On 7/28/2021 6:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
What do you mean by non effective.
It doesn't produce any testable predictions. It doesn't explain why we are fooled by some optical illusions and not others. It doesn't predict who will suffer Alzheimer's and who won't. It doesn't explain why most mathematics is done subconsciously (c.f. Poincare').
The theory of consciousness (the knowledge that there is a reality) brought by the universal machine, all by itself, is *effective*. It entails immediately the many-worlds appearances (I got it long before I discovered Everett or even QM),
You got it...but it's untestable and no one knows wether it's true. As you are fond of saying, it's theology...like discovering heaven.
Brent
and it entails that the logic of the observable is given by precise intensional variants of the provability logic, and indeed, we got them there. Only the future experimentation will refute this theory, and Mechanism by the same token. It is hard to imagine a more effective theory. In fact, I predicted in the 1970 that it would be refuted before 2000. That did not happen, and I am not sure why, probably a lack of interest in serious theoretical bio-psycho-theology. But the burden of the ontological proof is in the hand of the believer (in a material pricey universe). No need to study the theology of the machine, as the simple fact that all computations are executed in arithmetic is enough to put physicalism in doubt. But the theology of the machine confirms that such an existence is feely plausible, beside making the mind-body problem unsolvable with Mechanism. A pedagogical problem is that many people confuse the physical reality (that no one doubt), and the assumption that the physical reality is not explainable from something non physical which is what Mechanism put a doubt upon.Bruno On Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 12:19:48 AM UTC+2 Brent wrote: On 7/26/2021 2:15 PM, John Clark wrote:On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 4:17 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote: >> That's the problem, ALL consciousness theories are good enough, they all fit the facts equally well, choosing one is entirely a matter of taste. /So whether consciousness is a function of brain processes or is immortal soul stuff are equally good theories? Both consistent with the fact that alcohol affects consciousness...assuming it affects soul stuff?/ I don't drink but I'm sure alcohol would affect my consciousness and my behavior,and I would be able to prove it affects your behavior too, but I have no way of proving it affects your consciousness, assuming you even have consciousness.You keep resorting to "prove" and "know" to argue that science can't apply to consciousness. All theories of consciousness are equally good and bad. But "prove" and "know" are not the standard in any science. We never "prove" or "know" things in physics either. All we ask for is predictive power and theoretical consilience./> If tomorrow I came up with a theory and implemented it with a machine that could scan any brain at any moment and tell me what that brain was consciously thinking...an effective theory of consciousness...then/ Then I would ask, how do you know the machine is working properly, and how on earth do you read the machine's output?The machine prints out "JKC is thinking about Kate Beckinsale" and then I ask you and you say, "I was thinking about Bruno Marchal"...but I can see the erection.Suppose I'm sad and you put me in the machine and the pointer on the machine's sadness dial moves to the 62.4 mark, does that number enable you to understand what it's like for John K Clark to be sad? I don't think so.But I can already understand what it's like for John K Clark to be sad, because I've been sad. Isn't that a good theory...and don't tell me it doesn't /*prove*/ that I know.> people like Chalmers would still whine, "But what is it fundamentally?" Exactly, even if by some miracleyou could somehow prove thatX caused consciousness they would still not be satisfied, they would demand to know WHY X causes consciousness, and they want to know what caused X.My point is that none of that prevents having an effective theory of consciousness. It's my main compliant about Bruno's theory. It's almost completely descriptive of what conscious information processing might be. It's not effective. 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 <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/39a2d4f1-cf4d-44b3-a2de-ecb659883dcbn%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/39a2d4f1-cf4d-44b3-a2de-ecb659883dcbn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
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