Not sure if you saw this. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "David Nyman" <da...@davidnyman.com> Date: 18 May 2017 6:34 p.m. Subject: Re: Question about physical supervenience To: "everything-list" <everything-list@googlegroups.com> Cc:
On 18 May 2017 at 14:56, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > On 18 May 2017, at 14:31, David Nyman wrote: > > > > On 17 May 2017 at 19:37, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> >> >> On 5/17/2017 2:35 AM, David Nyman wrote: >> >>> The problem comes only if you attempt to "reverse interpret" these >>> transformations, in the computationalist framework, *as computation per >>> se* and hence, by assumption, as having a supervenience relation with >>> consciousness. This then introduces an ambiguity into the notion of such >>> supervenience which is eliminated when the extraneous attachment to >>> physical action is discarded. In short, physical action is always open to >>> interpretation (or, alternatively, observation) whereas computation, >>> properly understood, must be defined unambiguously in its very definition. >>> >> >> But that unambiguous definition is just a symbol manipulation game with >> no reference to what give consciousness content. Bruno wants mathematical >> models to provide the referents, but that's not what I'm conscious of. > > > Brent, as I said in my previous comment, the above remarks were made in > the context of a discussion of supervenience relations, not the topic in > terms of which you responded. That said, on re-reading your remarks above, > I'd like to address them more directly. AFAICS the "symbol manipulation > game" you refer to, more generally is just mechanism, or IOW the method of > explication towards which scientific enquiry and explication has converged > over millennia. Essentially, the choice, whether implicitly or explicitly, > has been between mechanism (whether under the aegis of computation, > physics, biology, or whatever else) and magic. If that be so, the symbol > manipulation game is the only game in town - and just as well for the most > part, since it has proved so successful. > > The problem of course is that its success has not led to any intelligible > formulation of the mind-body problem, which tends to polarise to two > equally incoherent extremes. On the one hand mechanism in some idealised 3p > sense is taken to exhaust all possibility of explanation; or on the other, > there is assumed to be some supernumerary and mechanistically > undiscoverable "intrinsic" nature in which our minds somehow reside. > Neither of these polarities takes even a single step towards anything in > the shape of an intelligible explication of subjectivity. > > Bruno's schema is admittedly in the toy model stage, but the logical > repertoire he proposes at least begins to show in principle a way of > breaking out of the mechanistic loop, in particular by the addition of the > notion of truth or the view from the "inside" (which after all is the > elusive space for which we are searching). Since proof and truth are both > point-of-view specific they are already 1p notions. > > > > You can say that---I see what you mean. But, to avoid possible future > misunderstanding, I prefer to categorize "truth", and "proof" in the 3p > notions. > > "Provable" is the Gödel "Bp", and it is checkable by third parties. I call > it often the 3p-self. It is a bit like your body, seen from outside, or > seen in a mirror. > > "p" (truth) refer to the arithmetical truth. It is the Outer-God, te ONE, > as opposed to the Inner-God or soul. > "p" (truth) is what we have called some time, with Nagel, the point of > view of nowhere, or the point of view of God (arithmetically omniscient). > > I suspect we might disagree a little bit bit on this (from previous > discussion, perhaps outdated), and it is a subtle point where you might be > correct, and certainly wish you are. Lady salvia "thinks" like you on this, > and if you (and salvia) are correct on this, the explanation for > consciousness is certainly made simpler. Indeed, In that case, a brain, or > a machine, or a body, or a theory, is really only a consciousness filter. > In (Bp & p) "p" would be the conscious part, and Bp, only the "window" > delimiter. That would entails literally that the lighter is a brain, the > bigger consciousness would be, and would make humans far less conscious > than butterfy (which seems still a bit weird to me). > > I am still not sure of this, because Arithmetical truth is, for a > mathematician, typically 3p. It is highly not computable, not even > definable, but still 3p. > I can see it as 1p, by identifying truth with God's beliefs though, but > such identification might be something making sense ... only to God. I > certainly tend to believe it is 1p when under salvia, only. But I cannot > decently say to the reader something like "for the proof of lemma 11, smoke > salvia ..". > > To make arithmetical truth 1p, might be true, but becomes false when it is > said, like with the proposition of G* minus G (I mean their arithmetical > interpretation). > > (same problem with the sigma_1 truth, where making sigma_1 truth into 1p, > makes complete sense, but is provably a blasphem). > > I will come back on this. Writing this, and limiting myself on the (comp, > sigma_1) truth, makes me feel more comfortable with "truth = 1p", but only > because it becomes clearly not assertable. that identity obeys the > Lao-Ze-Valadier-Wittgenstein principle: x -> ~Bx. If x is true, you can't > tell x. If true, it go without saying, and only without saying. > > We are dancing near the theological trap. > Oh dear, that sounds risky :( However...I think I feel in the mood to defend my position a little (but beware of the quotes!). Let me first try to add a little precision (for me, that is) on the views. ISTM that by the (assumed) ontology you mean something that isn't in any relevant sense viewpoint dependent; in that sense it exists "independently of us". We probably should call this 0p. Whatever is 3p is therefore already part of the implied epistemology inferred from that ontology. It is by this point in the logical chain already observable or perceivable and consequently, as you say, checkable by anybody. What is 1p by contrast depends on my viewpoint alone. What is 1p plural is more or less equivalent to what is point of view invariant; one might call it the integration of 1p viewpoints or alternatively what I've termed monopsychism. So in the comp framework, the viewpoint-independent 0p component is the ontology (arithmetically-based computation) and everything else, whether 3p or 1p, depends on some actual or inferred viewpoint. IOW both 3p or 1p depend on the transition from ontology to epistemology or from syntax to semantics. Based on the foregoing, ISTM then that notions of "proof" or "truth" are inextricably viewpoint-dependent. When we "look" at something from a 3p perspective and "check" that something is proven or true, we surely do this by adopting, conceptually, a synthetic 1p viewpoint of our own that reproduces the "machine-psychological view" in terms of which proof and truth are to be calibrated. This view from nowhere is properly a view from an imaginary somewhere. It's what I've called before a Wittgenstein ladder, to be pulled up after us once we've reached the level we aspire to. But we mustn't forget that we made use of it. But there's nothing in the foregoing that would lead me to believe that consciousness has logical priority over any other aspect of the schema. I'm beginning to distrust the very term itself because of all the unhelpful freight it tends to carry. I think of consciousness rather as a kind of conceptual "container" for whatever falls within the spectrum of the epistemological component of the schema. Hence it's a kind of truth for us; it's what we see and know and feel, before we've had a chance to figure out what any of that might imply. And of course it's always referred to a point of view. The concrete substantive component of physics, for example, falls within that spectrum, as distinct from the abstract (computational) ontological component, which doesn't. I am nonetheless somewhat sympathetic to your notion of the body as a consciousness filter, in the sense that the generic virgin machine is already subjectively situated, as it were, at the central locus at which all points of view are integrated. The body, then, might be considered as breaking the symmetry of this monopsychic superposition of views, or filtering out a single momentary view from the multiplicity. David > > Bruno > > > More generally, if subjectivity is to be explicated in terms of > computation, then the spectrum of arithmetical truth must somehow be > capable, ultimately, of encompassing the perceptual truths (i.e. factual > correspondences) we seek to explain. What intrigues me about all this is > the intuitive stretch required to map the problem area using these points > of contact with the elusive concepts on which we're trying to gain some > purchase, without dismissing the approach out of hand because of its > mechanistic origins. ISTM therefore that your dismissal above is too quick. > In a strong sense you're dismissing the whole scientific endeavour in this > regard, plumping in effect for the first of the two polarities I mentioned > above. It also seems to me, if you'll forgive me, a little naive to > complain "that's not what I'm conscious of". It reminds me of Bryce > DeWitt's purported comment to Everett about not feeling himself splitting. > The "you" that is conscious right now is not of course the simple > equivalent of the basic subjective "machines" explicated in the toy model. > I would remind you again though, should that lead you to despair of the > possible usefulness of the model, of the classic query (Edison, > Franklin?): what use is a newborn baby? > > 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. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > 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. 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