On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 5:01 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> > Here you just defend your conviction in Aristotle theology: > > you believe/assume > [blah blah blah] > It is my dream that one day you will write an entire post without once referring to some fossilized ancient Greek. I have a dream! > > That explains plausibly why you want to stop at the third step of the > Universal Dovetailer Argument, > Another explanation is you made a blunder in step 3, a blunder so severe I suspected you literally didn't even know what you were arguing for. Subsequent conversation has only increased my suspicion. > > If you need matter to get the truth of 2+2=4, you should give us a > physical proof > That's easy, all I have to do is reach for my $2.99 calculator punch in 2+2 and voila , I have a existence proof that matter that obeys the laws of physics can perform a calculation. Now I want you to do the same thing using *NOTHING* but pure arithmetic. > > I am not sure why you would say "yes" to a doctor susceptible to replace > your brain by a digital brain, if primary matter has a role in enacting > your consciousness. > Because atoms are generic. One atom of the same element is as good as another so the important thing that needs to be preserved is information on how those atoms are arranged, it's the only thing that makes me different from you. So replacing one carbon atom in my brain with another carbon atom is of no consequence to me, even replacing a carbon atom with a silicon atom is OK as long as it processes information in the same way. If it does that then it's still me. And information is not some vague abstract quality, information is physical, information has entropy, processing information causes heat, and storing information always involves changing the PHYSICAL state of something. Information is as close as you can get to the traditional religious concept of the soul and still remain within the scientific method. John K Clark -- 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.
