Bruno Marchal wrote:
> To avoid to much posts in your mail box, I send all my comments in this
> post,
>
> Hi Brent,
>
> 1a) Brent meeker wrote (quoting Jim Heldberg) :
>
> Atheism is not a religion, just as a vacant lot is not a type of
> building, and health is not a form of sickness. Atheism is not a
> religion.
> --- Jim Heldberg
>
>
>
> It seems to me that Jim Heldberg confuse the scientist (indeed) attitude
> of agnosticism and atheism.
> Let D = the proposition "God exists", "~" = NOT, B = believes.
>
> An agnostic is someone for which the proposition "~BD" is true. (And
> "~B~D" could be true as well)
> An atheist is someone for which "B~D" is true.
But what does "true" mean? Does it mean provable? and on what basis? Does it mean "our best guess"
>
> The atheist is a believer. As John M often says, an atheist already has
> some notion of God such as to be able to believe it does not exist.
> Now most atheist are already "believer" in believing "religiously" in
> Primary Matter (a metaphysical entity).
>
> I'am agnostic in both sense. I do not believe in God, nor do I believe
> in Matter. Those terms are not enough well defined.
> I do neither believe in the inexistence of God, nor in the inexistence
> of Matter. I wait for more data.
Right. "God exists" is not well enough defined to believe or disbelieve - both "God" and "exists" being ill defined. But I think "theism" is well enough defined. Theism is the belief in an immortal, supernaturally powerful person, who is concerned with the welfare and behavior of human beings. I believe this god of theism does not exist. As to other gods, such as the god of deism or pantheism, I'm agnostic - I don't believe they exist and I don't believe they don't exist. In all the above "believe" means my considered opinion - not something mathematically provable, but something I think is provable in the legal sense of "preponderance of the evidence" or in the scientific sense of "in accordance with our best model".
So atheism is not a religion - it's the belief that a particular class of religion is mistaken. To reject a belief that is contrary to the evidence is not a matter of faith. It doesn't take faith to believe there is no Santa Claus.
> But assuming comp, I must confess that I have *reason* to put some more
> credo on Plotinus, and other platonist approaches, on "mind/god/matter"
> and fundamental principle, than on the aristotelian primitive matter
> theory. Actually, I infer the same belief from the empirical quantum data.
>
>
> 1b) Brent wrote to John M:
>
> Values existed longer before humans.
>
>
>
> So you are a bit Platonist too .... :)
Yes, I'm willing to contemplate different kinds of existence - so that mathematical structures made be said to exist and statements like "Sherlock Holmes was a detective." are in some sense true while "Sherlock Holmes was a Russian." are false.
But whether arithmetic is more fundamental than matter - I'm agnostic.
> 1c) Brent wrote (to Stathis):
>
> How is this infinite regress avoided in our world? By consciousness
> not representing the rest of the world.
>
>
>
> That is an interesting idea. You could elaborate a bit perhaps? I do
> agree with your most of your recent replies to Stathis about the
> question "does a rock think?". But perhaps not entirely for the same
> reason as you. We will see.
It's a half-baked idea, so I'm not sure I can fill it out. But it is similar to Stathis's point that language (and all symbolic representation) must be grounded in ostentive definition. In Stathis example the conscious computer is conscious by virtue of reference to a real world - which has now been replaced by a simulator. But in a closed system, with no outside reference, the ostensive definition itself must be represented computationally. And in what sense is it a representation of an ostensive definition? Only in virtue of some meta-dictionary that defines it as such in terms of still other representations.
> The world is what it is and representation is not essential. I
> suppose this is somewhat like Peter's "primitive substance" whose
> only function is to distinguish things that exist from their
> representation.
>
>
> yes, but then the question is "what are you assuming to exist?"
Our best model seems to be the quantum fields of the standard model. But I think it is the wrong question to ask "what do you assume to exist". You don't start with assuming something to exist, that's a mathematician's axiomatic approach; you start with what you observe, with appearances. You may be able to model them with different ontologies and then the question is, "How can you test them." As Thales said, "The question is not what exists, but how can we know." It may be that different ontologies produce the same empirical results - as quantum fields and elementary particle theories seem to - and there is nothing to choose between them.
