Re: Are First Person prime?

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:11:29 +0200

Le 09-août-06, à 18:12, Tom Caylor a écrit :

>
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> Of course I have a problem with the word "universe" and especially
>> with
>> the expression "being inside a universe". The reason is that I think
>> comp forces us to accept we are supported by an infinity of
>> computations and that the 1-(plural and singular) appearance of the
>> universe emerges from that. cf UDA.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
> I haven't been following this thread, but this caught my attention.
> Bruno, how can you have a real "problem" with something based on the
> fact that it seems to contradict the comp assumption? I thought that
> you make a point to stress that you only assume comp for purposes of
> argument to see where it leads.


You are right. It is just that I feel somehow guilty to always mention
the comp. hyp.
 From now on, you should always interpret me, when I say "I think ...",
by we can proved under the comp. assumption that ....



> Are you implying that you personally
> have faith in comp to the point that words that don't agree with the
> comp assumption actually give you a "problem"? Or is the problem
> caused by a personal belief that is outside of the comp assumption, but
> that is manifested when talking about comp, if you follow me?


About my personal opinion on comp, I am still going through the four
days:
The good one where I hope that comp is true and believe that comp is
true; or when I hope comp to be false, and I believe it to be false.
The bad one where it is the reverse.
The problem is that comp almost entails such oscillations. Indeed,
although I do not insist on that point I must admit there is something
a little bit diabolical in comp (and which is similar to some godelian
sentence) which is that comp predicts that the first person attached to
a machine really cannot believe or know that comp is true. Strictly
speaking comp is unbelievable. No consistent machine can take comp for
granted, and that is why eventually saying "yes" to a doctor (for an
artificial body) have to be based on an act of faith (and that is also
why I think it is better (more honest) to put "comp" in theology rather
than in, say, psychology, like I was used to do before our
conversation-thread on theology.
It is diabolical in the sense that when someone tell me "I don't
believe in comp", well, strictly speaking, he confirms comp (but I
*must* remain silent, or else I have to be more explicit on the G/G*
differentiation and the way to translate the comp hyp itself in the
language of arithmetic, but for this I have to dwelve a little bit more
in the technics).

Bruno


PS Apology for letting you with some unsolved problem concerning the Wi
and the Fi. I propose we come back on this latter (OK?). Meanwhile I
suggest you could read the wonderful introduction to recursion theory
made by N. J. Cutland, which is quite readable by undergraduate in
math:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521294657/103-1630254-7840640?
redirect=true
I see you can buy it together with the "bible" of recursion theory, the
book by Hartley Rogers, which, imo, is the book which exploits in the
best possible manner Church's Thesis.


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


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Received on Thu Aug 10 2006 - 06:14:18 PDT

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