On 28 Apr 2017, at 18:14, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 7:21 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 26 Apr 2017, at 11:17, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:34 AM, Brent Meeker
<meeke...@verizon.net>
wrote:
On 4/25/2017 2:22 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 1:13 AM, Bruce Kellett
<bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
On 24/04/2017 6:07 pm, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 6:08 AM, Russell Standish
<li...@hpcoders.com.au>
wrote:
On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 11:49:51AM +0200, Telmo Menezes wrote:
Ok, so you are rejecting computationalism. Computationalism
is the
hypothesis that our mind supervenes on computations (sorry
Bruno,
it's
easier to write for the purpose of this discussion :). You are
declaring that mind supervene on the physical brain.
That is not it at all. We've clarified with Bruno many times
that
computational supervenience is compatible with physical
supervenience. Which is just as well, as otherwise it would
be so
much
the worse for computationalism.
I have no doubt that the brain is a physical computer, and that
computations performed by the brain are no different from any
other
computations.
We are discussing physicalism and computationalism, and if
they are
compatible or not, correct?
Bruce repeatedly makes variation of the claim: "look, the
brain is
physical and the brain generates consciousness, these are the
facts".
This is what I am replying to. It's an argument from authority
that
leaves no space for debate or reasoning.
First, it is not an argument from authority, it is an argument
made on
the
basis of all the available evidence -- consciousness supervenes
on the
physical brain.
Empirical evidence requires observation. How do you observe
consciousness? I bet other people are conscious because they look
similar to me, and I know I am. Are cats conscious? Bacteria? The
universe as a whole? The Earth's ecosystem? Stars? I don't know,
and
nobody knows.
We have a large amount of evidence for the brain being a computer
capable of supporting complex algorithms that support behaviors
that
we label as "intelligent". Simplistic models of the brain
(artificial
neural networks) are now capable of things like recognising faces,
driving cars and even producing nightmarish works of art. There is
also massive evidence for this intelligent machine being an
outcome of
Darwinian evolution. All of this is clear.
Consciousness? You are just sweeping the hard problem under the
rug.
Explain to me:
1. Why we are not just Zombies, with the exact some capabilities
but
no consciousness;
2. How consciousness emerges from the known laws of physics.
What are
the first principles that explain that emergence? Give me other
emergent behabiors and I can show you the first principles. Not so
with consciousness.
I think that is wrong. It is not wrong because we can "explain
consciousness", it's wrong because we don't explain physics
either. The
theories of physics are good predictors. So we believe them in
proportion
to
the evidence. But as Newton said, "Hypothesi non fingo."
Explanations
depend on understanding; i.e. you explain A in terms of B and B
in terms
of
C and so on until you get to R or S or X... which you understand.
I agree with your view of what science is, and of what a scientific
explanation means.
So when
we explain behavior, including reported thoughts, in terms of
physics of
the
body and brain and environment we will have provided all the
explanation
possible.
Perhaps it is true that it is all the explanation possible -- I
don't
question that. In fact, this is where I tend to disagree with
Bruno. I
am convinced that he proves that computationalism and physicalism
are
incompatible, but I am not convinced that he explains what
consciousness is.
Bruno, sorry for the delay!
No problem, Telmo.
I think that mechanism gives the most of what we can hope for an
explanation
of what consciousness is.
A number e can refer to itself and develop true belief about itself,
including some guess in its relative consistency.
I can understand self-referentiality, and at the same time that there
is "something" to it that is profound but not fully graspable -- as
Hofstadter talks about with his "strange loops".
Then the theory explains
why any Gödel-Löbian machine can access to the truth that such
belief can be
correctly (but that is not seen by the machine, only by god/truth)
related
to the truth, but only in a non communicable way. So the machine
knows
truth, that she is unable to justify, and can only seem mysterious.
I am ok with this.
Then, it is weirder for me why you are not convinced by the machine's
explanation of consciousness.
