Re: What are atheists for?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 May 2017, at 20:21, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Your answer seems to be that physics can be an illusion of digital  
thought, therefore primary physics is otiose.  But thought can't  
be a consequence of physics becausewell you just don't see how  
it could be.


Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a role to the  
primary matter which is not emulable by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.


The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some don't.  I  
don't know anyone who calls this "primary matter", but it's what is  
not UD emulable.


To reify something for which we have no evidence, just to avoid a  
problem, is a bit like a pseudo-religious move, like invoking a  
miracle or a god. You have to explain more on how that primary matter  
succeeds in linking the computational histories with consciousness. If  
it is non Turing emulable, I don't see why we could remain confident  
in a digital brain transplant.


Bruno





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.

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.


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



--
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.

Re: ​Movie argument

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 May 2017, at 23:17, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 3:39 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


​> ​We know (modulo Mechanism) that the experience will feel to  
be unique and asymmetrical when we are still in Helsinki.


​Modulo my ass, when I am in Helsinki I know I am in Helsinki and  
nowhere else and I don't need to assume Mechanism or anything else ​ 
to know it.​



You just evade the question. I said, in Helsinki, I know (assuming  
mechanism of course) I will push on a button, and find myself alive in  
ONE city, living an asymmetrical condition.







​> >​Even after the experiment is over nobody can answer even  
approximately the question "​ ​what one and only one city will I  
see after I am duplicated?​"​.


​> ​if you are using "will", the question has to be asked before.

​The question must be asked before the experiment but the ANSWER  
must be available AFTER the experiment otherwise there is no way to  
know if the prediction made before the experiment turned out to be  
true.


Right. But don't forget that the question is on the future personal  
experience, not about the localisation of all experiences involved  
after the duplication.






You say the correct answer could have been either city


No. It is "W or M"? Then that remains correct and verified by the two  
copies. each specific prediction W, or M, is refuted by one copy, and  
that is enough to refute the prediction.





but there is no way to say which city from "the 1-p" (whatever that  
means) would be correct before the experiment. So all I want to know  
is AFTER the experiment is over what city turned out to be correct  
from "the 1-p of the 1-p of the 1-p of the 1-p ".  No I don't  
know what that string of peas means but you claim to know so which  
city was seen? I say he will see both because after duplication the  
Helsinki man is now two so seeing 2 cities at th same time is no  
problem;



So you say that the two guys have the personal experience of seeing  
the two cities? That needs a peculiar telepathic ability. It is simply  
non-sense, and it contradicts the fact that you have agreed in  
previous post that both copies see only one city. But I think you are  
just eliminating that first person experience, as seen from that first  
person perspective, so that you can say he see both cities, which is  
the correct third person view, but obviously non sensical as a first  
person view, on which the question was all about.










but you say that's wrong, so what one and only one city did it turn  
out to be, Moscow or Washington? If you can't answer that simple  
question with one word then it's not a experiment.


We cannot answer to youyr question, but it is still an experiment once  
we agree to listen to what each copy will say. deciding that this is  
not an experiement is equivalent with denying the first person  
experience of the subject. That is the usual materialist elimination  
of the first person, consciousness, etc.








The fact that this can not be answered is not due to some deeply  
hidden fact about the nature of reality, it can't be answered  
because it's not a question,  it's not even a stupid question, in a  
world that contains "I" duplicating machines it's just gibberish  
with a question mark at the end.   ​


​> ​That is just denying simple verifiable facts,

​The trouble is the one and only one city that correctly answers  
the question can NOT be verified EVER,


A kid can do the verification. "W v M" is verified by both copies. "W"  
is refuted by one copy. "M" is refuted by one copy. "W & M" is refuted  
by both copies.







not because I don't know the answer ​but because I don't know the  
question.


Where will the guy in Helsinki find itself after pushing the button.  
Computationalism makes this isomorphic to coin throwing. We could even  
argue that here, the P = 1/2 is exact, given the numerical identify of  
the copies (in the case of throwing a coin, some could insist the  
proba is due to contingent ignorance, where in the duplication  
scenario, the ignorance is intrinsic and imposed by logic).






​You string some ASCII characters together and put a question mark  
at the end and claim my inability to respond to it points to  
something of cosmic ​importance, well I can't respond to  
xhsduye77f? either but I don't think that indicates anything profound.


​> ​Some non specific answer is available, and "W or M" works  
perfectly.


​Yes it works, as long as it's not a exclusive or.​


But it has to be an exclusive OR. The guy in Moscow has no mean to see  
what the guy in Washington is seeing. And vice-versa. Unless telepathy  
or some synchronisation technology added in both places (and thus in a  
different protocol), the two first person experience are incompatible.








​> ​To say that this makes no sense is equivalent with  
eliminating the first person experience of both copies.


​No it is not, it's equivalent to saying "Asking wha

Re: What are atheists for?

[Telmo Menezes]

>>> I think that mechanism gives the most of what we can hope for an
>>> explanation
>>> of what consciousness is.
>>>
>>> A number e can refer to itself and develop true belief about itself,
>>> including some guess in its relative consistency.
>>
>>
>> I can understand self-referentiality, and at the same time that there
>> is "something" to it that is profound but not fully graspable -- as
>> Hofstadter talks about with his "strange loops".
>>
>>> Then the theory explains
>>> why any Gödel-Löbian machine can access to the truth that such belief can
>>> be
>>> correctly (but that is not seen by the machine, only by god/truth)
>>> related
>>> to the truth, but only in a non communicable way. So the machine knows
>>> truth, that she is unable to justify, and can only seem mysterious.
>>
>>
>> I am ok with this.
>
>
> Then, it is weirder for me why you are not convinced by the machine's
> explanation of consciousness.

But you conclude yourself, that the machine knows truth, that is
unable to justify, and can only seem mysterious. The fact that I find
consciousness mysterious isn't exactly what you would expect?

>
>>
>>> That does not explains the whole of consciousness, but that reduce its
>>> mystery to the mystery of our belief in anything Turing universal, like
>>> the
>>> numbers.
>>>
>>> But then again, the numbers explains, by themselves, why if you belief in
>>> anything less than them, you cannot get them, and so justify their
>>> mysterious character. We don't know, and it is the fate of any machine to
>>> not know that.
>>>
>>> Don't mind to much. I am not sure if what you miss is a part of
>>> mathematical
>>> logic, or something about consciousness.
>>
>>
>> Again, I am convinced by your explanation of why the mystery exists.
>
>
> The mystery is our understanding or belief (in apparently a finite time) of
> elementary arithmetic.
>
>
>
>
>> For me, the hard problem remains: you talk about mathematical
>> constructs.
>
>
> Only half of the time, unless you put mathematical truth in the mathematical
> construct, something typically impossible to do, except for some
> approximation, for theories much simpler than ourself. I guess you know the
> difference between the true fact that 2+2=4, and the much weaker fact that
> some machine or theory believes or prove that 2+2=4. In fact the word
> "mathematical construct" is a bit ambiguous. The semantic in general is not
> a construct, when we do mathematics, but partial semantic can be associated
> to mathematical construct, when we do metamathematics (mathematical logic),
> but this is due to the fact that we approximate meaning by "mathematical
> construct" (which are most often infinite and non computable mathematical
> object).
>
>
>
>
>> Physicalists talk about emergence from complex
>> interactions of matter. I remain baffled and ask you the same question
>> that I ask physicalists: what is the first principle from where
>> consciousness arises?
>
>
> Truth. That cannot be a mathematical construct (provably so if
> computationalism is true). It is not 3p definable.

