On 08 Apr 2017, at 02:12, David Nyman wrote:
On 7 Apr 2017 11:53 p.m., "Brent Meeker" <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 4/7/2017 3:22 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
As I remarked before, it is as if consciousness were concealed from
the outside by a two-part public/private encryption scheme. Whereas
the public part is in principle entirely extrinsically inspectable
the decryption can be completed only in terms of the private
perspective of *the system in question*. This then inevitably
entails that decrypted messages of this kind must be inter-
subjectively incommunicable despite the ultimate irony that they
amount to the entirety of inter-subjectively "shareable" concrete
reality. It is of course in this sense also that the brain is
secondary to consciousness: i.e. that self-referential perceptual
apprehension is the filter through which a concrete reality, with
all its brains and bodies, is enabled in the first place to emerge
(and I do mean emerge in a strong sense). That primary "grasp on
reality" is what enables any subsequent abstract analysis in terms
of a reductive "bottom up" physical mechanism playing the role of a
locally-dominating computational mechanism (or IOW what you have
termed the reversal of physics and machine psychology).
But what, in the computations of the UD, is "perceptual
apprehension"? Bruno says that the physical world in not computed,
the way some people speculate that "we are a simulation", but only
thoughts are computed and the physical world is inferred.
Yes of course, but it's that very "inference" in the first person
perspective that unavoidably must present as perceptual
apprehension before it can be abstracted to any other level of
analysis. The point I've been making (which goodness knows is hardly
novel in these discussions) is that the existence of self-reflexive
computations is what permits the emulation of an internal or
subjective logic in terms of which there can be precisely this
direct apprehension (a term etymologically related to grasping) of a
concrete perceptual reality. And the logical cost of any denial that
such apprehension is veridical (as, at least at face value, in the
case of Churchland or Dennett) must be the loss not only of such
concrete perception in itself (and no, this conjunction of concrete
and perceptual isn't a contradiction), but also the entire sense of
any purported utterance that could otherwise be understood as
referring to it.
I agree that the physical world is inferred from those perceptions
that have point-of-view-invariance as my friend Vic Stenger called
it. But I don't see how a POVI subset of UD computations can just
be picked out by some anthropic principle. ISTM they must have some
computed unity independent of conscious thoughts (which must be a
subset of zero measure).
Yes indeed, but don't you have it backwards here? Surely it's rather
that a POVI non-zero subset of reflexive UD computations is
hypothesised to pick out a physical world in which it is itself
embedded. That's implicit in the comp theory. And note that this
physical world is in the first instance apprehended (perceived,
grasped) as a concrete percept. Any other level of analysis can only
ever be a secondary inference from this primary apprehension. And my
point is that if, instead of this, you jump ahead to the point at
which the "physical computation" is already independently assumed
(aka primitive) there can be no further a priori need for any
hypothesis of subjectivity or for that matter any concrete
perceptual reality that might accompany it. A self-sustaining bottom-
up-all-the-way-down physical mechanism can have no principled
rationale for such baroque supplementary hypotheses. Computation, by
contrast, unavoidably implies precisely the contrary. Hence that is
one of its chief recommendations for evaluation as a TOE.
Of course you are right that, in terms of the computational ontology
assumed at the outset, this hypothesised subset must be evaluated
independently of the conscious thought to which it is supposed to
give rise. And it is an open problem whether such a subset is indeed
most plausibly encapsulated within the kind of consistent quantum-
logical physical mechanism that we take to underlie our shared
perceptual reality. This question of course lies at the heart of the
whole enterprise. Its plausibility must be evaluated, amongst other
considerations, with respect to computational relative measure in
the face of the entire trace of the UD, the complexities of which I
confess I am incompetent to assess.
Indeed. To choose one special computation, or one special universal
number, cannot be done. It is the mistake you have explained in your
last post.
The arithmetical truth chooses the POVI for us, (like in the self-
duplication) and it is an open problem if the self-referential logics,
extensional and intensional, are enough to "protect" us from the white-
rabbit-dream-noise, due to the infinitely many aberrant histories
which are also in arithmetic.
The entire trace of the UD, by a result of Post and Kleene, is
captured by the notion of sigma_1 sentences, which codes the halting
computations, and when false, can code the non halting computations.
The hope is that the (double, as they inherit the G/G* split) logics
of []p & p, of []p & <>t, and of []p & <>t & p, with p sigma_1 are
"quantum" enough so that a unique measure can be extracted.
Somehow this gives the qubit, but not yet the "good tensor product".
To use the one given by the physicists, would not be just a conceptual
"treachery", it would obliterate the quanta/qualia distinctions made
possible by the True/proof (G1/G1*, Z1/Z1*) split of the self-
reference logics.
Bruno
David
Brent
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