterfactuals already to associate the
particular consciousness with the particular physical activity.
Maudlin shows this in showing that the counterfactualness can be
restored in the deficient lucky machine by the introduction of
physical inactive device.
But with comp, and some reflexion, we can understand that
consciousness is not related to particular computation, it is related
to a person, which has, or not, the means to kick back on its local
most probable reality among an infinity of one.
I appreciate that Maudlin proceeds by trivialising the amount of
activity involved in the computation whereas MGA relies on
evacuating the notion of physical computation itself, but does the
latter approach obviate the need to account for any possible
counterfactual activity?
No. I mean, I agree. That's why Maudlin's contribution is interesting.
In fact the whole problem is the problem of counterfactuals. What is
needed is a good notion of causality. But a notion of causality is a
modal notion, and there is an inflation of modalities possible. A
nightmare for a Quinean logician? Not necessarily. "Being a machine",
in the arithmetical sense, introduces its unavoidable internal
modalities, definable or quasi-definable in arithmetic, where the
cognitive psychological and theological propositions can always be
unravelled in terms of "reasonable" infinite sets of numbers and
number relations.
But the comp account of consciousness - or indeed any non-
eliminativist position - strongly entails that thought can refer
only to epiphenomenal matter (to continue with that way of speaking).
I guess that is the major attraction for idealist theories. It is
easier to explain the illusion of matter to a conscious being than
to explain the illusion of consciousness (a quasi contradiction) to
a piece of matter.
The leap from epiphenomenal to primitive matter then seems
inadequately motivated, to say the least.
OK. It is last God-of-the-gap. But it has a strong natural appeal,
making the "correct" theory necessarily counterintuitive.
The most typical explicit motivation is by appeal to evolutionary
arguments - e.g. that we have evolved more-or-less accurate
internal models to aid in our survival in the "real" external world
of physics. But this appeal conceals a blatant begging of the
question: yes, it must *appear* so, but it is precisely these
appearances that we should seek to explain on independent grounds,
not by assuming what is to be explained.
I agree.
I wonder if you have had any further thoughts?
I have to say that the notion of epiphenomenon plunges me in an
abyss of perplexity. The notion of causalities and responsibilities
are modal "realities", notably due to the nuances between true,
justifiable, observable, knowable, etc.
The natural picture we get assuming computationalism is conceptually
transparent. We start from the arithmetical truth, which most people
can understand the meaning of the sentences (before deciding its
truth if ever). Then it is part of arithmetical truth that "Turing
(universal) machines" exists and are involved in an intricate web of
dreams, in which the self-referential constraints of relative self-
correctness brought a non trivial invariant, sort of universal
person. With comp it can only be a sort of baby, as any piece of
life would particularizes it already.
I often present the three primary hypostases in the order
1) p that is arithmetical truth
2) []p (beweisbar(p)) the intelligible
3) []p & p (the soul, the first person, the knower (Theaetetus))
But the more logical order from inside is that we start from p, and
keep p along with the logical birth of the "man" ([]p).
So "man" is born with "[]p & p", and it is only "civilisation/honest-
communication" that taught him to separate
"[]p" from "[]p & p". Epiphenomenalism might be related to our
necessarily inability to see that, or know when, they are
equivalent. A secret well kept by G* minus G, for the consistent,
and a fortiori, the correct machines.
I can speculate that the left brain is more specialized in []p and
the right brain is more specialized in []p & p. The soul is lives at
the intersection of belief and truth.
Might one not say that the soul lives in the gap that appears at the
intersection of belief and truth?
Hmm... may be the 3-1 soul. The soul of the neighbor. From the soul's
view on itself (it's specialty), belief = knowledge = truth. It makes
the 1p solipsist, and indeed S4Grz provides an arithmetical
interpretation of intuitionist logic (like Z provides an arithmetical
interpretation of a quantum logic (and X, an intuitionist quantum
logic).
The miracle for the "pure soul", S4Grz, is that it does not split.
S4Grz = S4Grz*. The soul is the locus where the outer god and the
inner god agrees. This is very close to Brouwer's theory of
consciousness, including his skepticism toward formalism, given that
the box and diamond of S4Grz are not definable by the machine. S4Grz
and the X logics refer literally to non definable points of view.
It occurs to me that if, as you say above, the more logical order is
to begin with the "primordial" notion of arithmetical truth, that
proceeding in this order might help Craig to appreciate that what he
sees as his categorical dispute with comp may be more apparent than
real.
It might be a simplification, but Craig confuse []p and []p & p.
Basically the body and the soul. He is enough unclear on both the body
and the soul (sense) to remain coherent on some aspect of matter and
sense with respect to the CTM, but for some personal reason he ignore
the soul of the digital machine. He makes that confusion two times. by
wanting sense to be primordial, and then when confusing the machine's
body with its soul.
Much of the wrangling seems to have been about what should be deemed
fundamental or primordial and the step-wise form of your argument
might easily cause someone to lose sight of the fact that everything
argued for is nonetheless "there at the beginning". Consequently,
whatever is to be found when we arrive at the ineliminable gap
between belief and truth is also primordial in some sense.
Absolutely. We inherit a whole block theology, with the biology, the
psychology, the core physics and the infinitely many geographico-
historical contingencies, and well beyond into the Unknown. That is
entirely out of the category of time and space.
Perhaps we can judge from his response to my comments on the other
thread where I've tried again to clarify this point.
You can't convince the soul (S4grz) from a statement about a machine
(G). Craig plays well the role of the "naive" first person machine,
which does not really want to be confronted with another set of beliefs.
With the "sun in law", Craig has warned us that his theory is prepared
for zombies, or dolls. I think that he suffers from some carbon
idolatry. Craig has already dismissed an argument because of the
logical form of the argument. It is a tough challenge to raise doubt,
in such condition.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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