Aren't you just renaming the mystery?

> The whole key is in the theorem that ([]p & p) does not admit a predicate
> definable to any machine from which "[]p & p" is (meta)defined.

I understood this as a key to understanding why certain things cannot
be known, but not to knowing them...

>
>>
>> I confess I have a hard time formulating the question correctly. I
>> feel that what I am trying to ask is so fundamentally simple that it
>> becomes hard to write the real question.
>
>
> That is common when we dig on notion like truth and consciousness. Those
> notion are too much obvious from the 1p view, and almost non intelligible in
> the 3p view, which explains why materialist want to eliminate them.

Ok.
Yes, I came across this over and over. Materalists want to eliminate
the question because they can sense that it is subversive to their
belief system.

>>
>>> The core of the explanation is in
>>> the G/G* separation, and its inheritance by the intelligible and sensible
>>> matter. We might come back at this some day or another. I am of course
>>> very
>>> interested in trying to see what you miss here. The explanation is like
>>> the
>>> cow koan: the head of the cow go through the window, like the legs and
>>> the
>>> truncs, but not the tail. That will play a role also in the fact that
>>> computationalism is a theology: the soul of the machine cannot understand
>>> rationally  that she will be resurrect. That is the fun of it: the soul
>>> of
>>> the machine says "no" to the doctor, until some leap of faith in some
>>> situation.
>>
>>
>> This is harder for me to follow, but I think I follow you on the
>> "barriers to knowledge".
>>
>> I definitely don't understand the cow koan!
>
>
> The idea is that about truth and consciousness we can explain everything,
> except for a tiny detail. But with computationalism, we can explain why they
> should  remain a tiny detail which has to 

Re: What are atheists for?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 May 2017, at 15:21, Telmo Menezes wrote:


I think that mechanism gives the most of what we can hope for an
explanation
of what consciousness is.

A number e can refer to itself and develop true belief about  
itself,

including some guess in its relative consistency.



I can understand self-referentiality, and at the same time that  
there

is "something" to it that is profound but not fully graspable -- as
Hofstadter talks about with his "strange loops".


Then the theory explains
why any Gödel-Löbian machine can access to the truth that such  
belief can

be
correctly (but that is not seen by the machine, only by god/truth)
related
to the truth, but only in a non communicable way. So the machine  
knows

truth, that she is unable to justify, and can only seem mysterious.



I am ok with this.



Then, it is weirder for me why you are not convinced by the machine's
explanation of consciousness.


But you conclude yourself, that the machine knows truth, that is
unable to justify, and can only seem mysterious. The fact that I find
consciousness mysterious isn't exactly what you would expect?


Yes. But now we are in the Gödelian trap. Interpret (momentarily)  
"consciousness" by "consistency" (<>t), and justify x by "prove  
x" ([]x).


We seem to agree with ~[]<>t  (we cannot justify/explain/rationally- 
believe-in consciousness, so there is a mystery)


Then the machine explanation comes: <>t -> ~[]<>t (the machine proves  
that if she is consistent then she cannot prove it), and similarly, my  
explanation of the "mystery" is that if we are conscious we can  
understand that we cannot justify it.


So there is a mystery (a non justifiable truth), but in the cadre of  
the mechanist hypothesis, we can explain why there is necessarily a  
mystery. The mystery remains "lived" from the first person  
perspective, but we can understand, even in the 3p view, that if  
mechanism is true then it is expected that we feel it as mysterious.  
Eventually, it is no more mysterious than our belief in numbers.












That does not explains the whole of consciousness, but that  
reduce its
mystery to the mystery of our belief in anything Turing  
universal, like

the
numbers.

But then again, the numbers explains, by themselves, why if you  
belief in

anything less than them, you cannot get them, and so justify their
mysterious character. We don't know, and it is the fate of any  
machine to

not know that.

Don't mind to much. I am not sure if what you miss is a part of
mathematical
logic, or something about consciousness.



Again, I am convinced by your explanation of why the mystery exists.



The mystery is our understanding or belief (in apparently a finite  
time) of

elementary arithmetic.





For me, the hard problem remains: you talk about mathematical
constructs.



Only half of the time, unless you put mathematical truth in the  
mathematical

construct, something typically impossible to do, except for some
approximation, for theories much simpler than ourself. I guess you  
know the
difference between the true fact that 2+2=4, and the much weaker  
fact that

some machine or theory believes or prove that 2+2=4. In fact the word
"mathematical construct" is a bit ambiguous. The semantic in  
general is not
a construct, when we do mathematics, but partial semantic can be  
associated
to mathematical construct, when we do metamathematics (mathematical  
logic),
but this is due to the fact that we approximate meaning by  
"mathematical
construct" (which are most often infinite and non computable  
mathematical

object).





Physicalists talk about emergence from complex
interactions of matter. I remain baffled and ask you the same  
question

that I ask physicalists: what is the first principle from where
consciousness arises?



Truth. That cannot be a mathematical construct (provably so if
computationalism is true). It is not 3p definable.


Aren't you just renaming the mystery?


Truth is much more general than consciousness. All logicians and  
mathematicians believe in (arithmetical) truth, but few would even  
dare to use a term like consciousness. Truth has been very well  
treated by Tarski, and I use that (sometimes implicitly, sometimes  
more explicitly). It is a key notion, which is on the side of  
semantic, or model theory, unlike provable and consistency, which  
admit arithmetical definition. Arithmetical truth can still be treated  
mathematically, at the meta-level, using set theory or second-order  
logic. Consciousness/knowledge remain more problematical, and mix  
syntax and semantics, like with the Theaetetus' definition []p & p. We  
cannot define this in arithmetic. We would need []p & true(p), but if  
true p was definable, we would be able to get a sentence k provably  
equivalent with its falsity (PA would prove p <-> ~true(p), leading to  
inconsistency).







The whole key is in the theorem that ([]p & p) does not admit a  
predicate

definable to any machine from

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 2:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 02 May 2017, at 20:21, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Your answer seems to be that physics can be an illusion of digital 
thought, therefore primary physics is otiose. But thought can't be 
a consequence of physics becausewell you just don't see how it 
could be.


Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a role to the 
primary matter which is not emulable by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.


The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some don't.  I don't 
know anyone who calls this "primary matter", but it's what is not UD 
emulable.


To reify something for which we have no evidence, just to avoid a 
problem,


You mean something like other worlds, just to make your theory simpler.  
I would never accuse you of religious dogma for that.


is a bit like a pseudo-religious move, like invoking a miracle or a 
god. You have to explain more on how that primary matter succeeds in 
linking the computational histories with consciousness. If it is non 
Turing emulable, I don't see why we could remain confident in a 
digital brain transplant.