That does not explains the whole of consciousness, but that reduce
its
mystery to the mystery of our belief in anything Turing universal,
like the
numbers.
But then again, the numbers explains, by themselves, why if you
belief in
anything less than them, you cannot get them, and so justify their
mysterious character. We don't know, and it is the fate of any
machine to
not know that.
Don't mind to much. I am not sure if what you miss is a part of
mathematical
logic, or something about consciousness.
Again, I am convinced by your explanation of why the mystery exists.
The mystery is our understanding or belief (in apparently a finite
time) of elementary arithmetic.
For me, the hard problem remains: you talk about mathematical
constructs.
Only half of the time, unless you put mathematical truth in the
mathematical construct, something typically impossible to do, except
for some approximation, for theories much simpler than ourself. I
guess you know the difference between the true fact that 2+2=4, and
the much weaker fact that some machine or theory believes or prove
that 2+2=4. In fact the word "mathematical construct" is a bit
ambiguous. The semantic in general is not a construct, when we do
mathematics, but partial semantic can be associated to mathematical
construct, when we do metamathematics (mathematical logic), but this
is due to the fact that we approximate meaning by "mathematical
construct" (which are most often infinite and non computable
mathematical object).
Physicalists talk about emergence from complex
interactions of matter. I remain baffled and ask you the same question
that I ask physicalists: what is the first principle from where
consciousness arises?
Truth. That cannot be a mathematical construct (provably so if
computationalism is true). It is not 3p definable.
The whole key is in the theorem that ([]p & p) does not admit a
predicate definable to any machine from which "[]p & p" is
(meta)defined.
I confess I have a hard time formulating the question correctly. I
feel that what I am trying to ask is so fundamentally simple that it
becomes hard to write the real question.
That is common when we dig on notion like truth and consciousness.
Those notion are too much obvious from the 1p view, and almost non
intelligible in the 3p view, which explains why materialist want to
eliminate them.
The core of the explanation is in
the G/G* separation, and its inheritance by the intelligible and
sensible
matter. We might come back at this some day or another. I am of
course very
interested in trying to see what you miss here. The explanation is
like the
cow koan: the head of the cow go through the window, like the legs
and the
truncs, but not the tail. That will play a role also in the fact that
computationalism is a theology: the soul of the machine cannot
understand
rationally that she will be resurrect. That is the fun of it: the
soul of
the machine says "no" to the doctor, until some leap of faith in some
situation.
This is harder for me to follow, but I think I follow you on the
"barriers to knowledge".
I definitely don't understand the cow koan!
The idea is that about truth and consciousness we can explain
everything, except for a tiny detail. But with computationalism, we
can explain why they should remain a tiny detail which has to be NOT
explainable from the machine's pov.
Maybe I will just ask you this. 1) Do you agree that consciousness
is a form
of knowledge?
I'm not sure. I think that I know that I am consciousness, but that
consciousness itself is unlike anything else that I can talk about.
I am inclined to think that consciousness = existence. Perhaps it's
such a simple and fundamental thing that it becomes almost impossible
to talk about it.
Consciousness is the 1p feeling that there is something real. I am not
sure why consciousness would be existence. There are things which
exists and are not conscious.
Consciousness is more what we need to give meaning to word like
"meaning". It is on the semantical side, like truth.
Do you agree that consciousness is undoubtable and unjustifiable. I
cannot doubt consciousness because doubt requires consciousness, and I
cannot justify consciousness (cf the conceptual existence of
philosophical zombie).
2) that knowable obeys the S4 axioms?
S4 =
[](A->B) -> ([]A -> []B) K
[]A->A T
[]A -> [][]A 4
Then incompleteness explains why this works with "[]" payed by
provability,
I don't understand this sentence, what do you mean by "payed by
provability"?
I meant "played by provability". Sorry for the typo. It means that
"[]" is for Gödel's provability predicate. It is Gödel's
incompleteness which makes the box behaving like a belief, and unlike
a knowledge.
