On Friday, July 19, 2019 at 6:17:56 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Hi Dan, > > It is OK to be critical. I always welcome this. >
Thank you. > But you are a bit short of argument. You seem convince by John Clark’s > posts. At least John Clark told us where in the reasoning he thinks there > is a mistake, but has not yet been able to explain it, or convince anybody. > On the contrary, I just think the criticism has fallen on deaf ears -- reading some of these threads puts me in mind of those unfortunate individuals who are struck with agnosia. No matter how blatant and paramount the input for people with this condition, they simply pass it over, unaware of what is right under their noses. > > So, if you understand his critics of the step 3 in the 8-steps version of > the Universal Dovetailer argument, you are welcome to explain it to us. If > you want, I re-explain the argument, but most people in this list have no > problem with it, so you might insist, or just read it here: > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html > <http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Firidia.ulb.ac.be%2F~marchal%2Fpublications%2FSANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEfo8XeSgWTqK6OJMQHTel31OtZbQ> > > Sure, I'll take a crack. Referring to your paper... "Computationalism", or "comp" for short-- the idea that 1) our brains are made of some digitally fungible units (at a level of description which is unknowable) such that if some or all of it were replaced it would make no difference to that individual 2) computers themselves are equivalent at some level of description (Church Turing hypothesis) 3) arithmetical realism -- true statements about numbers are true absent any observers. Step 1: Computationalism implies the possibility of teleportation "in principle" -- that, according to you, is sufficient to prove your conclusion. Step 2: Consider the difference between the first and third person perspectives, where the third person perspective is ascertained from a record contained in a personal diary. Step 3: Assume you are a person being teleported -- you are told beforehand you will be teleported to either Washington or Moscow, with a 50 50 chance. The question is then put to the person about to be teleported -- where will YOU end up... As far as I can tell there have been two main criticisms of this thought experiment up to this point. First, the question "where will YOU end up" is poorly formed in a counterfactual world of duplicating machines. There is no more YOU if YOU can be copied. There has to be a You-1 and a You-2, and the use of basic pronouns (that have evolved in a world absent of perfect duplicating machines) elides this distinction. The second problem seems to be that computations absent any form of instantiation don't "DO" anything -- in order for a computation to be performed, it must be instantiated in some hardware, and therefore the domain of physics is larger than the domain of mathematics, because the details of implementing a Turing machine in the real world are just as if not more important than the kinds of computations you will end up feeding it. Over and above these criticisms, however, is the recurrently identified insistence on using words with completely arbitrary definitions that do not map to how most of the rest of the English speaking community use them -- God, theology, machine, materialism/primary matter as examples -- and it seems that this move signals a bit of bad faith on your part, or at least a willingness to obfuscate in order to avoid inconvenient (and yet quite legitimate) counterpoints many have raised over the years. Again, I am reminded of agnosia sufferers. > About Aristotle primary substance, I am not sure I understand your remark. > I discuss this on many groups on antic philosophy, and, you are the first > to make this very astonishing remark. You might need to revise Aristotle's > “Metaphysics” which is all about this (beware the different translations > though). > I'm not sure what is so "astonishing" about the remark. Seeing a flying saucer land and 5 little grey beings come out? That would be astonishing to me. A world where we could be teleported from Helsinki to Moscow? Astonishing. Making a possibly incorrect claim about Aristotelian hermeneutics... eh, not that astonishing. And I think you might have meant to say "review" rather than "revise," -- to revise is to edit something with the goal of making it clearer or better. I wouldn't want to take on the job of editing Aristotle (although, God knows, he did need an editor). If I recall correctly, Aristotle thought the world was made of 5 elements, each telelogically drawn to their own place in the natural order of things. So that's 5 substances, not one -- it's not a monism, and therefore to conflate it with materialism and continually refer to it as Aristotelian belief in primary substance seems a bit careless. The modern notion of matter has no telos. > > Concerning Craig Weinberg, we have agreed on everything. He just choose > the option “weak-materialism” instead of mechanism, but seem to understand > there incompatibility. > I would say here that you grossly mischaracterize his ideas as "weak materialism"... but if you are going to go off using words in special ways (as is your wont), then no one can stop you. His website is called "Multisense realism." As far as I can tell, he argues for the ontological primacy of sensation diffracted across multiple modes of interpretation-- not sure how that can be put in the "materialist" box. Sounds more like a brand of idealism to me... Most