On Tue, Apr 23, 2019 at 9:57 AM Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> > On 23 Apr 2019, at 03:32, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 7:51 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < > everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote: > >> >> >> On 4/22/2019 4:24 PM, Jason Resch wrote: >> >> >> >> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 3:16 AM Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: >> >>> >>> On 5 Nov 2018, at 02:56, Martin Abramson <martinabrams...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Consciousness is a program. >>> >>> >>> Consciousness might be related to a program, but is not a program, that >>> would identify a first person notion with a third person notion, like a >>> glass of bear and its price. >>> >>> >>> >>> It explores whatever entity it finds itself within and becomes that >>> creature's awareness of the world. For humans it becomes the identity or >>> soul which responds to anything that affects the organism. It can be >>> uploaded into a data bank but otherwise it dissipates with death. >>> >>> >>> >>> How? We can attach a soul to a machine, but a machine cannot attach its >>> soul to any particular computations, only to the infinity of (relative) >>> computations, and there is at least aleph_zero one, of not a continuum. >>> >>> Bruno >>> >>> >>> >> The above reminded me of this quote from Alan Turing: >> >> Personally I think that spirit is really eternally connected with matter >> but certainly not always by the same kind of body. I did believe it >> possible for a spirit at death to go to a universe entirely separate from >> our own, but now I consider that matter and spirit are so connected that >> this would be a contradiction in terms. It is possible however but unlikely >> that such universes may exist. >> Then as regards the actual connection between spirit and body I >> consider that the body by reason of being a living body can ``attract´´ and >> hold on to a ``spirit,´´ whilst the body is alive and awake the two are >> firmly connected. When the body is asleep I cannot guess what happens but >> when the body dies the ``mechanism´´ of the body, holding the spirit is >> gone and the spirit finds a new body sooner or later perhaps immediately. >> >> >> It seems otiose to postulate a separate spirit. A pitiful attempt to >> grasp immortality. Isn't it plain that what is "immaterial" and >> distinguishes a brain of a rock is that the brain instantiates processes >> which incorporate memory, purpose, perception, and action. >> > > > Is it otiose to make a distinction between a "story" and a "book”, > > > ? > > You might be too quick here. A book can instantiate a description of a > story, but a story is a sequence of events (be them relative computation in > arithmetic, or in some “universe”). > > You might be misinterpreting my point. I was attempting to show that there is an important distinction between "mind" and "brain", (as there is between "story" and "book", and "program" and "computer"). In all cases, the brain, book, computer, are physical, and can have specific physical incarnations. However, despite differing physically, they can be used to implement the same (potentially identical) abstract patterns (minds, stories, programs). Because the latter category refers to abstract, informational, duplicable, patterns, they are in a sense immaterial. Many attributes you might attribute to a "soul" you could apply to these abstract informational patterns, such as: - No physical location - No mass or energy - Indestructible (at least always recoverable, in theory - ability to resurrect) - Ability to cross between different physical embodiments (ability to reincarnate) - Ability to exist in different physical universes/realms/planes (ability to transmigrate) > > > > or a "program" and a "computer", or might there be value in that nuance? > > > I guess you mean a universal program and a computer. But then you use > “computer” in the sense of “universal digital machine/number”. In this > list, I use more often “computer” for the physical implementation of a > computer, > (Here I meant a physical computer, I was trying to contrast the software/hardware distinction) > which is typically not a computer, nor even anything emubable on a > computer, given that to emulate even a piece of the physical vacuum, we > already needs the complete universal dovetailing (the full sigma_1 > arithmetical truth). A physical computer is only an appearance in the > number’s mind, and it is not emulable, if only because we cannot > algorithmically decide which computations, in arithmetic, run through our > state of mind, and which does not. > > The difference between software and hardware is only locally dispensable. > Eventually, the apparent primitive matter is a sum on infinitely many > computations, belonging to a non recursively enumerable domain. > A part of the mystery is why physics, or the observable realm, looks so > much computational, but it is not, and QM confirms this. > > > > > Clearly a program stops executing locally when a computer executing that > program is destroyed, but of course this says nothing about the > destruction, existence, non-existence, continuation, quantity, or locations > of other instances of that program. I think here Turing was making a > similar point, in the nuanced distinction between a mind and a brain. > > > I see it that way, except that Turing refers to bodies, which in his mind, > meant material bodies, if not, he would have invoked the universal > dovetailing (whose existence in arithmetic is obvious). But many texts by > Turing seem to confirm that Turing was a naturalist (metaphysically). > > Interesting. Thanks for your comments. Jason -- 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.
