This reply is a little stale, but here goes anyway:
Marchal wrote:
>
> George Levy wrote:
>
> >In a message dated 99-06-30 11:20:07 EDT, marchal.domain.name.hidden writes:
> >
> ><< Precisely: Maudlin and me have proved that:
> >
> > NOT comp OR NOT sup-phys
> >
> > i.e. computationalism and physical supervenience thesis are incompatible. >>
> >
> >Forgive me for I am only a lowly engineer. Does the above mean that
> >according
> >to Marchal and Maudlin consciousness is either due to "software" or
> >"hardware" but not both? Using these terms would make it much easier for me
> >to understand.
>
> Put in these termes + simplifying a bit,
> what Maudlin and me have showed is that
>
> EITHER the appearance of hardware and consciousness
> is explain(able) by the theory of possible softwares (computer science,
> ...)
>
> OR the computationalist hypothesis is false.
>
> That is why I ask for, ultimately, a serious consideration on Church's
> thesis.
>
Please explain this, if you have time. I'm sorry if you've already
given more detail in other posts, perhaps you could point me to the
archives.
What exactly is "the computationalist hypothesis"?
I gather from the above that "the physical supervenience thesis"
has something to do with explaining consciousness as a software
program, but I'm confused. I would have *guessed* that that is
the "computationalist hypothesis", but you say that those are
incompatible, so it can't be.
Anyway, Bruno, when I read your posts, I must admit that I feel
completely ignorant. I'm coming to this list as a software
engineer who happens to have taken a little bit of QM, but I don't
know anything about these heady issues of the mathematically
rigorous computationalist theory (hell, I don't even know what to
call it). Could you suggest any introductory textbooks on this
topic? I am definitely convinced that your (and others on and off
this list) approach is a valid and powerful technique for exploring
these issues.
Thanks!
--
Chris Maloney
http://www.chrismaloney.com
"Knowledge is good"
-- Emil Faber
Received on Fri Jul 09 1999 - 20:40:20 PDT