On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 5:16:29 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:47, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com <javascript:>> > wrote: > > > > 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 > > > > That is already a bit implicitly physicalist. Once, I suggested to abandon > the expression “made of” because it is misleading. But OK, I will not cut > the air. Computationalism is just the digital version of Descartes > mechanism. Once (informal and colloquial) version is that there is no magic > nor use of any actual infinities in the brain (that will entail later that > there are some infinities at play for the mind, soul or consciousness). > > > > (at a level of description which is unknowable) > > > Yes, although that is proved later. > > > 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. > > > I prove only at step 1 that computationalism entails the possibility of > (classical) teleportation. (I am unsure which conclusion is alluded here). > I don't know that it does -- I think there would have to be a contribution from quantum mechanics in order to derive that entailment. The three premises alone are not strong enough to do the work you want them to, from what I can see. Teleportation is not just a theoretical problem, it's also an engineering problem -- this distinction is something I see you elide quite frequently, eg. in your hand waving responses to JKC. And I'm not sure what "classical teleportation" could mean -- quantum physics might allow some form of teleportation, but classical physics would almost certainly forbid it, no? Wouldn't you have to manage the conservation of matter/energy law that is the cornerstone of classical physics?
> To be clear, I never try to prove computationalism to be true. It is my > working hypothesis. I study the consequences, and show them testable and > well tested by QM (which proves nothing of course). > > > 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. > > > By an observer which does not enter the cut-and-copy bow. > Sorry, what is a "cut-and-copy bow"? > The important point here is the definition of the first person view, which > is the content of the diary that the candidate take with him in the > teleportation box. That plays an important role in the sequel. > The first person is also the content of a diary. > No, it's not. I can read diaries I wrote from years ago, and I would hardly say that they are equivalent to my "first person view." Not in any sense of the term equivalent that I can think of, anyway. > It is 3P operational approximation of the first person experience: the > personal diary content. Everett use something equivalent. > In step two: a delay is intrigued in the reconstitution, > Can't scan "a delay is intrigued in the reconstitution..." Do you mean introduced? > and the point is that the delay is measurable in the 3p view, but is > able,nt from the 1p diary: the first person is not aware of the delay. That > is used again in step 4. You seem to have pass this. > > > To return to the point JKC makes perenially, how do you know what the first person is aware of in a world with matter duplicator/destroyer/transmitter/reconstitutors? (DDTRs for short) How do you know what the new continuers know, or think, or feel? How would anybody be able to say with any certainty what any of this would feel like without actually doing it? > > > 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... > > > “You” in the indexical first person sense, which means here, what will be > written in the personal diaries. > > > But you can't make any scientific claims or predictions based on indexicals (at least not indexicals alone). Indexicals are already pretty mysterious, and they make for a lot of fun in the philosophy of personal identity (which is fraught with a fair bit of controversy itself.) You are making a high-level assumption about personal identity: that the "indexical first-person sense" is some kind of trivial given -- but it is absolutely, unequivocally NOT... neuroscience finds evidence daily that the seemingly unproblematic Cartesian theatre of present experience is a highly complex and orchestrated performance of the brain... I am compelled again to refer to the phenomenon of agnosia, in particular prosopagnosia, where the sufferer cannot recognize themselves in a mirror... maybe something like that would happen to the duplicated continuers, but at a deeper phenomenological level, maybe the continuer in Moscow would have a thought but not recognize who it belonged to... who knows? We would need to do the experiment in the empirical world to find out. And until we have DDTRs (an epic civilizational undertaking with no clear guarantees of success), we won't know... we can't reason ourselves to know. If you think you can, then I would say (with all due respect) that you suffer from delusional overconfidence in what we can know. Which is ironic considering the amount of time you talk about "being humble" in your assumptions. > > > 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. > > > Why? You will push on a button. You assume mechanism, so you know you will > not die, and you know that with mechanism, you cannot survive being in two > cities and seeing simultaneously the two cities, so it is quite natural to > ask yourself where you could feel to be after the experience. > Sure it's natural to ask the question... doesn't mean the question needs to lead to anything sensible as a response. I can ask "What time is it on the moon now?" Perfectly sensible sounding question, but completely forgets the fact that