Hi david,
I resend the answers I sent, without success. I might not give them in
the right order. I still send them in different posts.
===
On 24 May 2017, at 13:50, David Nyman wrote:
Not sure if you got this:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com>
Date: 18 May 2017 at 18:34
Subject: Re: Question about physical supervenience
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
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 :(
It is the place where the self-referentially correct machine will lose
self-referential correctness when asserting some truth, or when taking
for granted, something granted at our G* minus G level.
Institutionalizing a religion is already falling in the trap, and
that's what makes the bad reputation of some religions.
Let me fall quickly in a simple mechanist-theology trap: "If you want
approach God, run away from anyone telling you a way to approach". The
Monthy Python have exploited the even simpler "You will not pronounce
the game of God". That's no far from "The tao that you can name is not
the tao", nor even far from the confusion between the number one and
the symbol "1".
However...I think I feel in the mood to defend my position a little
(but beware of the quotes!).
OK. I will try. But why do you follow supdboy in using so little
character?
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.
OK. Let us call it 0p.
Here the "absolute" 0p is the arithmetical truth, let us call it V. It
simplifies to represented it by the set of the Gödel number of the
true closed arithmetical sentences. For example Ex(x = s(0)). It
exists a number equal to the successor of 0. But if the Riemann
Hypothesis is true, and if Goldbach conjecture is true, and the twin
primes conjectures is true, they belongs to V.
For those who like a personal God, they can identify it by the
believer in all arithmetical true propositions. Assuming mechanism,
that will appears as a "God" from the machine's pov, eventually (in a
3p sense).
It is 0p, only with the mechanist assumption. And eventually we will
be led close to the blasphem. Usually, we consider it as the very most
3p thing imaginable, that is the intersection between classical and
intuitionist logic (as far as the numbers are concerned).
OK. Assuming mechanism, the 0p view is the 3p view. You are close to p
<-> Bp. (p sigma). True, but belongs to G1* minus G1.
Whatever is 3p is therefore already part of the implied epistemology
inferred from that ontology.
Yes, but at a different level. I think I see what you mean.
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.
OK.
What is 1p plural is more or less equivalent to what is point of
view invariant;
Ambiguous. Keep in mind that incompleteness entails at least 8 basic
different points of view for the SRC machine (SCR = Self-referentially
Correct).
1p plurality needs linearity, but to be able to lift the correct G*-G
difference, that linearity should be deduced from the logic of the
"material" points of view. The materiality comes with the sigma
restriction (computationalism translated in arithmetic language), and
the (& <>t) .
The 8 povs are abstract. In arithmetic, there will be an infinity
times (4 + 4 * an infinity)) of points of view. Me and you are among
them, for example, and always assuming mechanism.
one might call it the integration of 1p viewpoints or alternatively
what I've termed monopsychism.
You will have to related that with the "intuitive" fist person plural
view, which is defined by the views of population of machines
"entering in the duplication" box. More exactly everything they will
agree and continue to agree on, in the sequence of multiplication. In
Everett QM, that is what happens, if I split/differentiate, soon
after you too, and we keep the correlations, like the individuals of
the population undergoing the multiplication. It is coduplication.
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.
OK. And any elementary universal (in the Turing, Post, Kleene, Church)
sense, system will do. Instead of 0, s(0), ... with addition and
multiplication, I could have used K, S, (K K), ... with application
and reduction instead, or lambda expressions with application and
abstraction, or the game of life pattern etc.
All gives a base where we can talk about the enumerable set of partial
computable functions phi_i and their domain Wi.
I could put it in this way: we assume the existence of just one
universal machine, + church-thesis in the form: elementary arithmetic
is that universal machine.
IOW both 3p or 1p depend on the transition from ontology to
epistemology or from syntax to semantics.
Notice the fact that the physical becomes 1p-plural. I am not sure you
want the 0p not being 3p, even if I know that only God can see that
the "simple" arithmetical 3p is the 0p.
But logic, at this place is a bit like a near death experience. Let us
go closer to the blasphem .... :)
Based on the foregoing, ISTM then that notions of "proof" or "truth"
are inextricably viewpoint-dependent.
They are layered, and deformed, and some are quite view-point
dependent, but some can be much less view-point dependent, like the
machine i on argument j stop before doing t steps. This should be
independent of any povs.
After Gödel's theorem, provable *should* be understood by
"believable". The fact that PA believes "2+2=4", is not an argument
for the truth of 2+2=4. It might be if you agree with PA premises and
if you believe that PA's deduction rules preserves the truth.
The box [], or B, varies on all machines, but all the correct one
share the logics of Bp, Bp & p, etc.
The 8 points of views are
V
G1 G1*
S4Grz
Z1 Z1*
X1 X1*
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.
That's because we are lost in the labyrinth of dreams in arithmetic
(most of the place-time).
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.
We should avoid idolatry, but we can't prevent the competition. Some
universal number get automatically more importance than other, and
especially so in large first plural realities. Some are important to
us as humans, like cells and bacteria, other are important
conceptually, like the integers, other are important practically, the
physical realities, and below our substitution level, it is a
competion with infinitely many universal numbers. yet, our brains
flitered the consistent histories, in the relative ways. (assuming ...).
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.
OK. Nice. I think you see well the point. Then, the miracle is the
discovery of the universal machine or number, which makes this more
precise, somehow by refuting Socrates critics of the Theaetetus.
You have a nice collection of "blaspheme", provided by G1*, indeed G1*
proves that p <-> Bp <-> (Bp & p) <-> (Bp & Dt) <-> (Bp & p & Dt). So
all points of view apprehend the same arithmetical reality. The key
point is that the machine itself (G1) does not see any of those
equivalences, and they obey quite different logic (classical,
intuitionist quantum and quantum intuitionist, roughly speaking).
It helps to make that theory testable, and more palpable somehow.
Bruno
PS Lot of works, so I will be slow.
David
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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