On 15/07/2016 8:31 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:19 AM, Bruce Kellett
<bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
On 15/07/2016 11:03 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
Although I think JKC has a point about pronouns, I don't see what it has to
do with Bruno's theory. He just proposes this as an illustration of
first-person-indetermancy as implicit in Everett's interpretation of QM.
It has problems with probability, but so does Everett's QM - what does
probability refer to when everything happens. The question of which JKC
just gets mapped to which world.
Exactly. I have made this point before. The first six or seven steps of
Bruno's argument are not really necessary. It is only when he moves the
Universal Dovetailer into platonia in step 8 that anything new actually
happens.
I don't think the argument would pack the same punch without the
previous steps. It's easy to dismiss the move to platonia without
them. With them it is not so easy -- unless you resort to linguistic
tricks like confusing 1p and 3p on purpose.
It is easy to dismiss the move to platonia at any time. Confusing 1p and
3p is not relevant here.
He could have started there and argued for the reversal of physics
and computationalism directly. The duplication of persons is just a
distracting irrelevance to the main argument,
The duplication machines are an excellent device to expose materialist
self-contraditions (if you do not assume dualism).
Materialism or physicalism? I don't think I am trying to defend the idea
that matter excludes the mental. Besides, where is the
self-contradiction in materialism (or physicalism)?
I don't see how
these contradictions would be exposed by outright proposing the move
to platonia. This feels like an attempt to "put Bruno in his place" by
forcing him to defang his argument.
If you propose the UD in platonia and derive physics from computations
through conscious persons, the "contradictions of materialism", if there
are such, become irrelevant.
and depends so heavily on a
particular theory of personal identity as to be essentially useless.
Would you mind restating Bruno's theory of personal identity in your
own words (so that we can agree that we are on the same page) and the
present a conflicting theory? I think this is the way forward.
Otherwise it's just subtle ad hominen: "you are ignorant about the
topic of personal identity!"
People on this list seem to be very quick to interpret a lack of
philosophical insight into anything (theories of personal identity here)
as an ad hominem, whereas it is often a simple statement of fact. Bruno
himself is always criticizing his critics for a lack of understanding of
modal logics and computer science. I find the commenters on this list to
be, in general, philosophically naive.
The theory of personal identity behind the duplication protocols is not
clearly spelled out, but it is basically a psychological theory, that
places heavy emphasis on personal memories, though no doubt does give
some import to things like character, values, beliefs, desires,
intentions and so forth. There are several alternative theories of
personal identity, none is without some problems, but I think that the
closest continuer theory comes closest to surmounting the obstacles.
Bruce
--
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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
