On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:33 PM, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote: > 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.
Confusing 1p and 3p is a trick used by several people to refute the initial steps of Bruno's argument, on the grounds of the supposed ambiguity of the pronouns. How do you dismiss the move to platonia while assuming computationalism? >>> 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)? Both entail that mind is an emergent phenomena on the complex interactions of physical particles. But then you are left, in my view, with two scenarios: - The complex interactions perform a computation, and that is what mind is. But then, the computation is necessarily finite and can be repeated. Unless you believe that this is the only universe there is and that it is finite in time, any such computation is bound to be repeated with p=1, so we reach a contradiction: mind cannot be local and associated to a specific piece of matter after all; - The complex interactions do something else than a computation. But then what do they do? All emergent phenomena that we know about can be traced back to some fundamental building blocks, but what are the building blocks in the case of consciousness? It's a magical step. >> 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. No, because the point is to show that computationalism and materialism are incompatible. >>> 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. It's an ad hominem if you do not cite the alternative theory that you are alluding to, so that we can go verify by ourselves and then come back with objections or change our minds. > Bruno himself > is always criticizing his critics for a lack of understanding of modal > logics and computer science. Yes, but he then goes on to explain these topics. Why don't you do the same and explain yours? > I find the commenters on this list to be, in > general, philosophically naive. Perhaps, but the majority are not (or were not) philosophy-adverse. Some are, but that's not me. > 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. I would say that, if you assume comp, then all of those things are encoded in the memories somehow. > 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. Ok, I'll take a look. I now remember you mentioning it before. Telmo. > > 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. -- 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.