of its philosophy is very close to what I extract from the theaetetus’ > definition of knowledge, when applied to Gödel’s provability predicate > (which I motivate either through thought experiments or by referring to > Plato). We opus quasi everyday since the dialog on Facebook, as Craig seems > to prefer. > Glad to hear! (what is "opus quasi"?) > > Please, explain John Clark’s argument, if you understand it. Brent has > acknowledge having no problem up to step 6, and is unclear (or undecided > perhaps) on step 7. > > See above. > You might ignored like many that all computations occurs in already a tiny > segment of the arithmetical reality: the truth of the sigma_1 sentences > (which is indeed equivalent to a universal dovetailing). > OK, that's what you say. (??) Not sure how it's relevant to the objection 1) counterfactual worlds with teleportation devices need clearer ways of referring to those who are duplicated. 2) Computations don't compute anything without something on which to compute (paper and pencil, a machine (in the commonly used sense, not in your neologized sense), a brain). > That is required for step seven. This is well known by logicians since > almost Gödel’s 1931 paper. That makes the believer in “Matter"forced to > explain how their “Matter” can influence or interfere with the statistics > on computations which are run in arithmetic (where “run” is taken in the > sense of Church, Kleene, Turing, etc. > I think the main "leap of faith" that you make (and many others simply can't, because it appears absurd) is somehow thinking that the completed computations are already "out there," in some sort of Platonic superspace. Perhaps this is what the implication of AR is, although it seems a somewhat stronger claim than just AR. This takes far more suspension of disbelief than assuming (and then getting actual, real world consequences from) a material world that needs to be engineered in order to deliver the results we expect from our computations. You can't build something with only equations, and all the computations being "out there" are as good as none of them being out there if you can't distinguish correct from incorrect ones. And the only way you can distinguish them is by actually building a real machine made out of stuff of some kind and go ahead and run the computation and wait for the answer. This has been mentioned multiple times, but again, agnosia. Seeing how previous threads go, I am holding little hope in persuading you that your thought experiment does not establish what you want it to,(i.e. we are eternal computations in an ever unfolding dovetailer algorithm) but that's fine... the thinking and writing process is fun and it would be really cool if it were true (but it probably ain't). And I could be full of shit myself, so there's that. All the Best, Dan > > Bruno > > > > > On 19 Jul 2019, at 05:18, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com <javascript:>> > wrote: > > Bravo PGC. Very Well Said. > > Delusions of reality as based in a purely mathematical scheme will never > amount to a "theory of everything..." > > Just another quaint, historically bounded, and deeply ontologically > committed idea with absolutely no practical relevance, much like Thales' > commitment that "all is water" or Anaximander's idea of the "apeiron" as a > metaphysical absolute. Sounds great on paper... try to do something with > it... well, that's a Turing TarPit right there. > > And just a further comment to Bruno's constant use of "Aristotelian > assumption" of "primary matter." Can I have primary source citation, > please? From what I recall of my Aristotle, a fair bit of it, I can't even > once remember him talking about "matter" in the ordinary, "post-Cartesian" > sense of the term. And you know why? Because he didn't have that > distinction in his lexicon!!! In his metaphysics, he talks of > "particulars," not "matter" per se, unless you think this is based on his > idea of one of the four forms of causation. And he argued that all four > need to be present before a thing comes to be (efficient, formal, > teleological, final). Nowhere does he mention the very modern (i.e. > post-Descartes) idea of "matter" in this metaphysic. > > Please defend your claims philologically, and not by way of obscure > mathematical formula supposedly designed to lead us to some sort of > ultimate Platonic conclusion. And also not by way of convenient > redefinitions of common words (God, matter, machine) that leave most people > in a dust of confusion. (but maybe that's your intent?) > > I can already feel you writing... "but the hypothesis of mechanism > dictates that ... x must be y.... " ... "numbers must have dreams, and they > must be us... " the hypostases of the ultimate one talked about by plotinus > (which numbered 8) must be the only way if we assume mechanism... " > > ENOUGH! > > Your rhetoric and constant pompous references to your previous posts have > chased many great minds away from this list. (Craig Weinberg comes to > mind.) And I mostly come here to see John Clark constantly body slam you > with respect to the question of hardware implementation of computations... > which you never answer... like a true cultist... "Go back to step 3" -- > fuck step three. There are no matter duplicating machines. There is no > "absolute first person perspective"... referred to by a pronoun "I". And > even if there were a matter duplicating machine, it would have to be made > of "matter" (pace John Clark) and so couldn't simply just happen by virtue > of the mathematical formalism. (Remember Pythagoras? See where he ended