On 26 Apr 2017 7:26 p.m., "Brent Meeker" <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 4/26/2017 12:32 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 25 Apr 2017 11:07 p.m., "Brent Meeker" <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: On 4/25/2017 1:08 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 25 Apr 2017 5:15 a.m., "Brent Meeker" <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: On 4/24/2017 10:02 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 24 Apr 2017 7:32 a.m., "Brent Meeker" <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: I don't think there's any question that non-physical things exist, like chess and insurance and computations. The question was whether the assumption that computations can instantiate a mind, i.e. the possibility of a conscious robot, entails a contradiction of something. The "something" having to do with physics, is part of what I would like eulicidated. Bruno says it reverses the relationship of physics and psychology...but that's more of a polemic slogan than entailment of a contradiction. I don't think so. Here's the way I see it. Let's say we accept as a hypothesis a computational ontology. Since this requires no more than the natural numbers with + and * this amounts to an ontology of arithmetic. Platonism be damned, our interest at this point is merely in seeing where the hypothesis can take us. So, computationalism leads us to the extension of the UD, which in turn gives us the digital machine, aka the fully fungible universal computational device. The reversal then is between role of the "psychology" of that universal machine and the subset of the trace of the UD assumed to implement physics. The UD doesn't have a "psychology". Bruno talks about the "beliefs" of a universal theorem prover in arithmetic...but that's not a UD. And was is "the trace of the UD". Are you kidding? How long have we all been discussing all this? To talk of taking a "subset of the trace" sounds to me like handing waving: We'll make a machine that writes all possible sentences and then there's a subset that describes the world. Ok, so now you know what it is. The point is just that comp is true then it exists. If not it doesn't. We've been discussing the consequences of the former case. If you still want to believe in the necessity of a physical computer, we only have to accept that comp would be true in the presence of any such computer capable of running the UD. The former is now required to play the role of filter or selector on behalf of the latter; it's what distinguishes​ it from the much more general computational background. Of course that "filtration", by assumption, essentially equates to the extremely high probability of that very subset being required to support its own self-selection. Are you saying this "subset of the trace" must have a high probability of existing, or it has, by some measure, a high probability relative to other stuff not in the trace. If the latter, and if the measure can be defined, that would be an interesting result; but when I've asked about this in the past Bruno has just said it's a hoped for result. I'm glad you agree it would be interesting. I understand that Bruno wants to take thoughts as fundamental and the wants to identify thoughts with provable or computable propositions in arithmetic. He thinks that the modality of "provable" is somehow a good model of "believes" or "thinks". But even if that were true (I don't think it is) it fails to account for the physical world which one thinks about and acts in. IOW it's selection by observation, with the part of "universal point of view" falling to the suitably programmed digital machine. It from bit really, but without the prior commitment to physics as the unexplained (aka primitive) assumption. OK? You don't seem to have even mentioned a contradiction. You didn't ask about the contradiction. You asked about the reversal. Are you clearer on what is meant by that now? I'm not asking if you believe it, just can we agree what is meant? I did ask about the contradiction. From above: "The question was whether the assumption that computations can instantiate a mind, i.e. the possibility of a conscious robot, entails a contradiction of something. The "something" having to do with physics, is part of what I would like eulicidated." So, no I'm not clear what the reversal means. It is claimed to contradict the idea that matter is in some sense fundamental, e.g. Democritus "Nothing exists except atoms and the void; all else is opinion." But in my view ontology is theory dependent, i.e. you find a theory that works well as an explanation and a predictor and then that theory provides an ontology: the POVI (intersubjective observable) elements of the theory. So I'm not clear on what is the reversal. The function of bodies, including brains, is, we think, within the scope of physics. Is this "reversed"...to what exactly? Ok, I see that this is an important misunderstanding. If physics is taken to be the fundamental science, in the sense that a completed physics will not demand further explanation, then consciousness will clearly have to be explained entirely on the basis of that fundamental science. For example, you yourself have said that you believe the controversy will be settled by a completed neuroscience. That's slightly different than what I said. I pointed out that Newton's theory of gravity did not explain gravity, and neither does Einstein's. When we have a theory that is effective, i.e. makes only accurate and even surprising predictions, when then think of it as "explaining" the phenomena. But this "explanation" is not at all like the explanation that was sought before the instrumentally successful theory. This is exemplified in the case of Newton: people wanted an explanation of the the gravitational force - not just a formula to calculate it - and Newton answered, "Hyposthesi non fingo." So my expectation is that cognitive science will go the same way. When we have learned to make AI robots to behave as conscious people behave, the "hard problem of consciousness" will be seen to have been the wrong question - like "What causes the force of gravity?" Mystics will still ponder it and it will still be controversial among metaphysicians. By contrast, if comp is to be assumed in the fundamental role, then the emergence of the universal machine will then *precede* that of physics. I assume you mean "precede" in some explanatory, not temporal, sense. But I don't think explanations are necessarily hierarchical with a bottom; I think they are better thought of as circular. If they bottom out anywhere, it is ostensively. What Bruno is at pains to show is then that the machine possesses a "point of view", aka its psychology, in terms of which physics will emerge as a complex of inter-subjective appearances (just as you, Bruce and indeed Bruno and I require). Note by the way that this immediately establishes in principle the elusive interior/exterior distinction. It would also have to be the case, if comp is indeed to succeed, that the computations corresponding to those physical appearances would themselves typify (massively) those supporting human level subjectivity. So in this way sentient entities would "select" the very physical environments necessary for their own existence. But that seems to a chauvinistic view of the situtation. One could as well say the physical environment selected the creatures that can exist in it. But whichever way you look at it, it doesn't look to me like a contradiction between the computational theory of mind and physics. I don't understand why we keep talking past each other like this. I'm trying to keep the issues of contradiction and reversal distinct. Above, I was talking about the reversal. It is, as you rightly say, a reversal of explanatory priority and it can't be waved away into virtuous explanatory circularity, because logically you need the notion of machine psychology before "physical" computations can thereby be isolated from computations in general. Then at that point (but not before) you're again right that one can then equally say that the environment selects its sentient inhabitants. We will have reached a point of virtuous explanatory equilibrium. Of course the contradiction is also implied because this cannot be done on the basis that physics is itself irreducible to computation, if the comp theory of mind is to have any serious content whatsoever. I've already said why I think the contradiction is obvious for anyone who takes the view that computationalism is a secondary inference from physical objects. I haven't yet seen an adequate argument from you in response. David Brent Of course the foregoing is not proven but it's implied by comp and it hasn't been disproved either. Anyway, in a nutshell, that's the reversal (i.e of explanatory priority) between physics and machine psychology. David Brent -- 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. -- 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.