time is based on divisions of longitude on the surface of the earth. > > There are no relevant counterfactuals here. Everything is simply factual. > Last time I checked, there were no such things as DDTRs. So, actually ya, your thought experiment is a counterfactual one in that it begins by the assumption of such miraculous 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. > > > But we agree, in the 3p description, that you-1 is still you, and you-2 > is still you too, but in a different “incarnation”. > > This shows that in Helsinki (the place where you decide to do the > experience, and try too predict what your experience will look like in your > 1p view, which exists by computationalism). > > If you just say that there is no more YOU, then we die in the duplication, > and thus also in the simple teleportation, and thus you cannot say “yes” > qua computation to the digitalist doctor and Mechanism is false. > With all due respect, Bruno, that is an invalid inference.I didn't say we would die necessarily (although on reflection, one of those "Ds" the machine is supposed to perform is "destroy," so... I suppose "you" would die if the original was vaporized - who knows how You-1 and You-2 would feel?). I said the idea of who "YOU" are as a single person entering the DDTR loses meaning/reference. When I say "there is no more YOU (in a world with perfect DDTRs, able to scan, duplicate, transmit, then recreate an entire human being so perfectly that they are indistinguishable to outside observers, not to mention themselves (whatever that means)), it means that we would need to change some things in language, as our language has evolved with such things as "object permanence" and "no perfect duplication" allowed -- this is the point that JKC continually raises and I am always very amused at the ways you duck it. It has NOTHING to do with death or dying, at least it is not necessarily entailed by what I said...at least if the original decided not to get destroyed. I didn't make that claim... I am being conservative in what I am trying to infer from the thought experiment, far more conservative than you seem to be. I don't know what happens to the original person in Helsinki in a hypothetical transporter experiment because I haven't been in a DDTR and this is not an experiment that can be performed with any testable consequences. Empirical results matter. Even more, precision in reference matters when you are talking about perfect copies of complex macroscopic objects. You would at least become You -1 and You -2, let's say... but with respect to which continuer You would be, that is ill formed in the current set of pronouns we have in the English language. Like asking a child to "mambo dogface to the banana patch." Or claiming that "green ideas sleep furiously." If we did exercise our imaginations, I can think of many possibilities, none of which might be true, but we would have to run the experiment to find out. Could be: a) the original ceases to exist (in this case, sure, death); or b) there is a strange sense of feeling as though waking up from a single dream in each of the continuers; or c) there could be a "smeared subjectivity" in the two locations for a period of time; or d) (your preferred but by no means guaranteed outcome) one of the two continuers definitely remembers being the original and there is felt phenomenological continuity; or e) for some reason, the transporters always malfunction in such a way that only one person is produced in either location randomly; or f) <use imagination here>; or g)... etc. And while we are on the topic, how would "YOU" feel if you did not get vaporized by the DDTR (it was just a DTR process) and remained in Helsinki? Guessing no change? Who knows? We don't have the empirical data to settle the question, and Godel/Pythagoras/Plato/Plotinus/Aristotle cannot help us settle the question either. The point is you would have to do the experiment -- armchair deductions from your axioms will tell you nothing about the outcome, any more than trying to actually dream up and build a matter duplicator (to say nothing of a matter destroyer, or a matter transmitter, or a matter reconstituter) using nothing but your mind. You are making inferences from a logic that is not based on a world where matter duplication is possible (or doesn't seem to be, by what we do know of how nature works). And the possibility of PERFECT matter duplication/transmission/destruction/reconstitution seems to be the lynchpin of your whole approach. So the thought experiment doesn't get off the ground... it makes no new predictions and does no actual theoretical work. And if you respond "it doesn't have to be a 'matter duplicator,' because 'primary matter' is just a dream of the numbers, it only has to be a "duplicator" of some unspecified type..." then I will laugh, heartily. > > > > > > > > The second problem seems to be that computations absent any form of > instantiation don't "DO” anything > > > > But that is the case only in step 7 and 8. Up to step 6 the computations > are all physically instantiated. You jumped to step 7 here. > Should I guess that you are OK with the first 6 steps? > > > > -- 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, > > > Assuming a physical primitive universe. But you cannot invalidate a > reasoning by adding an hypothesis not there. That is not valid. > > > > > > 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. > > > I think I see the point. You might have thought that I said that Aristotle > is the one introducing Materialism (as used in philosophy of mind), but I > say only that Aristotle introduced “weak materialism”, the metaphysical > assumption that an irreducible physical reality exists all by itself. There > has never been any evidences for this, and that was exactly what Plato is > all about. Aristotle is a reaction to Plato, and a vindication that physics > is part of any fundamental theory, like most believe today. That is the > point that we have to abandon when we assume digital mechanism, but that is > after step 7 or 8. > > > > > Seeing a flying saucer land and 5 little grey beings come out? That would > be astonishing to me. > > > That would astonish me too, but not be conceptually important. It is just > discovering that we have neighbours. > > > > A world where we could be teleported from Helsinki to Moscow? Astonishing. > > > Technologically, but conceptually banal when we assume Digital Mechanism. > > > OH, "conceptually banal...." My, my, how "conceptually banal" it would be to have an actual TRANSPORTER as depicted in Star Trek that could not only send us from one place to another in a matter of seconds...but DUPLICATE us as well. YAWN. That wouldn't revolutionize EVERYTHING we have ever known/understood about how to live in the world... Pass the caviar, dahlink, and put another mink on the fire, I'm freezing! > > 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. > > > It is WEAK materialism. The belief that we have to assume a physical > universe. The idea that we cannot explain matter without invoking > primitive, assumed matter, be it earth, fire stare and air, or any element > of the same material nature. > When you get up in the morning, what is your routine like? Do you make coffee, perhaps? Put on slippers? Brush your teeth? Do you put on clothes? Do you do all these things in your mind? Or in a physical universe? Can you conjure your coffee without having to go (physically) to buy it at a store? Can you type any responses to this question using purely your mind? Without the intervention of one of those pesky "physical" computers with chips made out of silicon (because silicon is a good semi-conductor while marshmallow isn't?) What about your clothes? Do you just imagine your clothes and then walk out the door? Or do you have to go to a closet or chest of drawers to pull your clothes out and put them on one sleeve and leg at a time? Do you have to make sure they are clean? If they aren't clean, do people maybe look at you a bit funny, or treat you differently? Do you dream up your toothpaste? Your toothbrush? How do you do your day to day with your ultimate primitive numbers and computations? Do you "assume physical reality" before doing any of these things? Or do you let the numbers do it for you? If the latter, what is that like? > > It is the belief that Pythagorean have to be false, as for them matter has > to be explained by numbers, and indeed they begun to explain geometry with > numbers, something pursued by Descartes, etc. > > > Not making any commitment on Pythagoreanism one way or another. And again, I think your continual reference to Aristotelian thinking as a form of weak materialism (which is really a separate philological issue) is not well motivated, as there are far more differences than similarities between Aristotle's metaphysics and modern materialism (whatever that is) -- however, it is important for YOU by construction that you oppose Aristotle in favor of Plato -- two thinkers that lost all but historical relevance for science arguably over 400 years ago. In any event, the whole ancient greek thing is orthogonal to what you attempt (and in my opinion, fail) to establish. > > > > >> 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"… > > > I don’t think I have ascribe weal materialism to Craig Weinberg. I don’t > see where or what you allude too. On the century, his approach is 100% > coherent with the consequence of mechanism. > > > > 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… > > > I have never claim that Weinberg is weak, still less not weak, materialist. > SIR, you LITERALLY say that when you write "He just choose the option "weak-materialism" instead of mechanism." That's a copy of what you wrote a few sentences back. Is one of us having an acid flashback? > His multisense realism is quite comparable to the 8 modes of the self > implied by incompleteness. My work shows that the universal number in > arithmetic get the same non materialist insight. Yet in a more > mathematically precise way so that we can test Mechanism and the > immaterialist consequences. > > > I don't know what any of that means, it's mumbo jumbo to me... the only part I kinda get is "test mechanism and the immaterialist consequences," and the only way I can think to do that is to build a perfectly working never failing DDTR machine (in the actual sense of the word, not your neologized sense) that does just ONE of those functions. A matter/information destroyer would be something any military would love to get its hands on. > > > > 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"?) > > > A mispelling (aggravated by the automated spelling corrector) for “we > discuss this quasi everyday since we dialog on this on Facebook). > > > > > >> 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. > > > > Above you say that we die when we are multiplied, but that contradict the > working hypothesis. If you don’t die in a simple teleportation experience > (step one), you cannot die because a copy is made at a distance, that would > involve non local action at a distance, which makes no sense if we assume > that mechanism is true and that the substitution has been well chosen. > I don't -- please see above. There