On 04 May 2017, at 22:52, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 5/4/2017 1:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 May 2017, at 23:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 5/3/2017 1:48 PM, David Nyman wrote:
Depends on what you mean by comp. You seem to engage in the
same equivocation as Bruno. On the one hand it means saying
"yes" to the doctor. On the other hand it means accepting his
whole argument from that purportedly proving that physics is
otiose. So then the argument refers to itself and says if
physics is otiose then the physics we observe must be that
predicted by his theory.
That's not it.. the thing is if *mind* is a computational
object, then physics must be explained through computation,
computations are not physical object... If physicalness is
primary, then there aren't any computation, computations in a
physically primary reality are only a "human view" on what is
really going on.
This an extreme reductionist view, i.e. if X is the fundamental
ontology then only X exists. But that leads to nonsense: "If the
standard model is fundamental ontology then football doesn't
exist." And it has the same affect of Bruno's theory: "If the
basic ontology is computations then neither physics nor football
exist."
It's not nonsense it's just the unvarnished consequence of the
assumptions. If the basic ontology is computation then both
physics and football are shared epistemological constructions
supervening on computation. Otherwise there's just computation
and none the worse for that. But in any case I've been trying to
persuade you to accept that football, for example, must be such a
construction even on a purely physical basis.
Where I balk is at the "must". It's "must if Bruno's theory is
right", but that's the question. If you interpret "exist" to
apply only to the elements of the fundamental ontology, then in
computationalism all that exists are the natural numbers, +, and *
-- consciousness is as emergent as football. But semantics aside,
a theory needs to predict things. What does Bruno's theory
predict about consciousness:
Your beliefs are closed under logical inference,
That is the case only for the ideally correct machine that we need
to extract physics. As a theory of human's belief, or any concrete
agent's belief, it is not reasonable. But theology and physics is
not human psychology, nor AI.
The prediction of comp? There is a physical reality, structured
quantum logically by a statistics on many interfering computation
and their internal povs.
It is only "quantum logically" in the sense of modeling uncertainty
- which is a very weak prediction. It doesn't so far as can tell
imply Hilbert space or projectors or complex numbers. If you could
get to Hilbert space you might invoke Gleason's theorem, but I don't
think Gleason's theorem applies to a space over C.
It explains qualia, where physics fails. UDA = physics fails on the
mind-body problem. Mechanism? Not yet, and we get a quantum logic
where physics must appear. So Mechanism explains both qualia and
quanta. Not at the point to replace physics, but that is not the goal.
What do you mean by "Gleason theorem would not apply to a space over
C"? If the quantum logic obeys some conditions, it will apply.
Unfortunately, we need to optimize the G* theorem prover to progress.
i.e. everything that follows from and subset of your beliefs is
also believed. Is that true?...I doubt it.
Your thinking about arithmetic is unaffected by tequila?...not for
me.
My looking at the sky is also affected by tequila, but that does
not mean that the sky is a product of my brain.
Exactly why I used arithmetic as the example. Arithmetic, according
to your theory of consciousness, is independent of perception and
physics. Conscious thoughts, beliefs are entailed by arithmetic and
so should be independent of tequila.
That does not follow. Even Robinso Arithmetic can prove that a machine
drinking some amount of tequila will prove anything.
You may object that you were only considering the ideal machine, a
perfect reasoner, but in that case you are equivocating because you
imply that the results of interviewing that ideal machine tell us
about consciousness as we experience it.
About physics. No need to interview the many silly machines which
lives in arithmetic, when we search for the correct physics. Would you
refute Einstein relativity because he asks us to imagine people
walking in a train, and forget to mention he assumes the sobriety of
that walker?
This strikes me as so obvious as to brook little argument.
Physics doesn't need any notion of football to evolve through the
states of what someone, somehow will interpret as the World Cup.
However I think you fudge it by your excessively loose (in my
view) acceptance of what supposedly "exists". This is what allows
you to dodge the otherwise compelling conclusions of a rigorous
argument.
Rigor doesn't make an argument compelling. What I find compelling
is confirmation of a surprising prediction.
