Brent Meeker wrote:
> So you want an explanation in terms of the "underlying physics" - the physics of the really > real reality. And how will you know when you've found it?
It seems to me that comp precisely asserts (and can putatively prove)
such a 'really real reality' from which observable physics emerges. In
fact, it demonstrates the necessary relativity between (possibly
nested) 'sandwiches' of Qualitative Reality and Observable Reality. In
the comp account, this is responsible for the following jaw-dropping
implications:
1) QR (1-person pov) is recursively prior to OR (3-person relata), to
which it stands in the logical relation of a medium to the symbols
embodied in it. Consequently, of course, OR cannot *cause* QR, although
it must correlate with it (hence your observations about neural
correlates etc.).
2) QM as a physical theory shows that limitations on observation and
measurement are also limits to what can be deemed causally relevant
within OR (no 'hidden variables'). Comp claims that
computationally-instantiated 1-person 'povs', within which 3-person
transactional accounts of 'physical causation' and 'observables'
emerge, are in effect theorems that are demonstrably incomplete
(indeterminate) over the totality of information embodied in QR. This
has the counter-intuitive result that determinate 'physical behaviour'
emerges from, and is simultaneously partially obscured by, the 'hidden
variables' of a 'really realer reality'! (This may be more than usually
confused, Bruno)
It seems to me that these assertions are so completely contrary to
physics as currently understood by physicists as to invite strenuous
testing until proven, or contradicted. Bruno has referred to
experimental evidence in (at least to me) a somewhat tantalising way.
I for one, can't wait for more of THE ROADMAP.
David
> Colin Hales wrote:
> >>>
> >>>It's one of my favourite lines from Hume!.... but the issue does not
> >>
> >>live
> >>
> >>>quite so clearly into the 21st century. We now have words and much
> >>>neuroscience pinning down subjective experience to the operation of
> >>
> >>small
> >>
> >>>groups of cells and hence, likely, single cells. It's entirely cranial
> >>
> >>CNS.
> >>
> >>>Cortical, Basal, Cerebellum, upper brain stem. So....
> >>>
> >>>Q If empiricism demands phenomenal consciousness as the source of all
> >>>scientific evidence (close your eyes and see what evidence is left.
> >>
> >>QED.) of
> >>
> >>>the science of the appearance of things, then what is phenomenal
> >>>consciousness itself evidence of?
> >>
> >>This is misrepresenting science. Science doesn't aim at the appearance of
> >>things. It uses appearance, i.e. empirical evidence, to test models which
> >>go beyond the appearance.
> >
> >
> > This belief is metaphysics of the kind that has got us into this mess and of
> > the kind destined to go into the fire along with all the other bollocks of
> > science folly.
> >
> > You are assuming laws of appearances drive the universe. You cannot justify
> > this any better than you could justify the existence of the tooth fairy. The
> > utility of the laws in predicting appearances is just and only that. End of
> > story. If what you say is true then when we opened up a brain we'd see the
> > appearances! We don't, we see brain material.
> >
> >
> >>If they didn't the models would be mere
> >>catalogues of data. Phenomenal consciousness is no different.
> >
> >
> > So you have some sort of misty eyed attachment to the laws that means you'd
> > ignore blaring evidence just so you're comfy? I want explanations not deemed
> > truth!
>
> What would count as an explanation for you?
>
> >If that means admitting we've screwed up our evidence system....so be
> > it.... (= if we have to let go of 'phlogiston', fine)
>
> I don't have either a misty eyed attachment to current laws or a wild-eyed attachment to radical speculation.
>
> > And anyway....Yes it is VERY VERY different. Nowhere else in science do you
> > get 2 presentations of data and ignore one of them. Whatever is claimed
> > found by neural correlates of consciousness (the science you describe) is
> > neglected everywhere else in science. For example, if mind is a neural
> > correlate of brain material, what is the equivalent correlate of, say,
> > coffee cup behaviour?
>
> Information processing.
>
> >This inconsistency is simply neglected within science
> > for no reason.
>
> No it is only neglected in your straw-man version of science.
>
> >If neural correlates are describing mind in any truly
> > explanatory way then we should be able to use it to make scientifically
> > supportable claims for whatever passes for the "something correlates of
> > coffeecup_ness", even though coffee cups can't actually confirm it. Being a
> > coffee cup may not entail any experiential life but that is not the point.
> > The point is being able to make a justified scientific statement about it.
> > All that can be scientifically claimed about the cup is that there are no
> > neurons there, so there are no _human_ type experiences. This is not a claim
> > about the fundamental physics of phenomenality in any other context such as
> > a coffee cup. For example if the cup is hot versus cold, what might the
> > difference in experience be? Description (causality apparent in appearances)
> > is not explanation (underlying causality). Correlation is not causation.
> > Cakes are not caused by cake recipes....etc.etc.etc... round we go again....
> >
> > The underlying physics (of which we are constructed) generates the
> > phenomenality (mind), not a bunch of rules generated by correlating the
> > appearances supplied BY it.
>
> So you want an explanation in terms of the "underlying physics" - the physics of the really real reality. And how will you know when you've found it?
>
> >Just like the underlying causality makes a mass
> > appear like F = MA is being used to drive it. Saying NCC says anything about
> > what MIND is like using F= MA to make a brick fly. It doesn't make the brick
> > fly - it says what it will look like to us if it does.
>
> A little int(F dt) will make a brick fly quite nicely.
>
> >
> > Here's the killer question: Can I build an inorganic artifact out of
> > whatever comes out of neural correlates science? NO.
>
> What's your evidence for that assertion?
>
> Brent Meeker
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Received on Fri Oct 20 2006 - 19:29:11 PDT