up? > Not because what he said was true... because it was ANNOYINGLY FALSE) > Therefore, your mind experiment is done as far as practical consequences. > So what? Who cares? What are we even doing here? > > God bless John Clark for fighting this nonsense. > > Remember what this list was meant to do -- CULTIVATE THEORIES OF > EVERYTHING... NOT "Cultivate what conforms to Bruno's idea of a Theory of > Everything Is." > > And, please, no disrepect to any of the other participants on this thread. > I have followed you all for so long (10+) years that you are all family > (including Bruno, you silly bastard) > > I love the salutary conclusions that seem to emerge from your > speculations, Bruno, I really do... but so much effort has been dedicated > to trying to make you see that you have blindspots (Brent Meeker, John > Clark, Craig Weinberg) and you never modify your theory to cover them, you > only insist that they don't understand your genius plan. > > Let me ask you: if you are the only car traveling in a certain direction > (let's call it North) and you encounter multiple cars traveling at other > directions (namely, South), are the other guys driving in the wrong > direction? Or are you? > > And before anyone charges me of just dropping in uninvited, my claimed 10+ > years experience a lie, I have posted here before, in different guises. > I'll leave it up to the readers (if they're interested) in figuring out who > I am. > > Doesn't matter now, though, my anonymity is blown. > > Please be kind (or not, this is the internet, after all...) > > Anyway, I found it irresistible to drop in and let you all know I love you > all and this forum, and Bruno too for being so god damned STUBBORN!! But > it's looking like you might need to re evaluate some stuff? > > Go ahead, cut me up in the comments... > > > > > > > > On Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 5:06:10 AM UTC-5, PGC wrote: >> >> On Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 9:58:31 AM UTC+2, telmo wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2019, at 00:37, Bruce Kellett wrote: >>> >>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2019 at 12:55 AM Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: >>> >>> On 16 Jul 2019, at 13:44, PGC <multipl...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> On Monday, July 15, 2019 at 1:53:11 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>> >>> I don’t understand well what you say. >>> >>> >>> Nobody, including yourself, understands what you say generally. >>> >>> >>> >>> Just tell me what you don’t understand specifically, and avoid ad >>> hominem attack. It bores everybody, and distract from the thread. >>> >>> >>> That is just bullying, Bruno. You accuse everyone who disagrees with you >>> of ad hominem attacks. >>> >>> >>> That is a lie and you know it. >>> >> >> All of us can read. I saw the ad hominem remark applied to Bruce's posts >> by Bruno multiple times. Read what Bruno said: "Just tell me what you >> don’t understand specifically, and avoid ad hominem attack. It bores >> everybody, and distract from the thread." He admits to not understanding >> and then assumes authority and my consent to solicit his advice as some >> high priest of theories of everything. You approach someone like that in >> the real world, them always forcing their game on you, anybody with >> self-respect would tell him to take a hike: I don't buy high priest >> discourse and refuse to participate in folks' delusions of themselves. >> That's the ad hominem. >> >> >>> And you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it. I challenge you to >>> find one instance on this mailing list where Bruno accused anyone of ad >>> hominem without having been directed insulted: "pee pee theories", "you >>> don't make sense", "nobody knows what you're talking about", etc etc. I >>> know you won't produce this example because it doesn't exist, and I also >>> know that you will just avoid the topic and focus on the next insult / >>> patronizing comment. >>> >>> Well, I have been participating in this mailing list on and off for more >>> than one decade, and more or less the only original ideas being discussed >>> here come from Bruno. I have witnessed multi-year threads discussing what >>> he is saying in great detail, so clearly some people must have some idea of >>> what he is saying. >>> >> >> Interpersonal discourse is never this simple. On an open list you guys >> whine about dissent while lamenting lack of loyalty to Bruno for having >> "more or less the only original ideas here". That insults every participant >> including those of us who've found their way here without agendas of >> grooming followers into some professorial trip of personal mysticism >> presented as truth writ large. >> >> As if the list existed only in virtue of Bruno's generosity towards >> lesser people. I disagree because I've seen original thought from Telmo and >> most participants, while seeing the list as a place for folks to practice >> and enjoy banter *with disagreement and dissent* on >> theoretical/scientific topics. >> >> What this conspiracy type arguing performs discursively: Of course, >> targets for confidence tricks and conspiratorial discourse have blind faith >> in "debate/discourse" of their guru. Targets of such discourse are always >> framed as experts on the correct side of a victimized history. That's the >> poisonous reward: compensation at some later point, which is similar to the >> afterlife promise from any exploitative discourse. Cult charlatan territory >> is what this discourse toys with. In an age of