could be all kinds of exotic and counter-intuitive phenomenological possibilities on being duplicated, none of which can be ascertained through sheer analysis of concepts alone. I admit, if you get destroyed as part of the process of being sent elsewhere, then yes, there is a sense in which you do die, but who knows what that would be like phenomenologically ... reasoning about it using a handful of axioms underdetermines the possibilities. > > > > > 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. > > > That is why the UDA reasoning should be seen, like originally, only as a > motivation for the translation of this in arithmetic, where the notion of > first and third person leads to 8 important nuances imposed by > incompleteness. The UDA is for the young people. It asks for a minimum of > good willing, and a dilate for hand waving type of Sunday philosophy. > All of the above is unclear to me and does not scan to anything coherent (the phrase "word salad" comes to mind). I'll just assume it's over my head and move on. No need to explain or elaborate. > If you mean what you say above, we die at step 3, and you leave the > digital Mechanist frame. > > > And what if I do, what happens then? Do I get a prize? :-) > > > > 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). > > > Wait we arrive at step 7, and don’t add a new hypothesis, which looks like > a string metaphysical commitment in an entity for which no evidences have > were be given (just brainwashing since Aristotle, I would say). > > > > > > > >> 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,” > > > > You seem to not have study Gödel’s 1931 paper and the 1930s paper which > followed, or Emil Post anticipation, or any paper in Davis Dover > “Undecidable” or any textbook in theoretical computer science. > > If you agree that 2+2=4 implies Ex(x+2 = 4), or more simply that the > equation x+2=0 has a solution in the integers, then you have to believe > that the computations all exists in arithmetic. Peano Arithmetical proves > the existence of those computations, like it proves the existence of the > prime number. > > > How very pompous. How does anything Godel wrote about the highly specialized conclusion on the undecidability of formal systems (that has practically ZERO effect on the daily lives of 99.99% of all humans, including mathematicians and engineers) using what amounts to the "parlor trick" of Godel numbering have anything at all to do with the ontological primacy (or otherwise) of numbers? The fact that philosophers of math still find grist for the mill of thenominalism vs. realism debate today demonstrates that no one has a consensus on the ontological status of numbers. It also demonstrates that it is not that important. Practical computer scientists, I'm happy to point out, are able to do their jobs perfectly well without that question being decided -- they "have no need of that hypothesis", to echo Laplace. > > > > in some sort of Platonic superspace. > > > Not at all? Realism in arithmetic is only the statement that you have no > objection to what is taught in primary school. That is why I insist all the > time to use “realism” instead of “platonism”, which I keep only for the > metaphysics. > This is an oversimplification. You can easily learn to do math without having any ontological commitment about the status of numbers or the truth values of statements using numbers. My calculator does math with no such commitments all the time. > > You need only the arithmetic without which we cannot define what is a > digital machine, and that is needed to define Digital Mechanism. > > *All* papers in physics assumes the same amount of arithmetic (actually > most assumes much more powerful mathematical hypotheses). > > Again, while they may assume arithmetic, they certainly are not wedded to AR, a much stronger claim that is not in any danger of being established any time soon, much to the relief of the many mathematical philosophers out there who would have to go get real jobs if it were. > > > > 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, > > > Of course. The arithmetical reality is provably beyond all theories and > not obtainable from any system of equations. > > Says you. Don't see what this has to do with the claim you seem to be countering, though, which is "you can't build something with only equations." > Even a theory as powerful than ZF, or ZFC + large cardinals can only > scratch the arithmetical reality, and cannot avoid the non standard model. > > After Gödel we just understand that we know about nothing about numbers > and the arithmetical reality, and we know that this is forever. We know > that there is an infinity of surprise, and with mechanism, that there is an > infinity points of view that the number can develop relatively to those > surprise. > There is a lot we know nothing about -- take, for example, how to construct a matter duplicator, or a matter destroyer, or a matter transmitter, or a matter reconstituter. Or to travel back to 1958. Or how the universe began. Or what happens after death. None of this ignorance helps in establishing your positive claim, which is (and I think I've still got this correct, as you haven't outright denied it) that "we are eternal computations of some eternal universal dovetailing algorithm computed by pure numbers and the relationships between them." That claim is not established by your thought experiment, first and foremost because your thought experiment is grounded in a counterfactual reality that may or may not be isomorphic to our own. And that's just for STARTERS... even IF our reality WERE isomorphic