You're the one that says physics is non-Turing emulable - a consequence 
of assuming an infinite number of worlds.


Brent




Bruno





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 
.
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.


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ 



--
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.


--
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Quentin Anciaux]

2017-05-03 17:44 GMT+02:00 Brent Meeker :

>
>
> On 5/3/2017 2:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 02 May 2017, at 20:21, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Your answer seems to be that physics can be an illusion of digital
> thought, therefore primary physics is otiose.  But thought can't be a
> consequence of physics becausewell you just don't see how it could be.
>
>
> Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a role to the primary
> matter which is not emulable by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.
>
>
> The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some don't.  I don't know
> anyone who calls this "primary matter", but it's what is not UD emulable.
>
>
> To reify something for which we have no evidence, just to avoid a problem,
>
>
> You mean something like other worlds, just to make your theory simpler.  I
> would never accuse you of religious dogma for that.
>
> is a bit like a pseudo-religious move, like invoking a miracle or a god.
> You have to explain more on how that primary matter succeeds in linking the
> computational histories with consciousness. If it is non Turing emulable, I
> don't see why we could remain confident in a digital brain transplant.
>
>
> You're the one that says physics is non-Turing emulable - a consequence of
> assuming an infinite number of worlds.
>

You're playing with words here, indeed if mind is computational, not-mind
aka physics is not...

Quentin

>
>
> Brent
>
>
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> 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.
> 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.
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
> --
> 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.
>
>
> --
> 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.
>



-- 
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy
Batty/Rutger Hauer)

-- 
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[David Nyman]

On 2 May 2017 11:18 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/2/2017 2:29 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 9:57 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/2/2017 1:09 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 7:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Your answer seems to be that physics can be an illusion of digital thought,
therefore primary physics is otiose.  But thought can't be a consequence of
physics becausewell you just don't see how it could be.


Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a role to the primary
matter which is not emulable by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.


The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some don't.  I don't know
anyone who calls this "primary matter", but it's what is not UD emulable.


But what are your grounds for discriminating which things exist and which
don't?


Empiricism.


That's a slogan not an explanation.


That's right - you asked for grounds.


I think you could be more helpful than this.






If anything, it strikes me that the history of human enquiry is rather
conducive to the view that whatever limits we try to impose on "what
exists" are in all likelihood destined soon to be surpassed.


Actually it has been the reverse.  Relativity places a limit on speed,
quantum mechanics places a limit on measurements, Goedel found a limit on
proofs.  Laplace was the last physicist who thought we could predict
everything.  We haven't been the center of the universe for a long time.


Very selective. What about the string landscape, eternal inflation or for
that matter the CUH? Maybe you'll say that these are as yet unproven
hypotheses, but are you willing to say in principle​ they're barking up the
wrong tree?


Except for eternal inflation, they aren't even developed enough to be
hypotheses.  I'm willing to bet that they will imply limits on what
exists.  Even CUH does that, it implies real numbers and theories that
assume them don't exist.


Sure, but my point is that all these ideas lead to a broader ontology than
you seemed to be suggesting: i.e the theoretical recipe for what exists and
what doesn't extends beyond the physics we observe locally. But even comp
doesn't claim that *everything* exists. In fact its ontology is extremely
restrictive.






In any case, I still don't see that you've made a convincing argument for
your "groundless" circular explanations.


It's not an argument - it's an observation that that's the way explanations
work.


Not all explanations. And in particular not ontological ones.


You mean the fundamental elements of a theory - whose existence doesn't
have an explanation.  My idea of an explanation is one that brings
understanding - not just stops explaining.


So is mine. So is Bruno's. What's your point?






For example, based on your remarks above, you implicitly exclude "non
physical" computations from your ontology (not forgetting what you said
about ontology being theory dependent).


Not at all.  I've never tried to make my "virtuous circle of explanation"
exhaustive.  I generally include "mathematics" in it, but just as indicator
for all kinds of abstract, symbolic based systems.


A theory explicitly based on a computational ontology includes both
physical and non physical. Of course you could go on to say that a physical
computer could compute anything computable; but in that case we find
ourselves at step 7 of the UDA and the putative physical machine then takes
on the aspect of Bruno's invisible horses. Unless you want to say that the
comp derivation of physics is thereby merely contingently impossible.


My reservation about that argument is Bruno argues as if all the UD has to
do is reach some state and it will have instantiated his (or someone's)
consciousness.  But then I ask myself, "Consciousness of what?"  He thinks
the external world is a kind of shared illusion of an equivalence class of
"consciousness" states.  This is like the Boltzmann brain paradox without
the solipism.  The reasonable way I can see such an equivalence class
having a non-zero measure is if the physics is computed - not just the
conscious perceptions of physics.  Then the physics and consciousness are
not different ontologically, they are just different ways of organizing the
states (like Bertrand Russell's neutral monism).


Is this really different from what comp implies? Surely the computation of
the physics and its appearance are indeed two different views of the same
thing - 3p and 1p plural? As we appeared to have agreed​ earlier, at the
point where physical computation and the substantive perception (aka
reality) with which it is entangled emerge in tandem, virtuous explanatory
equilibrium has been attained. But the difference in views is the key. The
former (aka 3p or in my parlance the view from nowhere) is the ontology and
the latter the epistemology it implies.


But so far there is nothing in Bruno's theory that makes them "the same
thing"  every 1p thread of experience could

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 6:21 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Brent argues that AI will dissolve the hard question. I think that
people know intuitively that it will not. This is what pop-culture
works such as "Blade Runner" are about.


People knew intuitively that the Earth was flat, God was needed to 
explain morality, and chemistry couldn't explain life.  Ask yourself 
this: You're designing a new Mars Rovers to explore Mars for years and 
you want them to be able to learn and act intelligently and to interact 
with one another.  Do you deliberately make it conscious?...if so, how?  
Might you make it conscious inadvertently?...and what difference would 
it make?  Having formulated these questions, do you think modal logic 
will answer them?


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.
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[David Nyman]

On 3 May 2017 8:11 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/3/2017 6:21 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

> Brent argues that AI will dissolve the hard question. I think that
> people know intuitively that it will not. This is what pop-culture
> works such as "Blade Runner" are about.
>

People knew intuitively that the Earth was flat, God was needed to explain
morality, and chemistry couldn't explain life.  Ask yourself this: You're
designing a new Mars Rovers to explore Mars for years and you want them to
be able to learn and act intelligently and to interact with one another.
Do you deliberately make it conscious?...if so, how?  Might you make it
conscious inadvertently?...and what difference would it make?  Having
formulated these questions, do you think modal logic will answer them?


IMO the problem is already in the formulation. The way you've set it up
obviously leads to a conflation of consciousness and intelligent behaviour.
But in my view the thing is incoherent unless expressed in a way that is
able to handle the first person view directly in something like its own
terms. And yes, modal logic may be able to give us at least an inkling of
how this might go, at least in its most basic form. But you don't like
where this idea leads it would seem, although perhaps you will just say the
case hasn't been made. Maybe I'm wrong, but even so I can't help feeling
that you're just out of sympathy with the whole idea.

