Dear Bruno, You state: "IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science, THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. “physical” becomes a mathematical notion. ...Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the brain/body at that level of description". The problem of your account is the following: You say "IF" and "indexical digital mechanism is the HYPOTHESIS". Therefore, you are talking of an HYPOTHESIS: it is not empirically tested and it is not empirically testable. You are starting with a sort of postulate: I, and other people, do not agree with it. The current neuroscience does not state that our brain/body is (or can be replaced by) a digital machine. In other words, your "IF" stands for something that possibly does not exist in our real world. Here your entire building falls down. -- Inviato da Libero Mail per Android giovedì, 10 maggio 2018, 02:46PM +02:00 da Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be :
>(This mail has been sent previously , but without success. I resend it, with >minor changes). Problems due to different accounts. It was my first comment to >Mark Burgin new thread “Is information physical?”. > > >Dear Mark, Dear Colleagues, > > >Apology for not answering the mails in the chronological orders, as my new >computer classifies them in some mysterious way! >This is my first post of the week. I might answer comment, if any, at the end >of the week. > > >>On 25 Apr 2018, at 03:47, Burgin, Mark < mbur...@math.ucla.edu > wrote: >>Dear Colleagues, >>I would like to suggest the new topic for discussion >> Is information physical? > >That is an important topic indeed, very close to what I am working on. > >My result here is that > >IF indexical digital mechanism is correct in the cognitive science, > >THEN “physical” has to be defined entirely in arithmetical term, i.e. >“physical” becomes a mathematical notion. > >The proof is constructive. It shows exactly how to derive physics from >Arithmetic (the reality, not the theory. I use “reality” instead of “model" >(logician’s term, because physicists use “model" for “theory"). > >Indexical digital mechanism is the hypothesis that there is a level of >description of the brain/body such that I would survive, or “not feel any >change” if my brain/body is replaced by a digital machine emulating the >brain/body at that level of description. > >Not only information is not physical, but matter, time, space, and all >physical objects become part of the universal machine phenomenology. Physics >is reduced to arithmetic, or, equivalently, to any Turing-complete machinery. >Amazingly Arithmetic (even the tiny semi-computable part of arithmetic) is >Turing complete (Turing Universal). > >The basic idea is that: > >1) no universal machine can distinguish if she is executed by an arithmetical >reality or by a physical reality. And, > >2) all universal machines are executed in arithmetic, and they are necessarily >undetermined on the set of of all its continuations emulated in arithmetic. > >That reduces physics to a statistics on all computations relative to my actual >state, and see from some first person points of view (something I can describe >more precisely in some future post perhaps). > >Put in that way, the proof is not constructive, as, if we are machine, we >cannot know which machine we are. But Gödel’s incompleteness can be used to >recover this constructively for a simpler machine than us, like Peano >arithmetic. This way of proceeding enforces the distinction between first and >third person views (and six others!). > >I have derived already many feature of quantum mechanics from this (including >the possibility of quantum computer) a long time ago. I was about sure this >would refute Mechanism, until I learned about quantum mechanics, which >verifies all the most startling predictions of Indexical Mechanism, unless we >add the controversial wave collapse reduction principle. > >The curious “many-worlds” becomes the obvious (in arithmetic) many >computations (up to some equivalence quotient). The weird indeterminacy >becomes the simpler amoeba like duplication. The non-cloning of matter becomes >obvious: as any piece of matter is the result of the first person >indeterminacy (the first person view of the amoeba undergoing a duplication, >…) on infinitely many computations. This entails also that neither matter >appearance nor consciousness are Turing emulable per se, as the whole >arithmetical reality—which is a highly non computable notion as we know since >Gödel—plays a key role. Note this makes Digital Physics leaning to >inconsistency, as it implies indexical computationalism which implies the >negation of Digital Physics (unless my “body” is the entire physical universe, >which I rather doubt). >>My opinion is presented below: >> >> >> Why some people erroneously think that information is physical >> >> The main reason to think that information is physical is the strong >>belief of many people, especially, scientists that there is only physical >>reality, which is studied by science. At the same time, people encounter >>something that they call information. >> When people receive a letter, they comprehend that it is information >>because with the letter they receive information. The letter is physical, >>i.e., a physical object. As a result, people start thinking that information >>is physical. When people receive an e-mail, they comprehend that it is >>information because with the e-mail they receive information. The e-mail >>comes to the computer in the form of electromagnetic waves, which are >>physical. As a result, people start thinking even more that information is >>physical. >> However, letters, electromagnetic waves and actually all physical objects >>are only carriers or containers of information. >> To understand this better, let us consider a textbook. Is possible to say >>that this book is knowledge? Any reasonable person will tell that the >>textbook contains knowledge but is not knowledge itself. In the same way, the >>textbook contains information but is not information itself. The same is true >>for letters, e-mails, electromagnetic waves and other physical objects >>because all of them only contain information but are not information. For >>instance, as we know, different letters can contain the same information. >>Even if we make an identical copy of a letter or any other text, then the >>letter and its copy will be different physical objects (physical things) but >>they will contain the same information. >> Information belongs to a different (non-physical) world of knowledge, >>data and similar essences. In spite of this, information can act on physical >>objects (physical bodies) and this action also misleads people who think that >>information is physical. > >OK. The reason is that we can hardly imagine how immaterial or non physical >objects can alter the physical realm. It is the usual problem faced by dualist >ontologies. With Indexical computationalism we recover many dualities, but >they belong to the phenomenologies. > > > >> One more misleading property of information is that people can measure >>it. This brings an erroneous assumption that it is possible to measure only >>physical essences. Naturally, this brings people to the erroneous conclusion >>that information is physical. However, measuring information is essentially >>different than measuring physical quantities, i.e., weight. There are no >>“scales” that measure information. Only human intellect can do this. > >OK. I think all intellect can do that, not just he human one. > >Now, the reason why people believe in the physical is always a form of the >“knocking table” argument. They knocks on the table and say “you will not tell >me that this table is unreal”. > >I have got so many people giving me that argument, that I have made dreams in >which I made that argument, or even where I was convinced by that argument … >until I wake up. > >When we do metaphysics with the scientific method, this “dream argument” >illustrates that seeing, measuring, … cannot prove anything ontological. A >subjective experience proves only the phenomenological existence of >consciousness, and nothing more. It shows that although there are plenty of >strong evidences for a material reality, there are no evidences (yet) for a >primitive or primary matter (and that is why, I think, Aristotle assumes it >quasi explicitly, against Plato, and plausibly against Pythagorus). > >Mechanism forces a coming back to Plato, where the worlds of ideas is the >world of programs, or information, or even just numbers, since very elementary >arithmetic (PA without induction, + the predecessor axiom) is already Turing >complete (it contains what I have named a Universal Dovetailer: a program >which generates *and* executes all programs). > >So I agree with you: information is not physical. I claim that if we assume >Mechanism (Indexical computationalism) matter itself is also not *primarily* >physical: it is all in the “head of the universal machine/number” (so to >speak). > >And this provides a test for primary matter: it is enough to find if there is >a discrepancy between the physics that we infer from the observation, and the >physics that we extract from “the head” of the machine. This took me more than >30 years of work, but the results obtained up to now is that there is no >discrepancies. I have compared the quantum logic imposed by incompleteness >(formally) on the semi-computable (partial recursive, sigma_1) propositions, >with most quantum logics given by physicists, and it fits rather well. > >Best regards, > >Bruno >_______________________________________________ >Fis mailing list >Fis@listas.unizar.es >http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
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