On 12 June 2014 15:09, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > I wouldn't go so far as to way it's "wrong", but I don't find it as > conclusive as he does. First, I think it's a category confusion to say > that "Ex(x+1 = 3)" proves that 2 exists. The truth of mathematical > existence statements just implies that the axioms lead to the proof that a > certain predicate can be satisfied. That's not the same "exist" as "Liz > exists". So there is no proof that the UD exists or even that arbitrarily > large numbers exist in the sense that you exist. >
The problem is that (like Winston Smith) I don't know the sense in which I exist. That's one of my reasons for being on this forum. > > Second, he implies that step 8 proves that the physical is dispensable; > but when challenged on the point he grants that is likely that human-like > consciousness can only exist within a physical environment. So he hasn't > proven that the physical is dispensable. He qualifies this by saying the > physical may not be dispensable, but it isn't "the primitive physical". I > think "the primitive physical" is a strawman. It's ill defined and I don't > know of anyone who asserts it except as a working heuristic. Even the > physicists he accuses of believing in primitive matter, think that matter > may be just mathematical relations (c.f. Max Tegmark, John Wheeler) and > others think it is just a certain way to organize qualia or knowledge (c.f. > Bertrand Russell, Chris Fuchs). Of course most physicists think the > mind/body problem is too ill defined a problem to tackle right now. > Well, Tegmark and even Wheeler are rather fringey on this one I believe. Have you read Max's book? He got a lot of flak for suggesting his MUH. I think Bruno's point is that most physicists assume the material universe is primitive (irreducible to simpler things etc). Even you appear to be doing this when you say "That's not the same "exist" as "Liz exists"." > > Instead he tries to identify consciousness as just a relation between > operators in modal logic or numbers in arithmetic. The similarity of > relations is suggestive, but I don't see that it proves anything; or more > accurately that it proves too much. It proves that consciousness is > realized by very stupid, even trivial, programs. Which to me seems like > changing the meaning of "consciousness". But as I say this isn't > necessarily *wrong* - it might be right is the sense that it can be > filled out and made into a theory with some predictive power and > consilience. > Ah, well, that's the point of course. But you may also be chasing a straw man, or suffering from the category confusion you mention above when you insist (or appear to insist) that 2 needs to "exist" for comp to work. Maybe 2 and the UD don't need to exist. Maybe we have this notion of existence which is abstracted from the appearance of a physical world, but maybe there is no such thing. I must admit I too find it hard to imagine that the totality of my being is contained in something like "[]p & p" (or whatever it is). But I also find it hard to imagine that 2 needn't be even, or that 23 could not be prime. Those are also irreducible facts, as far as I can tell. Can 2 be even without existing? Maybe it can, but then maybe the universe can be observable without existing, too. "This world, like all worlds, is māyā -- 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/d/optout.