David



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.
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.

-- 
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 9:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 11:18 p.m., "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 5/2/2017 2:29 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 9:57 p.m., "Brent Meeker" mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:



On 5/2/2017 1:09 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 7:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:



On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Your answer seems to be that physics can be an
illusion of digital thought, therefore primary physics
is otiose.  But thought can't be a consequence of
physics becausewell you just don't see how it
could be.


Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a
role to the primary matter which is not emulable by the
UD, nor FPI-recoverable.


The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some
don't.  I don't know anyone who calls this "primary
matter", but it's what is not UD emulable.


But what are your grounds for discriminating which things
exist and which don't?


Empiricism.


That's a slogan not an explanation.


That's right - you asked for grounds.


I think you could be more helpful than this.








If anything, it strikes me that the history of human enquiry
is rather conducive to the view that whatever limits we try
to impose on "what exists" are in all likelihood destined
soon to be surpassed.


Actually it has been the reverse. Relativity places a limit
on speed, quantum mechanics places a limit on measurements,
Goedel found a limit on proofs.  Laplace was the last
physicist who thought we could predict everything.  We
haven't been the center of the universe for a long time.


Very selective. What about the string landscape, eternal
inflation or for that matter the CUH? Maybe you'll say that these
are as yet unproven hypotheses, but are you willing to say in
principle​ they're barking up the wrong tree?


Except for eternal inflation, they aren't even developed enough to
be hypotheses.  I'm willing to bet that they will imply limits on
what exists.  Even CUH does that, it implies real numbers and
theories that assume them don't exist.


Sure, but my point is that all these ideas lead to a broader ontology 
than you seemed to be suggesting: i.e the theoretical recipe for what 
exists and what doesn't extends beyond the physics we observe locally. 
But even comp doesn't claim that *everything* exists. In fact its 
ontology is extremely restrictive.









In any case, I still don't see that you've made a convincing
argument for your "groundless" circular explanations.


It's not an argument - it's an observation that that's the
way explanations work.


Not all explanations. And in particular not ontological ones.


You mean the fundamental elements of a theory - whose existence
doesn't have an explanation.  My idea of an explanation is one
that brings understanding - not just stops explaining.


So is mine. So is Bruno's. What's your point?


An explanation that reaches understanding must end with an ontology that 
is already understood.  Bruno accepts this.  He thinks we understand 
Peano arithmetic.  I think we only understand it because we refer it to 
experience with objects.  But the broader point is that you can't just 
pick some theory with an ontology and say this theory explains things.  
The explanation is no good unless you already understand the theory's 
ontology.  So explanations of different things bottom out on different 
ontologies for different people.  This is why supernatural agents were 
popular explanations up until a few hundred years ago; agents are 
intuitively understood by people because, as social animals, evolution 
provided us with intuitions about other people.  So it was satisfying to 
explain a storm as the cloud-god was angry.  Now, some physicists would 
say it is explained by the Navier-Stokes equation - but that wouldn't 
really be right either.  In fact NOAA explains it with some simplified 
N-S plus some heuristics.











For example, based on your remarks above, you implicitly
exclude "non physical" computations from your ontology (not
forgetting what you said about ontology being theory
dependent).


Not at all.  I've never tried to make my "virtuous circle of
explanation" exhaustive.  I generally include "mathematics"
in it, but just as indicator for all kinds of abstract,
symbolic based systems.



A theory explicitly based on a computational ontology
includes both physical and non physical. Of course you could
go on to say that a physical computer could compute anything
computab

Re: What are atheists for?

[Quentin Anciaux]

2017-05-03 21:46 GMT+02:00 Brent Meeker :

>
>
> On 5/3/2017 9:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 11:18 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 2:29 PM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 9:57 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 1:09 PM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 7:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Your answer seems to be that physics can be an illusion of digital
> thought, therefore primary physics is otiose.  But thought can't be a
> consequence of physics becausewell you just don't see how it could be.
>
>
> Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a role to the primary
> matter which is not emulable by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.
>
>
> The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some don't.  I don't know
> anyone who calls this "primary matter", but it's what is not UD emulable.
>
>
> But what are your grounds for discriminating which things exist and which
> don't?
>
>
> Empiricism.
>
>
> That's a slogan not an explanation.
>
>
> That's right - you asked for grounds.
>
>
> I think you could be more helpful than this.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> If anything, it strikes me that the history of human enquiry is rather
> conducive to the view that whatever limits we try to impose on "what
> exists" are in all likelihood destined soon to be surpassed.
>
>
> Actually it has been the reverse.  Relativity places a limit on speed,
> quantum mechanics places a limit on measurements, Goedel found a limit on
> proofs.  Laplace was the last physicist who thought we could predict
> everything.  We haven't been the center of the universe for a long time.
>
>
> Very selective. What about the string landscape, eternal inflation or for
> that matter the CUH? Maybe you'll say that these are as yet unproven
> hypotheses, but are you willing to say in principle​ they're barking up the
> wrong tree?
>
>
> Except for eternal inflation, they aren't even developed enough to be
> hypotheses.  I'm willing to bet that they will imply limits on what
> exists.  Even CUH does that, it implies real numbers and theories that
> assume them don't exist.
>
>
> Sure, but my point is that all these ideas lead to a broader ontology than
> you seemed to be suggesting: i.e the theoretical recipe for what exists and
> what doesn't extends beyond the physics we observe locally. But even comp
> doesn't claim that *everything* exists. In fact its ontology is extremely
> restrictive.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In any case, I still don't see that you've made a convincing argument for
> your "groundless" circular explanations.
>
>
> It's not an argument - it's an observation that that's the way
> explanations work.
>
>
> Not all explanations. And in particular not ontological ones.
>
>
> You mean the fundamental elements of a theory - whose existence doesn't
> have an explanation.  My idea of an explanation is one that brings
> understanding - not just stops explaining.
>
>
> So is mine. So is Bruno's. What's your point?
>
>
> An explanation that reaches understanding must end with an ontology that
> is already understood.  Bruno accepts this.  He thinks we understand Peano
> arithmetic.  I think we only understand it because we refer it to
> experience with objects.  But the broader point is that you can't just pick
> some theory with an ontology and say this theory explains things.  The
> explanation is no good unless you already understand the theory's
> ontology.  So explanations of different things bottom out on different
> ontologies for different people.  This is why supernatural agents were
> popular explanations up until a few hundred years ago; agents are
> intuitively understood by people because, as social animals, evolution
> provided us with intuitions about other people.  So it was satisfying to
> explain a storm as the cloud-god was angry.  Now, some physicists would say
> it is explained by the Navier-Stokes equation - but that wouldn't really be
> right either.  In fact NOAA explains it with some simplified N-S plus some
> heuristics.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> For example, based on your remarks above, you implicitly exclude "non
> physical" computations from your ontology (not forgetting what you said
> about ontology being theory dependent).
>
>
> Not at all.  I've never tried to make my "virtuous circle of explanation"
> exhaustive.  I generally include "mathematics" in it, but just as indicator
> for all kinds of abstract, symbolic based systems.
>
>
> A theory explicitly based on a computational ontology includes both
> physical and non physical. Of course you could go on to say that a physical
> computer could compute anything computable; but in that case we find
> ourselves at step 7 of the UDA and the putative physical machine then takes
> on the aspect of Bruno's invisible horses. Unless you want to say that the
> comp derivation of physics is thereby merely contingently impossible.
>
>
> My reservation about that argument is Bruno ar

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 12:31 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 3 May 2017 8:11 p.m., "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 5/3/2017 6:21 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Brent argues that AI will dissolve the hard question. I think that
people know intuitively that it will not. This is what pop-culture
works such as "Blade Runner" are about.


