On 13 Oct 2015, at 18:34, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 10/13/2015 2:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 13 Oct 2015, at 07:37, Bruce Kellett wrote:
Has computationalism predicted spin? Special relativity? Quantum
field theory? General relativity?
Computationalism is used implicitly in the theory of evolution, in
biology, and in physics once we abandon the collapse of the wave.
Except those sciences were well developed already using Newtonian
physics and before anyone had even guessed at quantum mechanics. So
I think you give to much credit to computationalism. I don't
think there's been even one application of Godel's theorem, much
less implicit reliance on it.
Newtonian physics is not a computationalist theory. It is based on
analysis. But the application does not exploits this, and that has
been considered as a defect of classical physics, although it is not
when we assume comp.
The impact of Gödel's theorem has been huge, and its technics are used
in computer science everyday. Another use is the understanding of our
limitations, like when we say that Hilbert 10th problem is unsolvable.
You remind me someone saying that the discovery of the irrational
numbers changes nothing, because we never use real numbers. But that
is false, we use them all the time. We just rarely use them
individually with all their decimal, but we use the way they are
related.
Non-computationalism is only a collection of incompatible, often
vague, ideas. There is not yet any working theory.
Sure there is: If you change some process in the brain it will
change the conscious experience of the person.
This usually assumes computationalism.
And there are lots of details to that theory as to how the changes
happen and what the mechanism is. Which incidentally,
computationalism contributed nothing.
It is used at least implicitly when evoking the existence of that
mechanism. Diderot defined rationalism by computationalism: the belief
in mechanical causes and explanation.
Then computationalism explains both consciousness and matter
appearance already.
So does "God did it." but both explanations explain too much.
Not at all. Why are you unfair? That is not your usual style. Comp
provides a constructive derivation of physics, and the propositional
physics (the propositional logic of observability, ad defined by UDA
and its translation in arithmetic) is already extracted. And we get
the difference between quanta and qualia, which was the goal.
Physics do not even try, it assumes them, and some identity link.
It works well to make local prediction, but it fails on
consciousness (when it does not eliminate it).
It doesn't fail. It just fails to meet your critereon to having an
axiomatic explanation.
Not at all. It fails. When people reason correctly with mechanism and
materialism, they do eliminate consciousness, and the step 8 explains
why they have to. Physics just contradict the existence of the first
person data. The error is already present in Aristotle Metaphysics.
But even quantum mechanics doesn't have an axiomatic basis - or
rather it has several different ones; which is typical of physical
theories.
Same with the theory of computations. The point is that physics does
not address the first person perspective fully, even if you can
consider that Galileo, Einstein and Everett made giant step in that
direction. Comp extends this a lot.
Physics is not a science addressing those questions.
True, but computer science and neurophysiology are addressing them.
They adress the "easy problem", by using computationalism, but faiking
to see that this eliminate matter. Or when some intuit this, they
eliminate consciousness because they can't abandon their religious
belief in something that is undetectable: primary matter.
Theology is the original science addressing those question,
Theology is the science of gods and man's relation to god.
Yes. And Plato is the first to understand that Truth plays the role of
God, which means it has a transcendental roots, and can be intuited
only through person experiences, called "mystical". Physics and
mathematics is borned from that intution: reality is more than what we
see.
and indeed computationalism explains why neoplatonist theology fit
better the most obvious facts (existence of mind and matter
appearance) than physics, when physics is seen as a theology
(Aristotle idea).
It's really a slur to label physics "Aristotlean". Aristotle never
did physics. He did arm chair theorizing which he could have
immediately refuted by simple experiments which he never thought of
doing. Thales and Anaximander and Aristarchus could much more
reasonably considered physicist - but their influence was cut off by
theology, by referring all mysteries to the action of gods.
Aristotle create physics, then his theories has been refuted, but that
is how physics progressed.
The cut off was not made by the original theology, but the one stolen
by politics. You could as well says that science has proven that
cannabis is a dangerous drug in need to be made illegal. But it is not
science it is pseudo-science made by special interest. the same has
occurred with theology, which is normal as the one controlling the
most fundamental science got a lot of political powers.
You just seem to be not interested in "philosophy" of mind or
theology, and at the same time you argue that physics is the only
correct theology, but then give us what is your non-
computationalist theory of mind.
That's a fair challenge. But it's usual in the early stages to the
development of a science that one has many observations but only
local effective theories and no over-arching scheme. Even in
physics there is no over arching theory that includes quantum
mechanics and general relativity; but that's not the same as having
no theory of physics. There have been over arching theories,
theologies, but they've never proven productive.
That is false. They have been productive. Read the book by Lambros
Couloubaritsis.
Historically all the progress has been made by looking at the
shadows on the cave wall and saying, "Let's see what we can figure
out from them."
Exactly. The theological move is in believing that there is something
we can figure out. Comp explains why that has a theological part, and
that is what all people introspecting themselves can discover. Now, we
know that this is true for all universal machine once they believe in
enough induction axioms, and that this remains true for all their
consistent extension.
Now, I have never defended the truth of computationalism. My point is
just that computationalism is testable, and that the theology of the
universal machine is testable, so we can test if Aristotle metaphysics
is correct or not, and the preliminary results is that Plato is less
wrong than Aristotle on this.
Bruno
Brent
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