>
> 1d) Brent wrote to Mark Peaty (in Jason's thread about "irreversibility):
>
> I think there is a confusion creeping in here. I don't think
> "logically reversible" is misleading. It is only physical processes
> that can be termed reversible or irreversible. Logic lives in a
> timeless Platonia. Computers operated irreversibly, they dissipate
> heat when they they erase data. Feynman pointed out that this was
> not necessary and a computer that did not erase data could operate
> without dissipating heat (no increase in entropy).
>
>
>
> The logician Hao Wang, is, as far as I know, the first to prove that a
> universal machine can operate without ever erasing information, and this
> is enough for developping notion of logical reversibility (quite useful
> in quantum computing). I say more in term of "combinators" in my
> Elsevier paper. The one which is not yet on my web page. People
> interested can ask me a preprint.
If it's in English I'm interested.
> Grosso modo you lose universality if both "eliminating info" is
> prohibited and "duplicating info".
>
>
>
> 2a) John wrote to Jamie:
>
> Sponging the 'gedanken..' - the falling treebranch reflects in your
> version the omniscient arrogant reductionist position. I go with
> Popper: no evidence, because we cannot encompass 'totality' (my
> conclusion).
>
>
> Cute. And admitting to represent "totality" by the set of codes of total
> (everywhere defined) computable functions, this can be made very precise
> in term of the Wi and the Fi, as I try to explain from time to time in
> the list.
>
>
> I would'nt go to the primitive mechanistic AI-levels to learn about
> mentality unlimited. Bits (and pieces) for unrestricted relations.
> AI simulates (mechanically?) certain aspects of human mentality - up
> to a limited fashion.
>
>
>
> You seem quite sure about that. How do you know? Why couldn'it be that
> *you* find this "limited" due to your own prejudice about numbers and
> machines?
>
>
> 2b) John wrote to Brent:
>
> So noted. (However: in my feeble English 'bias' means
> '~prejudice' and I have yet to learn about prejudicial
> instruments. Unless we accept the "conscious
> instrument e.g. a thinking yardstick). I, as a
> Loebian machine, may well be prejudicial).
>
>
>
> That is true!!! Are you serious about being a lobian machine? As a
> matter of fact, lobian machine can know and prove that they are lobian.
> To prove being a *consistent* lobian machine is quite another matter,
> though ....
> It is not impossible. *Inconsistent* lobian machine *can* prove that
> they are consistent lobian machine, but then they can prove the
> existence of Santa Klaus, and also, to be sure, of 0 = 1.
>
>
>
>
> 3a) Stathis wrote (to me):
>
> Regarding consciousness being generated by physical activity, would
> it help if
> I said that if a conventional computer is conscious, then, to be
> consistent, a
> rock would also have to be conscious?
>
>
> I think you could be right ... It is difficult because terms like
> "conventional" and "physical" are quite fuzzy.
> I do think that if a conventional (material in the mundane sense) is
> conscious, most probably anything *is* conscious, and that is related to
> the fact that I think (assuming the comp hypothesis) that a conventional
> computer is *not* conscious. Consciousness is a first person attribute,
> and the UDA shows that it has to be associated with an (infinity) of
> (mathematical) computations.
Why isn't the computer (or rock) associated with an infinity of computations? I'm assuming you mean a potential countable infinity in the future.
>This 1-person has no shape, and can even be
> considered as not being a machine. I guess we will have to discuss this
> with more details.
>
>
>
> It's difficult to find the right words here. I think we can all
> agree on the appearance
> of a physical reality as a starting point.
>
>
> Yes.
>
> The common sense view is that there is an
> underlying primitive physical reality generating this appearance,
> without which the
> appearance would vanish and relative to which dream and illusion can
> be defined.
> If this is so, it is not a scientifically testable theory.
>
>
> I think it is testable indirectly. Recall that although I disagree with
> Penrose godelian argument, I do arrive at similar conclusion: you cannot
> have both "computationalism" and "materialism".
>
>
> We can't just switch off the
> physical reality to see whether it changes the appearance, and the
> further we delve
> into matter all we see is more appearance (and stranger and stranger
> appearance at
> that). Moreover, dream and illusion are defined relative to the
> appearance of regular
> physical reality, not relative to the postulated primitive physical
> reality.