People knew intuitively that the Earth was flat, God was needed to
explain morality, and chemistry couldn't explain life.  Ask
yourself this: You're designing a new Mars Rovers to explore Mars
for years and you want them to be able to learn and act
intelligently and to interact with one another.  Do you
deliberately make it conscious?...if so, how?  Might you make it
conscious inadvertently?...and what difference would it make?
Having formulated these questions, do you think modal logic will
answer them?


IMO the problem is already in the formulation. The way you've set it 
up obviously leads to a conflation of consciousness and intelligent 
behaviour.


No, I'm not conflating them.  That's the point of the questions - are 
they separable and what do you do about it.  I think Bruno already 
thinks they are not separable.  Although it's known a "the hard 
problem", realizing consciousness should, according to Bruno's theory, 
be easy.  It's why he thinks jumping spiders are conscious. I think so 
too, but I don't think consciousness is a simple binary property, like 
lobian or not.


But in my view the thing is incoherent unless expressed in a way that 
is able to handle the first person view directly in something like its 
own terms. And yes, modal logic may be able to give us at least an 
inkling of how this might go, at least in its most basic form. But you 
don't like where this idea leads it would seem, although perhaps you 
will just say the case hasn't been made. Maybe I'm wrong, but even so 
I can't help feeling that you're just out of sympathy with the whole idea.


I don't think sympathy for a theory is a scientific attitude.  I have 
sympathy for Bruno, who has apparently been treated unfairly by some in 
academia - but none for his theory.


Brent



David



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
.
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
.


--
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.


--
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 12:54 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2017-05-03 21:46 GMT+02:00 Brent Meeker >:




On 5/3/2017 9:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 11:18 p.m., "Brent Meeker" mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:



On 5/2/2017 2:29 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 9:57 p.m., "Brent Meeker"
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:



On 5/2/2017 1:09 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 2 May 2017 7:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:



On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Your answer seems to be that physics can be an
illusion of digital thought, therefore primary
physics is otiose.  But thought can't be a
consequence of physics becausewell you just
don't see how it could be.


Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give
a role to the primary matter which is not emulable
by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.


The obvious "role" is that some things exist and
some don't.  I don't know anyone who calls this
"primary matter", but it's what is not UD emulable.


But what are your grounds for discriminating which
things exist and which don't?


Empiricism.


That's a slogan not an explanation.


That's right - you asked for grounds.


I think you could be more helpful than this.








If anything, it strikes me that the history of human
enquiry is rather conducive to the view that whatever
limits we try to impose on "what exists" are in all
likelihood destined soon to be surpassed.


Actually it has been the reverse. Relativity places a
limit on speed, quantum mechanics places a limit on
measurements, Goedel found a limit on proofs.  Laplace
was the last physicist who thought we could predict
everything. We haven't been the center of the universe
for a long time.


Very selective. What about the string landscape, eternal
inflation or for that matter the CUH? Maybe you'll say that
these are as yet unproven hypotheses, but are you willing to
say in principle​ they're barking up the wrong tree?


Except for eternal inflation, they aren't even developed
enough to be hypotheses.  I'm willing to bet that they will
imply limits on what exists.  Even CUH does that, it implies
real numbers and theories that assume them don't exist.


Sure, but my point is that all these ideas lead to a broader
ontology than you seemed to be suggesting: i.e the theoretical
recipe for what exists and what doesn't extends beyond the
physics we observe locally. But even comp doesn't claim that
*everything* exists. In fact its ontology is extremely restrictive.








In any case, I still don't see that you've made a
convincing argument for your "groundless" circular
explanations.


It's not an argument - it's an observation that that's
the way explanations work.


Not all explanations. And in particular not ontological ones.


You mean the fundamental elements of a theory - whose
existence doesn't have an explanation.  My idea of an
explanation is one that brings understanding - not just stops
explaining.


So is mine. So is Bruno's. What's your point?


An explanation that reaches understanding must end with an
ontology that is already understood.  Bruno accepts this.  He
thinks we understand Peano arithmetic.  I think we only understand
it because we refer it to experience with objects.  But the
broader point is that you can't just pick some theory with an
ontology and say this theory explains things.  The explanation is
no good unless you already understand the theory's ontology.  So
explanations of different things bottom out on different
ontologies for different people.  This is why supernatural agents
were popular explanations up until a few hundred years ago; agents
are intuitively understood by people because, as social animals,
evolution provided us with intuitions about other people.  So it
was satisfying to explain a storm as the cloud-god was angry. 
Now, some physicists would say it is explained by the

Navier-Stokes equation - but that wouldn't really be right
either.  In fact NOAA explains it with some simplified N-S plus
some heuristics.










For example, based on your remarks above, you
implicitly exclude "non physical" computations from
your ontology (not forgetting what you said about
ontology being theory dependent).


  

Re: What are atheists for?

[David Nyman]

On 3 May 2017 9:16 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/3/2017 12:31 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 3 May 2017 8:11 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/3/2017 6:21 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

> Brent argues that AI will dissolve the hard question. I think that
> people know intuitively that it will not. This is what pop-culture
> works such as "Blade Runner" are about.
>

People knew intuitively that the Earth was flat, God was needed to explain
morality, and chemistry couldn't explain life.  Ask yourself this: You're
designing a new Mars Rovers to explore Mars for years and you want them to
be able to learn and act intelligently and to interact with one another.
Do you deliberately make it conscious?...if so, how?  Might you make it
conscious inadvertently?...and what difference would it make?  Having
formulated these questions, do you think modal logic will answer them?


IMO the problem is already in the formulation. The way you've set it up
obviously leads to a conflation of consciousness and intelligent behaviour.


No, I'm not conflating them.  That's the point of the questions - are they
separable and what do you do about it.  I think Bruno already thinks they
are not separable.  Although it's known a "the hard problem", realizing
consciousness should, according to Bruno's theory, be easy.  It's why he
thinks jumping spiders are conscious.  I think so too, but I don't think
consciousness is a simple binary property, like lobian or not.


But in my view the thing is incoherent unless expressed in a way that is
able to handle the first person view directly in something like its own
terms. And yes, modal logic may be able to give us at least an inkling of
how this might go, at least in its most basic form. But you don't like
where this idea leads it would seem, although perhaps you will just say the
case hasn't been made. Maybe I'm wrong, but even so I can't help feeling
that you're just out of sympathy with the whole idea.


I don't think sympathy for a theory is a scientific attitude.


