On 29 Oct 2008, at 06:09, Russell Standish wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 09:04:15AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> Ah! See my papers for a proof that indeed consciousness does not
>> emerge from brain function. See the paper by Maudlin for an
>> independent and later argument (which handles also the
>> "counterfactual
>> objection"). You have to assume the body is a machine.
>
> I presume by "emerge", you mean "supervene on".
I was trying not to be technical, nor more precise that is needed. (cf
the 1004 fallacy).
"supervene on" already means different things according to mechanism,
naturalism, etc.
> I don't see how you
> prove this in your thesis, just the contradiction of computationalism
> with naive physicalism, which is not the same thing. See the footnote
> in my book on page 69.
On that footnote you are correct! I don't see the relevance, though.
My 1988 paper shows that if I am a (digitalizable) machine then
physics cannot be the fundamental science (physicalism).
I have no idea what yopu mean by naïve physicalism (naïve materialism?
This is already in contradiction with QM and even with Newton)
I show that with the comp hyp, physics has to emerge from mathematics
(even arithmetics). And I show how it emerges. It is the reversal
physics/math, or physics/theology that I have explained all along in
this list (notably through the Universal Dovetailer Argument).
The seven first steps of the UD Argument show this already indeed, if
you accept some Occam Razor. The movie graph is a much subtle argument
showing you don't need occam razor: not only a machine cannot
distinguish real from virtual, but cannot distinguish real from
arithmetical either. Many people does not know enough in philosophy of
mind to understand why the movie graph argument is necessary to
complete the proof, so I rarely insist. Maudlin's 1989 paper can be
said answering to the "counterfactual- objection" against the MGA
(Movie-Graph Argument).
>
>
> Its an important point, as without supervenience, the Occam
> catastrophe happens, which contradicts what we observe.
... without which supervenience?
Is it the usual physical supervenience (called just supervenience by
most philosopher of mind), or my 1988 (see also 1998)
"computationalist supervenience"?
Just to be clear, and for the benefits of the others:
Physical supervenience is the conjunction of the following assumptions:
-There is a physical universe
-I am conscious (consciousness exists)
-(My) consciousness (at time x, t) supervenes on some physical
activity, at time (x, t) of a portion of the physical universe.
Computationalist supervenience is the conjunction of the following
assumptions:
-I am conscious (consciousness exists)
-(My) consciousness of time (x, t) supervenes on some arithmetical
relation between numbers.
In the reasoning I do not presuppose comp supervenience, but I show it
is a consequence of the comp hyp, and I show this by, as you say in
the footnote page 69 of your book, showing that comp is incompatible
with physical supervenience.
Ofg course with comp-supervenience we have the white rabbits, and a
long time ago I thought those could be used to reftute the comp hyp,
but then I use computer science (and incompleteness related work) to
show such a refutation is harder to develop than we intuit at first
sight. The computer science notion of first person is non trivial and
gives, with a natural definition of probable observation all we need
to have destructive interference of the white rabbits histories.
Don't hesitate to ask if anything seems unclear in the derivation. I
guess you have no problems with the seven first step of the UDA?
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Wed Oct 29 2008 - 12:48:30 PDT