disinformation you don't >> cede to believing what you read. You criticize or leave. >> >> No need to worry because nobody's here for your loyalty. You can keep >> sipping the kool aid of choice from the one guru of pure mathematical >> truth, originality, and perfection. Nobody will take that away from you >> because what's left to take? You've already given it all away. Including in >> recent weeks admitting to replacing notions of evidence with emotional >> appeals to the "correct, truthful attitude" along with disqualifying your >> and other members' own originality here today. Bruno's originality? I >> interpret history independently and see no evidence beyond speculative >> mathematical philosophy and a combinator result. Duplicating, machines, >> quantum logic, immortality all standard stuff with a few precisions on >> details. But original? Read more and at least try to test your own >> assertions. There's not much here and everybody here can do better. >> >> As if Bruno's approaches were the only thing under the sun. Get out >> there, question everything, and get after things. Don't believe what you >> read but read more outside zones of comfort. Do your thing. Read other >> things than internet chat! If you want platonism as metaphysics, then go >> out and fight in your local city councils and beyond. Realize your >> abilities to find and rally more consensus for your cause, its implication >> to the world and other people; and get out there. Instead his discourse in >> this setting implies the pursuit of the right attitude by sitting on our >> butts, playing professor uninvited, reading only his posts, the whole day >> splitting hairs in forums instead of getting behind whatever you feel >> strongly about and reaching out to the world. >> >> Don't talk to me about debating issues: debating for what? Aristotle's >> alleged "physicalism" on which so much of the "debates" with John are >> linguistically based, enjoys no scientific consensus. Matter with Aristotle >> is an unclear and inconsistent notion throughout Aristotle's writings. >> Folks should justifiably be irritated when being sold such a bill of goods. >> All except the credulous of course. Forcing incompleteness to mean "soul" >> in the Christian sense, immunity from reductionism while uttering >> statements about gods and their wills with assumed scientific authority, >> admitting that nobody can make such statements while making them >> constantly, blasting the list with truth assertions day in and day out. >> >> "I don't truth you so you don't truth me" somebody quoted in recent >> weeks. Rightfully so because its insulting and rude: how stupid does he >> assume list members to be? That's not original thought, it's synonymous >> with confidence tricks for credibility in linguistic terms. Robbery with >> rhetorical tricks. Scientific contributions on the other hand are what they >> are: contributions, not statements of truth or some correct metaphysics or >> attitude. The humility he admonishes everybody for not having: a double >> standard by his own discursive measures. >> >> And I'll counter the "boring" argument as poor aesthetics from folks >> outside their fields. Theoretical topics and their discussion can be >> abused. To deny the possibility of such is too innocent for you guys. It >> belongs on the agenda if this list is public and free. >> >> >>> Maybe the limitation is on your side? >>> >>> You insist on rigor when you talk to Bruno (as you should), and then you >>> side with someone who produced exactly zero arguments, that writes long and >>> incoherent rants >>> >> >> Who rants the most here? Who has the time for the highest number and >> longest posts? Who writes as though they had to correct every thought and >> split every hair with other members? >> >> >>> that aim only at insulting Bruno for personal reasons. Unlike John Clark >>> for example. Say what you will, but I have never seen John Clark side with >>> bullshit just because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Give me a break >>> here. You are about as far from having a scientific attitude as I am from >>> becoming the next Miss Universe. >>> >> >> You are right. Miss Universe is at least expected to have a brain of her >> own and answer questions her own way! >> >> On an open list everybody's opinions matter, just like in democracy. Deal >> with it or whine and practice conspiratorial discourses in private. No buy. >> Not interested. Be as polite as you say you are instead of unleashing >> motherly assaults, theological rants on ideal attitudes, when folks are >> skeptical on matters religion and theology or employing bizarre rhetorical >> tricks dismissing alleged statements as physicalist and stupid. We're >> people beyond ideologies. Not reducible to written statements on chat >> forums as virtually all this discourse assumes. Chat fundamentalism. >> Immunity from reductionism? Lol >> >> The woo woo is decadence. Show me instead. I show what I parse to be >> discursive intent because that's what interests me with science: what do >> you mean? what kind of world does that paint? Is it beautiful? Is it joyous >> or are you just getting off on posting in public? Independent, no side for >> me. Salt for everyone. PGC >> > > -- > 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 everyth...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1c3c5f2f-a009-4f96-bfaa-5c67e0cb1825%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1c3c5f2f-a009-4f96-bfaa-5c67e0cb1825%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/a1a23936-cf66-46c3-bf27-b9666e1fc124%40googlegroups.com.