Perhaps not, but a certain sympathetic connection with a particular way of
thinking may still lead to a breakthrough in a quite unexpected direction.
Or indeed the opposite. I need hardly point out that what one sees as data
is in the first place theory driven and lack of sympathy with a particular
mode of explanation may make one discount or fail to recognise any evidence
in its favour.

I have sympathy for Bruno, who has apparently been treated unfairly by some
in academia - but none for his theory.


If that is the case why do you continue to debate it?

David



Brent



David



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.
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.


-- 
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.


-- 
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.

-- 
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Quentin Anciaux]

Le 3 mai 2017 22:27, "Brent Meeker"  a écrit :



On 5/3/2017 12:54 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2017-05-03 21:46 GMT+02:00 Brent Meeker :

>
>
> On 5/3/2017 9:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 11:18 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 2:29 PM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 9:57 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 1:09 PM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 7:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Your answer seems to be that physics can be an illusion of digital
> thought, therefore primary physics is otiose.  But thought can't be a
> consequence of physics becausewell you just don't see how it could be.
>
>
> Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a role to the primary
> matter which is not emulable by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.
>
>
> The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some don't.  I don't know
> anyone who calls this "primary matter", but it's what is not UD emulable.
>
>
> But what are your grounds for discriminating which things exist and which
> don't?
>
>
> Empiricism.
>
>
> That's a slogan not an explanation.
>
>
> That's right - you asked for grounds.
>
>
> I think you could be more helpful than this.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> If anything, it strikes me that the history of human enquiry is rather
> conducive to the view that whatever limits we try to impose on "what
> exists" are in all likelihood destined soon to be surpassed.
>
>
> Actually it has been the reverse.  Relativity places a limit on speed,
> quantum mechanics places a limit on measurements, Goedel found a limit on
> proofs.  Laplace was the last physicist who thought we could predict
> everything.  We haven't been the center of the universe for a long time.
>
>
> Very selective. What about the string landscape, eternal inflation or for
> that matter the CUH? Maybe you'll say that these are as yet unproven
> hypotheses, but are you willing to say in principle​ they're barking up the
> wrong tree?
>
>
> Except for eternal inflation, they aren't even developed enough to be
> hypotheses.  I'm willing to bet that they will imply limits on what
> exists.  Even CUH does that, it implies real numbers and theories that
> assume them don't exist.
>
>
> Sure, but my point is that all these ideas lead to a broader ontology than
> you seemed to be suggesting: i.e the theoretical recipe for what exists and
> what doesn't extends beyond the physics we observe locally. But even comp
> doesn't claim that *everything* exists. In fact its ontology is extremely
> restrictive.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In any case, I still don't see that you've made a convincing argument for
> your "groundless" circular explanations.
>
>
> It's not an argument - it's an observation that that's the way
> explanations work.
>
>
> Not all explanations. And in particular not ontological ones.
>
>
> You mean the fundamental elements of a theory - whose existence doesn't
> have an explanation.  My idea of an explanation is one that brings
> understanding - not just stops explaining.
>
>
> So is mine. So is Bruno's. What's your point?
>
>
> An explanation that reaches understanding must end with an ontology that
> is already understood.  Bruno accepts this.  He thinks we understand Peano
> arithmetic.  I think we only understand it because we refer it to
> experience with objects.  But the broader point is that you can't just pick
> some theory with an ontology and say this theory explains things.  The
> explanation is no good unless you already understand the theory's
> ontology.  So explanations of different things bottom out on different
> ontologies for different people.  This is why supernatural agents were
> popular explanations up until a few hundred years ago; agents are
> intuitively understood by people because, as social animals, evolution
> provided us with intuitions about other people.  So it was satisfying to
> explain a storm as the cloud-god was angry.  Now, some physicists would say
> it is explained by the Navier-Stokes equation - but that wouldn't really be
> right either.  In fact NOAA explains it with some simplified N-S plus some
> heuristics.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> For example, based on your remarks above, you implicitly exclude "non
> physical" computations from your ontology (not forgetting what you said
> about ontology being theory dependent).
>
>
> Not at all.  I've never tried to make my "virtuous circle of explanation"
> exhaustive.  I generally include "mathematics" in it, but just as indicator
> for all kinds of abstract, symbolic based systems.
>
>
> A theory explicitly based on a computational ontology includes both
> physical and non physical. Of course you could go on to say that a physical
> computer could compute anything computable; but in that case we find
> ourselves at step 7 of the UDA and the putative physical machine then takes
> on the aspect of Bruno's invisible horses. Unless you want to say that the
> comp derivation of physi

Re: What are atheists for?

[David Nyman]

On 3 May 2017 9:27 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/3/2017 12:54 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2017-05-03 21:46 GMT+02:00 Brent Meeker :

>
>
> On 5/3/2017 9:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 11:18 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 2:29 PM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 9:57 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 1:09 PM, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2017 7:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/2/2017 1:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Your answer seems to be that physics can be an illusion of digital
> thought, therefore primary physics is otiose.  But thought can't be a
> consequence of physics becausewell you just don't see how it could be.
>
>
> Not at all. It cannot be because you need to give a role to the primary
> matter which is not emulable by the UD, nor FPI-recoverable.
>
>
> The obvious "role" is that some things exist and some don't.  I don't know
> anyone who calls this "primary matter", but it's what is not UD emulable.
>
>
> But what are your grounds for discriminating which things exist and which
> don't?
>
>
> Empiricism.
>
>
> That's a slogan not an explanation.
>
>
> That's right - you asked for grounds.
>
>
> I think you could be more helpful than this.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> If anything, it strikes me that the history of human enquiry is rather
> conducive to the view that whatever limits we try to impose on "what
> exists" are in all likelihood destined soon to be surpassed.
>
>
> Actually it has been the reverse.  Relativity places a limit on speed,
> quantum mechanics places a limit on measurements, Goedel found a limit on
> proofs.  Laplace was the last physicist who thought we could predict
> everything.  We haven't been the center of the universe for a long time.
>
>
> Very selective. What about the string landscape, eternal inflation or for
> that matter the CUH? Maybe you'll say that these are as yet unproven
> hypotheses, but are you willing to say in principle​ they're barking up the
> wrong tree?
>
>
> Except for eternal inflation, they aren't even developed enough to be
> hypotheses.  I'm willing to bet that they will imply limits on what
> exists.  Even CUH does that, it implies real numbers and theories that
> assume them don't exist.
>
>
> Sure, but my point is that all these ideas lead to a broader ontology than
> you seemed to be suggesting: i.e the theoretical recipe for what exists and
> what doesn't extends beyond the physics we observe locally. But even comp
> doesn't claim that *everything* exists. In fact its ontology is extremely
> restrictive.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In any case, I still don't see that you've made a convincing argument for
> your "groundless" circular explanations.
>
>
> It's not an argument - it's an observation that that's the way
> explanations work.
>
>
> Not all explanations. And in particular not ontological ones.
>
>
> You mean the fundamental elements of a theory - whose existence doesn't
> have an explanation.  My idea of an explanation is one that brings
> understanding - not just stops explaining.
>
>
> So is mine. So is Bruno's. What's your point?
>
>
> An explanation that reaches understanding must end with an ontology that
> is already understood.  Bruno accepts this.  He thinks we understand Peano
> arithmetic.  I think we only understand it because we refer it to
> experience with objects.  But the broader point is that you can't just pick
> some theory with an ontology and say this theory explains things.  The
> explanation is no good unless you already understand the theory's
> ontology.  So explanations of different things bottom out on different
> ontologies for different people.  This is why supernatural agents were
> popular explanations up until a few hundred years ago; agents are
> intuitively understood by people because, as social animals, evolution
> provided us with intuitions about other people.  So it was satisfying to
> explain a storm as the cloud-god was angry.  Now, some physicists would say
> it is explained by the Navier-Stokes equation - but that wouldn't really be
> right either.  In fact NOAA explains it with some simplified N-S plus some
> heuristics.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> For example, based on your remarks above, you implicitly exclude "non
> physical" computations from your ontology (not forgetting what you said
> about ontology being theory dependent).
>
>
> Not at all.  I've never tried to make my "virtuous circle of explanation"
> exhaustive.  I generally include "mathematics" in it, but just as indicator
> for all kinds of abstract, symbolic based systems.
>
>
> A theory explicitly based on a computational ontology includes both
> physical and non physical. Of course you could go on to say that a physical
> computer could compute anything computable; but in that case we find
> ourselves at step 7 of the UDA and the putative physical machine then takes
> on the aspect of Bruno's invisible horses. Unless you want to say that the
> comp derivation of phys

