On 29 Aug 2017 04:39, "Brent Meeker" <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 8/28/2017 10:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:44, Brent Meeker wrote: On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote: On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > > On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> >> On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote: >> >> >>> >>> On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing that >>>>>> the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the Mechanist >>>>>> hypothesis. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Refresh my understanding. What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it >>>>> the same as computationalism? >>>>> >>>> >>>> Yes. >>>> >>>> Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor + >>>> Church's Thesis) >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic? >>>>> >>>> >>>> No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis). >>>> >>>> I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people tend >>>> to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's thesis. To >>>> just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we believe in some >>>> "essentially undecidable theory", and this is equiavalent with believing in >>>> the right amount of arithmetic. >>>> I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the mathematics >>>> needed to derive physics from "machine's theology". >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >From your use, these all seem slightly different to me. It would be >>>>> helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage. >>>>> >>>> >>>> I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they >>>> are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital >>>> Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my version >>>> just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My version is the >>>> weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, suggests that if >>>> we define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot >>>> defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism. >>>> >>>> So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is >>>> >>>> 1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it exists >>>> a combinator which computes it) >>>> >>>> (There are many variants of this. You can replace also "combinator" >>>> by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++ program", or >>>> "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for "Arithmetical realism" >>>> which is only the believe that the RA axioms makes "absolute sense", which >>>> means basically that not only 17 is prime, but that this is true >>>> independently of me, you, or anyone, or anything physical. All >>>> mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in >>>> Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, especially without induction axiom >>>> like with RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA. >>>> >>>> >>>> 2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital physical >>>> brain transplant made at some level of description of my (generalized) >>>> brain. >>>> >>>> It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is equivalent >>>> with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as a mean of travel >>>> (UDA step 1). >>>> >>>> Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without a >>>> physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA reasoning: >>>> showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to block the >>>> immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism. >>>> >>> >>> That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in. Yes-doctor was >>> originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons in >>> the brain. But then it was generalized to the whole brain. But we think >>> with more than our brain. Our body contributes hormones and afferent and >>> efferent nerve impluses. And the environment provides stimulation to those >>> nerves and an arena within which we act. All that is taken for granted in >>> answering "yes doctor" or teletransporting. So it appears to me that you >>> implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced. >>> >> >> The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level. >> >> My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume only >> the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious experience >> would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at that level). >> >> If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole observable >> physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with >> 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and real numbers >> involved. The thought experience become harder to imagine, but eventually, >> it is "the real experience" of the step 7 which we have to take into >> account, that is "us" confronted to all computations in the arithmetical >> reality. The arithmetical reality emulates all computations, and this >> includes the matrix above, and infinitely any variants. It remains simpler >> to understand the problem with thought experiements involving "high" level, >> like the biochemistry of the body, and understand at step 7 that the >> reasoning does not depend on the level chosen. >> >> To kill the consequences of computationalism is not easy. Even lowering >> down the level to "infinitely low" level, like using all decimals of the >> reals involved would not guaranty the singularization used in the >> mind-brain identity used by physicist when they invoke the physical >> reality: you will need special infinities not recovered by the first person >> indeterminacies. It will look like Ptolemeaus epycicles. Primary Matter is >> a sort of ether. It can only make the theories more difficult. Maybe >> Primary Matter exists, but there has never been any evidences, and I would >> say that even without Digital mechanism, I am not sure why to postulate it. >> Knocking on the table, or smashing Super-speedy proton cannot serve as >> evidence for primary matter, only for group theory and its application in >> the art of prediction. >> >> With mechanism, the laws of physics have a mathematical origin, and >> somehow, they "evolved" from the numbers exchanging piece of computations, >> but seen from the 1p views. It works up to now. >> > > I knew that would be your answer, but I think it defeats your argument. > If you have to go to a very low level (e.g. atoms) and a very broad scope > (e.g. the solar system) then you are essentially digitizing and emulating > everything. This includes the physics-of-everything and the the > physics-of-the-mind. Then there is implicit in this a physical explanation > of mind. But computationalism necessarily embraces a physical explanation of mind and quite explicitly at that - it would be false if it did not, since brains and minds are so obviously entangled. Right. The difference is that the physical explanation of brains is here the 'dual' of a machine-psychological one (i.e. a theory of mental states as emulated in computation). For the theory to be viable, both explanatory modalities must be the product of observational filtering from a computational plenitude. The consequence of such filtering, or self-selection, is that the physical explanation becomes the extensional infrastructure, if you like, for the beliefs and actions of the machine-psychological one. But what if, as seems likely, the "filter" is the consistency and quasi-classical nature of the physical, and the mental can only exist within that physics? Then Mechanism is false. It doesn't make mechanism false. As David noted mechanism assumes that some specific physical substitutions preserve consciousness - but not just ANY physics. Some physics, in which for example there was no 'wave function' collapse or it's MWI equivalent there would be no classical physics with discrete objects. Mechanism makes no assumptions about physics other than that *some* consistent physics must be deeply implicated in the Bp and p relation. The observation that the physics we actually observe is rather tightly constrained seems to imply that its relation with our particular species of consciousness is in some sense canonical, although it doesn't necessarily imply the non-extractability of other variations of physics or, for that matter, other species of consciousness from computation. However, these considerations don't alter the fact that physics and consciousness are derived rather than assumed in the mechanistic theory. David Brent I just offer a tool test this. Here you speculate on some "ontological being" playing some role in the selection of an actuality. Then the virtuous circle could start with physics as easily as with thoughts. The beauty is that it starts from any inductive set with Turing-universal law. That show at the least an explanation of the origin of the belief in a physical reality, and its local sharable persistency. By looking inward, we get the quanta (useful for the testing, but also the qualia, the sense). The physical reality is the border of the universal mind (the mind of the universal Turing machine). But the universal mind has no finite border, (imagine the Ocean bottom . infinite abyss here and there), and *that* is only what is apparent for the universal person supported in sheaves of computations. The physical is the observable, which is quasi-epistemic already. The big discovery is the discovery of the universal machine, and its complex mind. Let us see if there is any problem in arithmetic before postulating some mysterious "matter" selecting us from the dream continuum we live in arithmetic. I think that our normal state of brain, which supports our mundane state of consciousness requires depth, and a long complex history, but not all state of consciousness requires it. Note also that by lowering the substitution level, you make us rarer in the branch we live on, or perhaps rarer in the multiverse. Lowering the level could make us into being the white rabbit! I'm not just lowering the level. I'm also arguing the scope must be expanded. Brent Bruno Brent David > If it's a viable explanation within this everything-is-digitized model > then it is a viable explanation in the physicalists model. And I realize > this doesn't preclude a mind explanation of physics - hence my idea of a > virtuous circle of explanations. > > > 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. 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