Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> Le 18-févr.-07, à 13:57, Mark Peaty a écrit :
>
> My main problem with Comp is that it needs several unprovable
> assumptions to be accepted. For example the Yes Doctor hypothesis,
> wherein it is assumed that it must be possible to digitally emulate
> some or all of a person's body/brain function and the person will
> not notice any difference. The Yes Doctor hypothesis is a particular
> case of the digital emulation hypothesis in which it is asserted
> that, basically, ANYTHING can be digitally emulated if one had
> enough computational resources available. As this seems to me to be
> almost a version of Comp [at least as far as I have got with reading
> Bruno's exposition] then from my simple minded perspective it looks
> rather like assuming the very thing that needs to be demonstrated.
>
>
>
> I disagree. The main basic lesson from the UDA is that IF I am a machine
> (whatever I am) then the universe (whatever the universe is) cannot be a
> machine.
> Except if I am (literaly) the universe (which I assume to be false).
>
> If I survive classical teleportation, then the physical appearances
> emerge from a randomization of all my consistent continuations,
What characterizes a consistent continuation? Does this refer to one's memory and self-identity or does it mean consistent with the unfolding of some algorithm or does it mean consistent with some physical "law" like unitary evolution in Hilbert space?
>and this
> is enough for explaining why comp predicts that the "physical
> appearance" cannot be entirely computational (cf first person
> indeterminacy, etc.).
>
>
> You can remember it by a slogan: If I am a machine, then (not-I) is not
> a machine.
>
> Of course something like "arithmetical truth" is not a machine, or
> cannot be produced by a machine.
>
> Remember that one of my goal is to show that the comp hyp is refutable.
> A priori it entails some highly non computable things, but then computer
> science makes it less easy to refute quickly comp, and empiry (the
> quantum) seems to assess comp, until now.
>
>
> However, as far as I can see it is inherent in the nature of
> consciousness to reify something.
>
>
> Well, it depends what you mean by reifying. I take it as a high level
> intellectual error. When a cat pursues a mouse, it plausible that the
> cat believes in the mouse, and reify it in a sense. If that is your
> sense of reifying, then I am ok with the idea that consciousness reifies
> things.
> But I prefer to use "reifying" more technically for making existing
> something primitively, despite existence of phenomenological explanation.
>
> Let me be clear, because it could be confusing. A computationalist can
> guess there is a universe, atoms, etc. He cannot remain consistent if he
> believes the universe emerge from its parts, that the universe is made
> of atoms, etc.
You are saying that these beliefs entail a logical contradiction. What is that contradiction?
Brent Meeker
>
>
> I appreciate that the UDA and related treatments in mathematical
> philosophy, can be rigorous, and enormously potent in their
> implications for further speculation and development within their
> universe of discourse, but I remain very sceptical of any advertised
> potential to bootstrap the rest of the universe.
>
>
>
> I agree with you. But a thorough understanding of UDA would add
> substance to your skepticism. With comp, the more we know about the
> universe, the more we know we are ignorant about it. It is related with
> the G* minus G gap. Although you can go from G (science) toward G*
> (correct faith), when you do that, you will discover many genuine new
> things, but the gap between G and G* will be made greater too. In
> computerland, it is like each time you see a new star or galaxy, then
> necessarily bigger things are forced to exist. The more you explore, the
> more it remains to be explored, necessarily so. Understanding comp and
> uda makes you infinitely more modest than we are used to think.
>
> I must go,
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
> >
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Received on Mon Feb 19 2007 - 14:14:27 PST