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 1:29 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 3 May 2017 9:16 p.m., "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 5/3/2017 12:31 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 3 May 2017 8:11 p.m., "Brent Meeker" mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:



On 5/3/2017 6:21 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Brent argues that AI will dissolve the hard question. I
think that
people know intuitively that it will not. This is what
pop-culture
works such as "Blade Runner" are about.


People knew intuitively that the Earth was flat, God was
needed to explain morality, and chemistry couldn't explain
life.  Ask yourself this: You're designing a new Mars Rovers
to explore Mars for years and you want them to be able to
learn and act intelligently and to interact with one
another.  Do you deliberately make it conscious?...if so,
how?  Might you make it conscious inadvertently?...and what
difference would it make?  Having formulated these questions,
do you think modal logic will answer them?


IMO the problem is already in the formulation. The way you've set
it up obviously leads to a conflation of consciousness and
intelligent behaviour.


No, I'm not conflating them.  That's the point of the questions -
are they separable and what do you do about it.  I think Bruno
already thinks they are not separable.  Although it's known a "the
hard problem", realizing consciousness should, according to
Bruno's theory, be easy.  It's why he thinks jumping spiders are
conscious.  I think so too, but I don't think consciousness is a
simple binary property, like lobian or not.



But in my view the thing is incoherent unless expressed in a way
that is able to handle the first person view directly in
something like its own terms. And yes, modal logic may be able to
give us at least an inkling of how this might go, at least in its
most basic form. But you don't like where this idea leads it
would seem, although perhaps you will just say the case hasn't
been made. Maybe I'm wrong, but even so I can't help feeling that
you're just out of sympathy with the whole idea.


I don't think sympathy for a theory is a scientific attitude.


Perhaps not, but a certain sympathetic connection with a particular 
way of thinking may still lead to a breakthrough in a quite unexpected 
direction. Or indeed the opposite. I need hardly point out that what 
one sees as data is in the first place theory driven and lack of 
sympathy with a particular mode of explanation may make one discount 
or fail to recognise any evidence in its favour.


I have sympathy for Bruno, who has apparently been treated
unfairly by some in academia - but none for his theory.


If that is the case why do you continue to debate it?


Why not?  I'm not sympathetic ( or antipathetic) to string theory 
either, but I discuss it because it might come to something.


Brent
"Some of my friends are string theorists, but I wouldn't want my 
daughter to marry one."

--- Lawrence Krauss

--
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


This an extreme reductionist view, i.e. if X is the fundamental
ontology then only X exists.  But that leads to nonsense: "If the
standard model is fundamental ontology then football doesn't exist."



But it's true, football does not exist in any ontological sense, and 
we are talking about ontology.


So neither Sherlock Holmes nor Donald Trump exist.  That's certainly a 
relief.


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.
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Quentin Anciaux]

Le 3 mai 2017 11:23 PM, "Brent Meeker"  a écrit :



On 5/3/2017 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

This an extreme reductionist view, i.e. if X is the fundamental ontology
then only X exists.  But that leads to nonsense: "If the standard model is
fundamental ontology then football doesn't exist."


But it's true, football does not exist in any ontological sense, and we are
talking about ontology.


So neither Sherlock Holmes nor Donald Trump exist.  That's certainly a
relief.



What about ontology don't you understand?

Quentin



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.
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.

-- 
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 1:48 PM, David Nyman wrote:



Depends on what you mean by comp.  You seem to engage in the
same equivocation as Bruno. On the one hand it means saying
"yes" to the doctor.  On the other hand it means accepting
his whole argument from that purportedly proving that physics
is otiose.  So then the argument refers to itself and says if
physics is otiose then the physics we observe must be that
predicted by his theory.


That's not it.. the thing is if *mind* is a computational object,
then physics must be explained through computation, computations
are not physical object... If physicalness is primary, then there
aren't any computation, computations in a physically primary
reality are only a "human view" on what is really going on.


This an extreme reductionist view, i.e. if X is the fundamental
ontology then only X exists.  But that leads to nonsense: "If the
standard model is fundamental ontology then football doesn't
exist."  And it has the same affect of Bruno's theory: "If the
basic ontology is computations then neither physics nor football
exist."


It's not nonsense it's just the unvarnished consequence of the 
assumptions​. If the basic ontology is computation then both physics 
and football are shared epistemological constructions supervening on 
computation. Otherwise there's just computation and none the worse for 
that. But in any case I've been trying to persuade you to accept that 
football, for example, must be such a construction even on a purely 
physical basis.


Where I balk is at the "must".  It's "must if Bruno's theory is right", 
but that's the question.  If you interpret "exist" to apply only to the 
elements of the fundamental ontology, then in computationalism all that 
exists are the natural numbers, +, and * -- consciousness is as emergent 
as football.  But semantics aside, a theory needs to predict things.  
What does Bruno's theory predict about consciousness:


Your beliefs are closed under logical inference, i.e. everything that 
follows from and subset of your beliefs is also believed.  Is that 
true?...I doubt it.


Your thinking about arithmetic is unaffected by tequila?...not for me.

This strikes me as so obvious as to brook little argument. Physics 
doesn't need any notion of football to evolve through the states of 
what someone, somehow will interpret as the World Cup. However I think 
you fudge it by your excessively loose (in my view) acceptance of what 
supposedly "exists". This is what allows you to dodge the otherwise 
compelling conclusions of a rigorous argument.


Rigor doesn't make an argument compelling.  What I find compelling is 
confirmation of a surprising prediction.


Brent
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not 
tried it."