I come from molecular biology, and I have used a lot quantum
mechanics without taking seriously the wave. I studied QM in the
already old books in french by Louis de Broglie, including his book
on the measurement problem, where he defended his pilot wave and
hidden variable theory, and i thought for a long time, that the
quantum superposition never lasted more than a nanosecond. It is
only later that a guy I trusted for his seriousness in physics keep
insisting that an electron can exist in a superposition on long
distance and time, and he gave me a copy of the EPR paper, and it
is Bohr deceptively inaccurate answer
What (or should I ask "which") answer by Bohr do you consider
deceptive. Bohr said that classical physics was logically prior to
quantum physics. Every measurement, every datum, every record is a
classical object, which is necessary in order that we can reach
intersubjective agreement on the result of an experiment.
What was deceptive for me is when Bohr said "of course the
perturbation due to the measurement (in the APR protocol) cannot be
physical". But then what is it? Mental? in that case he needs either
to assume that consciousness reduce the wave, or the many-worlds. Then
the rest is unintelligible pseudo-philosophical handwaving. he missed
Bell's understanding that it was not a "philosophical" point at all,
and he missed Everett (he actually refused to dialog with him, which
is already not serious).
which will introduced me to the problem, and to the awareness it
was serious.
At that time, I thought already that mechanism entails the many
computations, and I knew that the white rabbit could dissolve only
by adding computations/histories, and so I thought that "nature"
was contradicting mechanism, as we did not have any evidence for
"parallel world". yet, the same guy will give me a little
article, by DeWitt, on Everett. I will almost immediately go to
London, and buy the Graham-DeWitt book on the quantum many-worlds,
and realized at that moment that QM confirms the most disturbing
aspect of computationalism.
Since then, I am not sure about any theory explaining why a
physical reality is apparent, and obeys a quantum logic of
alternate histories. Like with Gödel's theorem, eventually I
realized that QM is the best possible confirmation of
computationalism,
But now you are using "computationalism" to mean the whole UD model.
I use computationalism to mean that consciousness is invariant for a
physical and digital brain transplant. (+ the church-Turing thesis to
avoid a formal definition of "digital"). The UD is a theorem in
arithmetic.
I wish you would introduce some clear terminology to distinguish
that from the "yes, doctor" assumption.
It is you who seem to know that the UD is a theorem in elementary
arithmetic, and we can't avoid it, because we need to assume enough
arithmetic to make sense of the notion of computation.
until now. With Gödel's theorem, we get also the distinction
between quanta and qualia, where physicalist just continue to put
the qualia and consciousness under the rug.
But you don't get quanta and qualia - you get provable and true-but-
not-provable.
You seem to forget that the G* minus G difference is inherited by the
"probability one" hypostases ([]p & <>t, and []p & <>t & p, p sigma_1).
That seems to me to leave a very long way to go before you can
justifiably call one quanta and the other qualia.
What is missing?
Until digital mechanism is refuted, I would say that it is the only
theory which predict the appearance of matter, its "many-world" and
quantum aspect, and this without eliminating the first person view
(even giving to it a key role).
Except "its appearance of matter" is a prediction of the form "If
this theory didn't predict matter it would be refuted, therefore it
must predict matter. Hence, it predicts matter."
Not at all. It is "let us verify if it predicts matter", and where we
need a quantum logic, we get it, so the conclusion is simply that
Mechanism is not (yet) refuted, and as it is the only theory doing
justice to the first person povs, it is our unique theory still
working today.
Comp predicts matter, but this is, like Post said on Church Thesis, a
matter to be verified continually. I never said that comp is true,
only that we can test it, and that thanks to both Gödel and Everett,
the evidences that we have today are in its favor. A good thing given
that we don't have a non-computationalist theory of mind, except the
"consciousness reduces the wave packet", but I consider that this has
been refuted by Abner Shimony, a long time ago.
Bruno
Brent
And this is not a critics of physics, as I used physics to measure
the degree of plausibility of Mechanism. But it is a critics of all
materialist theologies, the monist one and the dualist one alike.
It is certainly a critics on physicalism, that's right.
Bruno
Brent
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct,
not tried it."
--Don Knuth
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