Bruno,
Thanks for the references.
--Abram
ps- it is final exam crunch time, so I haven't been checking email so
much as usual... I may get around to more detailed replies et cetera
this weekend or next week.
On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden.ac.be> wrote:
>
> On 07 Dec 2008, at 06:19, Abram Demski wrote:
>
> Bruno,
>
> Yes, I think there is a big difference between making an argument more
> detailed and making it more understandable. They can go together or be
> opposed. So a version of the argument targeted at my complaint might
> not be good at all pedagogically...
>
> I would be pleased if you can give me a version of MAT or MEC to which
>
> the argument does not apply. For example, the argument applies to most
>
> transfinite variant of MEC. It does not apply when some "magic" is
>
> introduced in MAT, and MAT is hard to define in a way to exclude that
>
> magic. If you can help, I thank you in advance.
>
> My particular brand of "magic" appears to be a requirement of
> counterfactual/causal structure that reflects the
> counterfactual/causal structure of (abstract) computation.
>
> Sometimes I think I should first explain what a "computation" is. I take it
> in the sense of theoretical computer science, a computation is always define
> relatively to a universal computation from outside, and an infinity of
> universal computations from inside. This asks for a bit of computer science.
> But there is not really "abstract computation", there are always relative
> computation (both with comp and Everett QM). They are always concrete
> relatively to the universal machine which execute them. The starting point
> in no important (for our fundamental concerns), you can take number with
> addition and multiplication, or lambda terms with abstraction and
> application.
>
>
>
> Stathis has
> pointed out some possible ways to show such ideas incoherent (which I
> am not completely skeptical of, despite my arguments).
>
> I appreciate.
>
>
> Since this type
> of theory is the type that matches my personal intuition, MGA will
> feel empty to me until such alternatives are explicitly dealt a
> killing blow (after which the rest is obvious, since I intuitively
> feel the contradiction in versions of COMP+MAT that don't require
> counterfactuals).
>
> Understanding UD(1...7) could perhaps help you to figure out what happens
> when we abandon the physical supervenience thesis, and embrace what remains,
> if keeping comp, that is the comp supervenience. It will explain how the
> physical laws have to emerge and why we believe (quasi-correctly) in brains.
>
>
>
>
>
> Of course, as you say, you'd be in a hard spot if you were required to
> deal with every various intuition that anybody had... but, for what
> it's worth, that is mine.
>
>
> I respect your intuition and appreciate the kind attitude. My feeling is
> that if front of very hard problems we have to be open to the fact that we
> could be surprised and that truth could be counterintuitive. The
> incompleteness phenomena, from Godel and Lob, are surprising and
> counterintuitive, and in the empirical world the SWE, whatever
> interpretation we find more plausible, is always rather counterintuitive
> too.
> I interpret the "self-referentially correct scientist M" by the logic of
> Godel's provability predicates beweisbar_M. But the intuitive knower, the
> first person, is modelled (or defined) by the Theatetus trick: the machine M
> knows p in case "beweisbar_M('p') and p". Although extensionally equivalent,
> their are intensionally different. They prove the same arithmetical
> propositions, but they obey different logics. This is enough for showing
> that the first person associated with the self-referentially correct
> scientist will already disbelieve the comp hypothesis or find it very
> doubtful. We are near a paradox: the correct machine cannot know or believe
> their are machine. No doubt comp will appear counterintuitive for them. I
> know it is a sort of trap/ the solution consists in admitting that comp
> needs a strong act of faith, and I try to put light on the consequences for
> a machine, when she makes the bet.
>
> The best reference on the self-reference logics are
> Boolos, G. (1979). The unprovability of consistency. Cambridge University
> Press, London.Boolos, G. (1993). The Logic of Provability. Cambridge
> University Press, Cambridge.Smoryński, P. (1985). Self-Reference and Modal
> Logic. Springer Verlag, New York.Smullyan, R. (1987). Forever Undecided.
> Knopf, New York.
>
> The last one is a recreative book, not so simple, and rather quick in the
> "heart of the matter" chapter. Smullyan wrote many lovely books, recreative
> and technical on that theme.
> The bible, imo, is Martin Davis book "The undecidable" which contains some
> of the original papers by Gödel, Church, Kleene, Post and indeed the most
> key starting points of the parts of theoretical computer science we are
> confonted to. It has been reedited by Dover.
> Bruno
> Other references here:
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/lillethesis/these/node79.html#SECTION001300000000000000000
>
> --Abram
>
> On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden.ac.be> wrote:
>
>
> Le 05-déc.-08, à 22:11, Abram Demski a écrit :
>
>
> Bruno,
>
> Perhaps all I am saying is that you need to state more explicitly the
>
> assumptions about the connection between 1st and 3rd person, in both
>
> MEC and MAT. Simply taking them to be the general ideas that you take
>
> them to be does not obviously justify the argument.