   --Don Knuth

--
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[Brent Meeker]

On 5/3/2017 2:34 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



Le 3 mai 2017 11:23 PM, "Brent Meeker" > a écrit :




On 5/3/2017 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:


This an extreme reductionist view, i.e. if X is the
fundamental ontology then only X exists.  But that leads to
nonsense: "If the standard model is fundamental ontology then
football doesn't exist."




But it's true, football does not exist in any ontological sense,
and we are talking about ontology.


So neither Sherlock Holmes nor Donald Trump exist. That's
certainly a relief.



What about ontology don't you understand?


I don't understand why atoms imply that things made of atoms don't exist.

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.
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.

Re: ​Movie argument

[John Clark]

On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 6:02 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

​> ​
> You just evade the question. I said, in Helsinki, I know (assuming
> mechanism of course)
>

​What does mechanism have to do with it?​



> ​> ​
> I will push on a button, and find myself alive in ONE city, living an
> asymmetrical condition.
>

​Doesn't the fact that even *AFTER* "I"​

​push the button "I" *STILL* don't know what *ONE* city "I" ended up in
make you suspect that maybe just maybe the way personal pronouns are used
needs to be changed in a world that contains "I" duplicating machines?​


> ​> ​
> don't forget that the question is on the future personal experience,
>

​That exactly is the problem, in a world with "I" duplicating machines
there is no such thing as *THE *
future personal experience
​, there is only* A*
future personal experience
​.​

​> ​
> So you say that the two guys have the personal experience of seeing the
> two cities?
> ​ ​
> That needs a peculiar telepathic ability.
>

​
Two guys personally experiencing two cities need to be telepathic? Well you
and I are two guys and we're personally experiencing
​
two
​
different cities right now, so I guess we're telepathic.


> ​>>​
>>  what one and only one city did it turn out to be, Moscow or Washington?
>> If you can't answer that simple question with one word then it's not a
>> experiment.
>
>
> ​> ​
> We cannot answer to youyr question, but it is still an experiment once we
> agree to listen to what each copy will say. deciding that this is not an
> experiement is equivalent with denying the first person experience of the
> subject.
>

​Quite true, I do indeed deny that someone who is about to be duplicated
will have a thing called "*THE*
first person experience
​"​
​ in the future.​ There is nothing profound here, i
t's a trivial and obvious fact that "you" can not name the one and only one
city that "you" will see in the future after "you" walk into a "you"
duplicating machine because a city that fits that description
*​DOES NOT EXIST*.
​

​
>> ​>> ​
>> The trouble is the one and only one city that correctly answers the
>> question can NOT be verified EVER,
>
> ​> ​
> A kid can do the verification.
>

​Then it's important that we find that kid so he can tell us if the one and
only one city turned out to be Moscow ​
​or Washington.​

​> ​
> The guy in Moscow has no mean to see what the guy in Washington is seeing.
> And vice-versa.
>

​True, and that is why the Moscow man is not the Washington man, but that
is irrelevant because
both are the Helsinki man; so yesterday my statement "the Helsinki man will
see both cities" turned out to be true.   ​



> ​> ​
> the two first person experience are incompatible.
>

​Yes, and that is why today they are not each other even though yesterday
they were both the Helsinki man. ​


> ​> ​
> The guy in Moscow can say "I am in both city". But he cannot say "I feel
> from the first person experience that I am in both city"
>

​So what? You've only talked with one Helsinki man​, but there is another.


​>>​
>> What have you learned after the experiment that you didn't know before?
>
>
> The name of the city behind the reconstitution box door.
>

​Well don't keep us in suspense, ​now that you've opened the door what was
the name of the city that "you" saw, was it Moscow or Washington?


​>> ​
>> You can't predict a coin flip, it could come out heads or tails, but
>> *AFTER* the flip is over it's easy to tell which
>> ​one ​
>> turned out to be correct. But even *AFTER* your "experiment" is over
>> nobody can tell which answer turned out to be correct.
>
>
> ​> ​
> Nobody?
>

​Nobody.
​


> ​> ​
> What about each reconstituted person?
>

​What about them?​


> ​> ​
> Again, you eliminate the experience lived by both copies,
>

​I did noting of the sort. Both say they are the Helsinki man and I believe
both because both remember being the Helsinki man, and one says he is
experiencing Moscow and the other ​says he is experiencing Washington and I
believe both of them about that too. So if the man in Helsinki ended up
seeing both cities then if that man asked yesterday "what cities will I
experience tomorrow" the correct answer is obvious.

​

And by the way, I still don't understand why we keep talking about
predictions when predictions, neither correct ones nor incorrect ones, have
anything to do with the subjective feeling of self.

  John K Clark​

-- 
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.

Re: What are atheists for?

[David Nyman]

On 3 May 2017 10:47 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 5/3/2017 2:34 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



Le 3 mai 2017 11:23 PM, "Brent Meeker"  a écrit :



On 5/3/2017 1:32 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

This an extreme reductionist view, i.e. if X is the fundamental ontology
then only X exists.  But that leads to nonsense: "If the standard model is
fundamental ontology then football doesn't exist."


But it's true, football does not exist in any ontological sense, and we are
talking about ontology.


So neither Sherlock Holmes nor Donald Trump exist.  That's certainly a
relief.



What about ontology don't you understand?


I don't understand why atoms imply that things made of atoms don't exist.


Ok, this the heart and core of the disagreement. Noone is saying that
things made of atoms don't exist and your saying this is just setting up an
easy straw man for you to pointlessly knock down. So what do you suppose
that Quentin and I are saying here? I'll repeat it. "Extreme reductionism"
as you call it (and what other kind is there unless you believe in some
form of causally effective top-down emergence?) is the search for the
ontological building blocks of a theory which themselves will remain
unexplained but in terms of which all other ontological composition will be
understood. That at least is the ambition. So if we say that atoms are the
building blocks then the claim is that everything else is to be understood
as the interactions of atoms (this is meant to be illustrative only).

So what then is the status in the theory of "everything else" if such
entities are merely ontologically composite and consequently at that
fundamental level indistinguishable from the interactions​ of their
components? The answer (obviously) is that their "concrete" or substantial
emergence is perceptual, or epistemological as we like to say here. I
suspect the fact that some people find this so hard to accept is not some
intellectual barrier to understanding, since the distinction is in fact
rather obvious, but because of a distaste for taking epistemology as a
fundamental determinant of reality. Of course when we speak of epistemology
here it's not merely its final neurocognitive stages we should have in
mind, but the entire process of epistemological emergence of perceiving
subjects and their environments​ from the posited ontological basis. For
this of course we need an adequate theory that takes both aspects and in
particular their peculiar entanglement into account.  And indeed​ it is
only the ultimate explanatory success of such a theory that can justify the
ascription of "existence" to anything above the level of the ontological
base because, as you will recall, the whole point of the reductionist
thrust is that this base is capable of explaining the evolution of its
states entirely in its own terms, without any necessary reference to
composition or emergence.

I would esteem it a courtesy if you would address the above argument
directly, as distinct from changing the subject in line with your preferred
way of thinking, as I would truly like to know what you think is wrong with
it. As Bruno says, a different argument is not the same thing as a
counter-argument.

David



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.
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.

-- 
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.