1Z wrote:
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
> > Le 23-oct.-06, à 15:58, David Nyman a écrit :
> >
> > >
> > > Bruno Marchal wrote:
> > >
> > >> Here I disagree, or if you want make that distinction (introduced by
> > >> Peter), you can sum up the conclusion of the UD Argument by:
> > >>
> > >> Computationalism entails COMP.
> > >
> > > Bruno, could you distinguish between your remarks vis-a-vis comp, that
> > > on the one hand: a belief in 'primary' matter can be retained provided
> > > it is not invoked in the explanation of consciousness,
> >
> >
> > Imagine someone who has been educated during his entire childhood with
> > the idea that anything moving on the road with wheels is pulled by
> > invisible horses. Imagine then that becoming an adult he decides to
> > study physics and thermodynamics, and got the understanding that there
> > is no need to postulate invisible horses for explaining how car moves
> > around.
> > Would this "proves" the non existence of invisible horses? Of course
> > no. From a logical point of view you can always add irrefutable
> > hypotheses making some theories as redundant as you wish. The
> > thermodynamician can only say that he does not need the invisible
> > horses hypothesis for explaining the movement of the cars , like
> > Laplace said to Napoleon that he does not need the "God hypothesis" in
> > his mechanics. And then he is coherent as far as he does not use the
> > God concept in is explanation.
>
> The analogy isn't analogous. It is actually the
> Platonic numbers that are the invisible horses.
> No-one has ever seen a Platonic object. The "vehicle"
> of mathematics is driven by the "engine" of mathematicians,
> chalk, blackboards, computers etc -- all material.
>
>
> > The comp hypothesis, which I insist is the same as standard
> > computationalism (but put in a more precise way if only because of the
> > startling consequences) entails that "primary matter", even existing,
> > cannot be used to justify anything related to the subjective
> > experience, and this includes any *reading* of pointer needle result of
> > a physical device. So we don't need the postulate it.
> > And that is a good thing because the only definition of primary matter
> > I know (the one by Aristotle in his metaphysics) is already refuted by
> > both
> > experiments and theory (QM or just comp as well).
>
> Of course QM does not refute materialism.
>
> > > and on the
> > > other: that under comp 'matter' emerges from (what I've termed) a
> > > recursively prior 1-person level. Why are these two conclusions not
> > > contradictory?
> >
> >
> > 'Matter', or the stable appearance of matter has to emerge from the
> > "mathematical coherence of the computations".
>
> Which emerge from...?
>
> > This is what the UDA is
> > supposed to prove. Scientifically it means that you can test comp by
> > comparing some self-observing discourses of digital machines (those
> > corresponding to the arithmetical translation of the UDA (AUDA)) with
> > empirical physics. Again this cannot disprove the ("religious") belief
> > in Matter, or in any Gods, for sure.
>
> The material world is visible, Platonia is not.
>
> > >> You will have to attach
> > >> consciousness to actual material infinite.
> > >
> > > Why is this the case?
> >
> >
> >
> > Because it is a way to prevent the UDA reasoning (at least as currently
> > exibited) to proceed. It makes sense to say that some actual material
> > infinity is not duplicable, for example. To be sure, the AUDA would
> > still work (but could be less well motivated).
>
> It makes sense to say that consciousness depends on levels
> of emulation -- providing there is a 0-level pinned down by matter.
>
>
> > Bruno
> >
> >
> > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
David and 1Z:
How is exploring the Mandelbrot set through computation any different
than exploring subatomic particles through computation (needed to
successively approach the accuracies needed for the collisions in the
linear accelerator)? Is not the only difference that in one case we
have a priori labeled the object of study 'matter' and in the other
case a 'set of numbers'? Granted, in the matter case we need more
energy to explore, but couldn't this be simply from the sheer quantity
of "number histories" we are dealing with compared to the Mandelbrot
set?
Tom
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Received on Tue Oct 24 2006 - 12:21:12 PDT