>
>
> I don't see why nor how. The first person notions are defined in the
>
> three first steps of the UDA. Wait I come back on this in the
>
> discussion with Kim perhaps. In AUDA I define the first person by the
>
> "knower", and I use the classical definition proposed by Theaetetus in
>
> the Theaetetus of Plato. Keep in mind that you arrived when I was
>
> explaining the real last step of an already long argument.
>
> Of course you may be right, and I would really appreciate any
>
> improvements. But making things more precise could also be a red
>
> herring sometimes, or be very confusing pedagogically, like with the
>
> easy 1004 fallacy which can obviously crop here.
>
> When I defended the thesis in France, it was already a work resulting
>
> from 30 years of discussions with open minded physicists, engineers,
>
> philosophers and mathematicians, and I have learned that what seems
>
> obvious for one of them is not for the others.
>
> I don't think there is anything controversial in my work. I got
>
> academical problems in Brussels for not having find an original result
>
> (but then I think they did not read the work). Pedagogical difficulties
>
> stem from the intrinsical difficulty of the mind body problem, and from
>
> the technical abyss between logicians and physicists to cite only them.
>
> It is more easy to collide two protons at the speed of light (minus
>
> epsilon) than to arrange an appointment between mathematical logicians
>
> and mathematical physicists (except perhaps nowadays on quantum
>
> computing issues thankfully).
>
>
>
> Furthermore, stating the assumptions more clearly will make it more
>
> clear where the contradiction is coming from, and thus which versions
>
> of MEC and MAT the argument applies to.
>
> I would be pleased if you can give me a version of MAT or MEC to which
>
> the argument does not apply. For example, the argument applies to most
>
> transfinite variant of MEC. It does not apply when some "magic" is
>
> introduced in MAT, and MAT is hard to define in a way to exclude that
>
> magic. If you can help, I thank you in advance.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> --Abram
>
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden.ac.be>
>
> wrote:
>
>
> On 04 Dec 2008, at 15:58, Abram Demski wrote:
>
>
> PS Abram. I think I will have to meditate a bit longer on your
>
> (difficult) post. You may have a point (hopefully only pedagogical
>
> :)
>
> A little bit more commentary may be in order then... I think my point
>
> may be halfway between pedagogical and serious...
>
> What I am saying is that people will come to the argument with some
>
> vague idea of which computations (or which physical entities) they
>
> pick out as "conscious". They will compare this to the various
>
> hypotheses that come along during the argument-- MAT, MEC, MAT + MEC,
>
> "Lucky Alice is conscious", "Lucky Alice is not conscious", et
>
> cetera... These notions are necessarily 3rd-person in nature. It
>
> seems
>
> like there is a problem there. Your argument is designed to talk
>
> about
>
> 1st-person phenomena.
>
> The whole problem consists, assuming hypotheses, in relating 1-views
>
> with 3-views.
>
> In UDA, the 1-views are approximated by 1-discourses (personal diary
>
> notes, memories in the brain, ...). But I do rely on the minimal
>
> intuition needed to give sense to the willingness of saying "yes" to a
>
> digitalist surgeon, and the believe in a comp survival, or a belief in
>
> the unchanged feeling of "my" consciousness in such annihilation-
>
> (re)creation experiences.
>
>
>
>
> If a 1st-person-perspective is a sort of structure (computational
>
> and/or physical), what type of structure is it?
>
> The surprise will be: there are none. The 1-views of a machine will
>
> appears to be already not expressible by the machine. The first and
>
> third God have no name. Think about Tarski theorem in the comp
>
> context. A sound machine cannot define the whole notion of "truth
>
> about me".
>
>
> If we define it in
>
> terms of behavior only, then a recording is fine.
>
> We certainly avoid the trap of behaviorism. You can see this as a
>
> weakness, or as the full strong originality of comp, as I define it.
>
> We give some sense, albeit undefined, to the word "consciousness"
>
> apart from any behavior. But to reason we have to assume some relation
>
> between consciousness and possible discourses (by machines).
>
>
> If we define it in
>
> terms of inner workings, then a recording is probably not fine, but
>
> we
>
> introduce "magical" dependence on things that shouldn't matter to
>
> us... ie, we should not care if we are interacting with a perfectly
>
> orchestrated recording, so long as to us the result is the same.
>
> It seems like this is independent of the differences between
>
> pure-comp / comp+mat.
>
>
>
> This is not yet quite clear for me. Perhaps, if you are patient
>
> enough, you will be able to clarify this along the UDA reasoning which
>
> I will do slowly with Kim. The key point will be the understanding of
>
> the ultimate conclusion: exactly like Everett can be said to justify
>
> correctly the phenomenal collapse of the wave, if comp is assumed, we
>
> have to justify in a similar way the wave itself. Assuming comp, we
>
> put ourself in a position where we have to explain why numbers
>
> develops stable and coherent belief in both mind and matter. We can
>
> presuppose neither matter, nor mind eventually, except our own
>
> consciousness, although even consciousness will eventually be reduced
>
> into our "believe in numbers".
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Tue Dec 09 2008 - 22:21:14 PST