Re: MGA 1

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:17:34 +0100

On 23 Nov 2008, at 03:24, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>
> 2008/11/23 Kory Heath <kory.domain.name.hidden>:
>>
>>
>> On Nov 22, 2008, at 2:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>> Yes, there must be a problem with the assumptions. The only
>>> assumption
>>> that I see we could eliminate, painful though it might be for
>>> those of
>>> a scientific bent, is the idea that consciousness supervenes on
>>> physical activity. Q.E.D.
>>
>> Right. But the problem is that that conclusion doesn't tell me how to
>> deal with the (equally persuasive) arguments that convince me there's
>> something deeply correct about viewing consciousness in computational
>> terms, and viewing computation in physical terms. So I'm really just
>> left with a dilemma. As I've hinted earlier, I suspect that there's
>> something wrong with the idea of "physical matter" and related ideas
>> like causality, probability, etc. But that's pretty vague.
>
> We could say there are two aspects to mathematical objects, a physical
> aspect and a non-physical aspect. Whenever we interact with the number
> "three" it must be realised, say in the form of three objects. But
> there is also an abstract three, with threeness properties, that lives
> in Platonia independently of any realisation. Similarly, whenever we
> interact with a computation, it must be realised on a physical
> computer, such as a human brain. But there is also the abstract
> computation, a Platonic object. It seems that consciousness, like
> threeness, may be a property of the Platonic object, and not of its
> physical realisation. This allows resolution of the apparent paradoxes
> we have been discussing.

I agree with you. It resolves the conceptual problems about mind and
matter, but if forces us to redefine matter from how "consciousness
differentiate in Platonia" (this comes from MGA + ... UDA(1..7). Comp
really reduce the mind body problem to the body problem: it remains to
show we don't have too much white rabbits. But the problem is a pure
problem in computer science now.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Received on Sun Nov 23 2008 - 09:17:37 PST

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