Imagine that incompleteness would have been false. Then we would have
"[]p <-> []p & p" not only true, but provable by the machine, and the
logic of the 3p self would have been the same as the logic of the 1p-
self, making impossible to associate to a machine a different notion
for its 1p and 3p points of view.
It is because []p -> p is NOT provable by the machine, that the logics
of []p and []p & p differs. Without incompleteness the 8 hypostases
would collapse.
and gives a temporal non nameable subject, which cannot identify
itself with
any third person notion. Looks like my poor soul to me :)
I agree that what I call "consciousness" is something that cannot
identify itself with third person notions. This is what leads me to
suspect that it is not something that can be studied scientifically.
When doing science, we cannot invoke first person notion (or god, or
truth), but there is no reason why we cannot make a 3p theory *on*
those notion, and do the 3p reasoning and the 3p experimental
verification for the 3p-sharable part of the theory.
That is exactly the case with computationalism. We cannot define
consciousness, but we know pretty well what it means for each of us,
and can make hypothesis on it (like "yes doctor"), and study the
consequence. Similarly, Pean arithmetic cannot define arithmetical
truth, and cannot define knowledge, but can simulate truth by the
assertative p, and conjunct it, for each arithmetical sentence to its
boxed presentation, and so even PA can see that it obey S4, which is
usually a good axiomatics for knowledge. And that explains why, if the
machine tries the Maharshi koan "Who am I", she might get the
ineffable point. In fact, if she succeeds to remain correct all along
the introspection, she cannot avoid the "ineffable answer".
I think that what you need to keep in mind, and understand, is that
despite its simple 3p meta-aspect, "[]p & p" refers to something which
does not admit any 3p explicit definition. That is also the reason why
I insist so much that "[]p & p" is a theological notion, and why
saying "yes" to a doctor is a theological act of faith. The machine is
simply unable to prove for each p that []p and []p & p are
equivalent. Only its own G* knows that.
Bruno
Telmo.
Bruno
What I don't like about your position is this: just because science
cannot address (or as not so far been able to address) a mystery,
doesn't mean that this mystery becomes irrelevant or that we can
pretend it doesn't exist -- or worse, that we should pretend that we
have a viable theory when we don't. This is essentially what makes
me
agnostic instead of an atheist: I recognise that the big mystery is
there. Labelling people that recognise that the mystery is there as
lunatics does not serve intellectual rigor.
Then we can talk about evidence.
Second. An argument from authority is not necessarily a reason to
reject
that argument. Because life is short and we cannot be experts in
absolutely
everything, we frequently have to rely on authorities -- people
who are
recognized experts in the relevant field. I am confident that
when I
drive
across this bridge it will not collapse under the weight of my
car
because I
trust the expertise of the engineers who designed and
constructed the
bridge. In other words, I rely on the relevant authorities for
my
conclusion that this bridge is safe. An argument from authority
is
unsound
only if the quoted authorities are themselves not reliable --
they are
not
experts in the relevant field, and/or their supposed
qualifications are
bogus. There are many examples of this -- like relying on
President
Trump's
assessment of anthropogenic global warming, etc, etc.
I agree that arguments from authority are necessary to save
time, but
in the context of a debate about a mystery of nature for which no
strong and widely-accepted scientific theories exist, it is
nonsensical to invoke authority.
Also, this is not a place where people come to have their car
repaired, or their doctor appointment. This is a discussion forum
about the unsolved deep mysteries of reality.
Which is exactly the point. Because their mechanic can repair
their car
they suppose we have explained cars - but we have only found the
Lagrangian
that described them. When we can write the programs that produce
"conscious" behavior of whatever kind we choose, cheerful,
autistic,
morose,
lustful, humorous,..., then most people will think we have
explained
consciousness. Mystics will still claim there's a "hard problem".
This feels like thought policing. Of course the mystery is still
there, and it's huge! Why am I conscious? I can't think of a more
compelling mystery. Why is it so hard to say: "I don't know"?
Congrats on your daughter's wedding!
Telmo.
Brent
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