to one in which PERFECT DDTR machines were possible (and really, could anything be perfect in this imperfectible world of ours?), it STILL would not establish that we are therefore made of numbers/computations/relations between numbers generated by some kind of universal dovetailer. > > Gödel’s incompleteness theorem sign the breakdown of all reductionist > conception of number and machine, and a fortiori of man (assuming > mechanism). > > > > 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. > > > A theory can be correct or incorrect. A computation cannot. It is just an > activity of a machine. It might be different to what you expect, like if > there was a bug, but that is dependent of what you want. > > Again, says you. Just because you regularly change definitions of common words to suit your purposes does not mean that others cannot do the same. I can think of lots of ways the sentence "That computation is incorrect" could be plausibly used and understood by a community of English speakers. > Eyud Shapiro debugging algorithm illustrate this well. You can consider > that the program correctly computing the factorial function is a bugged > version of a program computing the Fibonacci number, and you can debug it > automatically, from samples of inputs outputs, until it computes fibonacci. > I'll take your word for it -- doesn't change much in terms of the objections raised or the ultimate strength of your thought experiment. > > The notion of correct, non correct is for the theories, or the asserting > machines. > > > > > > 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. > > > You assume a irreducible physical universe; but you cannot invoke a > metaphysical assumption not present in a theory to refute that theory. That > is simply not valid. That is like a creationist saying that the theory of > evolution is all nice and well except that it fails to account for most > statement in the bible. > Don't recall explicitly making that assumption, but sure, let's say I do. What of it? I think the practical fact that a DDTR does not exist (not to mention that no one knows how a person sent through such a device would feel during the process) demonstrates quite well that your thought experiment does not establish what you claim it does. In terms of the number of metaphysical assumptions made in the course of our demonstrations, I believe I have fewer than you, and I believe they are far more plausible to boot. And I'm not sure what you're getting at with the creationist analogy -- seems like a non sequitur. I know you are fond of saying people are religious while defining religion any old way you like, so let's chalk it up to rhetorical trickery. > > > 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, > > > You need to work more on the step 3 issues. You say that after the > duplication “YOU” does not exist anymore, but this means that you died in > the process, contra the Mechanist hypothesis. > > Sir, with all do respect, I think you might have some work to do yourself. Many have pointed out similar problems to you over these past eons, but like a true agnosiac denying that your hand is your own, or a drunk driving in the wrong lane wondering why everyone is honking, you insist it is their issue and that they "show you their work" on your cockamamie thought experiment. There are a lot of really bright people on this list. The objections raised here are not novel, just restated in my own idiomatic way gathered from spending lots of time here. Your thought experiment has not changed one iota, nor have the conclusions that you derived from it back in 2004, despite the brain trust you have here on this list weighing in on it. You would think that the theory would evolve over 15 years, change, grow, get stronger, or perhaps weaker but more comprehensive, as a result of taking into consideration all the feedback. But it hasn't -- it hasn't changed one bit. That, sir, is the definition of moribund. > Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by > claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need > some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of > substitution was correctly chosen. > > So, do you die or not in the step 3? > I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's find out -- you go first. > > > > > > (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. > > > Thanks for showing some hope toward a possible understanding, > If only you would do likewise... unfortunately, I suspect you have too much of your psychic identity wrapped up in your theory being true, and it would be harmful to you if you ever realized that maybe your conclusions are not nearly as powerful or compelling as you think. Therefore, like the agnosiac, you must confabulate in order to maintain your consistency and protect your psychic well-being. Either that, or by some ridiculous odds or manifest destiny, you Bruno happen to have stumbled upon the one great truth that all others just can't get because everyone else is just TOO OBTUSE and simply have not mastered to the same degree the writing of all the great logicians from ancient Greece onwards. If I was a bettin' man... But keep on dreamin' your number dreams, you crazy Godel number, you (or whatever you think you are supposed to be). Dan > > Bruno > > > > > All the Best, > > Dan > >> >> Bruno >> >> >> >> >> On 19 Jul 2019, at 05:18, Dan Sonik <dania...@gmail.com> 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. >>> >>> <div style="font-size:small" c >>> >> -- 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/27cf3737-f3d9-47b3-80bf-673465e5e12f%40googlegroups.com.