>
>
> I would say "relative to a theory explaining the appearances", not just
> to the appearances.
>
>
>
> 3b) Stathis wrote to John M:
>
> Not really: the people who claim they saw Elvis after his alleged
> death are more
> numerous and more credible than the second-hand (at best) Biblical
> accounts of
> Jesus being sighted after his crucifixion. When I have put this to
> Christians they
> answer that Elvis did not claim to be God etc. Well, if he had done,
> would that
> make a difference?
>
>
>
> I'm afraid it would have!
> Reciprocally, would Jesus have been only a musician, things would have
> been different, I guess :)
>
>
>
> 3c) Stathis wrote to John in another post:
>
> The constraint on meaning and
> syntax would then go, and the vibration of atoms in a rock could be
> implementing
> any computation, including any conscious computation, if such there
> are.
>
> John Searle, among others, believes this is absurd, and that
> therefore it disproves
> computationalism. Another approach is that it shows that it is
> absurd that consciousness
> supervenes on physical activity of any sort, but we can keep
> computationalism and
> drop the physical supervenience criterion, as Bruno has.
>
>
> Yes.
>
>
>
> 3d) Stathis wrote to Brent:
>
> Any serial computation can be made up of multiple parallel
> computations, and vice versa. You can't say, aha, we've used that
> string for "dog" so we can't now use it for "cat", because who is
> going to patrol the universe to enforce this rule? This is what you
> are left with if you eliminate the constraint that the computation
> has to interact with an external observer.
> I am aware that this is a very strange idea, perhaps even an absurd
> idea, but I don't see any way out of it without ruining
> computationalism, as by saying that it's all bunk, or only
> computations that can interact with the environment at the level of
> their implementation can be conscious. Because if you insist on the
> latter, it implies something like ESP: the computer will know the
> difference between a false sensory stimulus and one emanating from
> the environment... possible, but not very Turing-emulable.
>
>
>
> I agree with Brent's remark on that: "I find that doubtful - do you have
> a reference? Isn't it the definition of "incompressible" computation
> that there is no way faster than executing each step in sequence (Brent
> Meeker).
>
>
> 3e) Stathis' answer to Brent:
>
> I'm not referring to speed, just to doing it. For example, a serial
> stream of consciousness can be emulated by multiple shorter parallel
> streams; there is no way of knowing whether you're being run in
> serial, parallel, how fast the real world clock is running, etc.
>
>
> I agree there is no way to know whether you are being run in serial,
> parallel, etc. But mathematically multiple shorter parallel streams have
> to be able to be glued, at least mathematically, for constituting a
> proper computation. If not literally anything can be described as a
> computation.
That's a reductio argument and when you've reached an absurdity it can be anyone of your premises that is wrong - including comp.
>That is why I explicitly use a mathematical definition of
> computation, and then(and only then) try to figure out what is a rock,
> for example.
>
>
>
>
> 4) Mark Peaty wrote (to Brent):
>
> As I say, the essence of evil is the act of treating other persons
> as things.
>
>
>
> I so agree with you. And then, with Church thesis (less than comp, thus)
> you can understand the reason why even some (relative) machine and some
> (relative) numbers should not be confused with any of their third person
> description.
>
>
>
> On another tack: it seems to me the extent and scope of suffering in
> the world is one of the most powerful arguments in favour of the
> total irrelevance of the concept of G/god/s. However it is not for
> me to go around telling those who believe in some G/god/s that they
> are deluded.
>
>
> Do you agree that those who believe in a primitive physical universe
> could be deluded in the same manner than those who believe in some
> notion of God. Perhaps even in a worse manner, because many people
> believe that the existence of a primitive material universe is a
> "scientific fact". Of course not. At least in many theological text, the
> word "God" is used in a more axiomatic way than "Matter" is by some
> scientist (at lunch or during the week-end). Most religious people will
> never say that the existence of God is a scientific fact, and in that
> sense are less deluded than many materialist.
They say the existence of God is a matter of faith and that is a more certain kind of knowledge than scientific knowledge. Because faith is independent of evidence religion is a much more resistant delusion than erroneous science.
Brent Meeker
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Received on Thu Jan 18 2007 - 00:40:46 PST