On 21/01/2009, at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 19 Jan 2009, at 13:56, Kim Jones wrote:
>
>
>> But Brent was momentarily speaking of materialism - materialism
>> doesn't acknowledge any form of comp "immateriality" except
>> according to the (probably) false mind/body dualism, where the mind
>> is allowed to be an ethereal emanation of the brain. But that's not
>> even immateriality in your specific sense - that's popular
>> superstition. You've cured me of that. Mind is computation; matter
>> is computation -
>
> Actually this is an open problem. The point is that if mind is
> computation then matter is not necessarily computation, and a priori
> it is not computation. (Step 7 !)
> With comp we can take a very little ontology: just 0, 1, 2, 3, ...
> with their usual additive and multiplicative relations.
> This, then give rise "automatically" to a literally un-computably
> big "first person" an "other-person epistemology.
>
>
>
>> consciousness is not unique in the sense of some special pleading
>> that allows it to avoid Turing emulability.
>
>
> OK. But keep in mind that consciousness is unique in the sense of
> knowing that it cannot know its Turing emulability level (yet can
> bet).
>
>
>
Footnote - (parenthetical digression): I know the above thought is
native to your schema, and up to here Penrose appears to agree with
you. But, this very singular quality of consciousness (to not know its
emulability level but to be able to bet on it - via the Bayesian
probabilities detector that is the mind) is precisely the reason
Penrose and Hammeroff have decided that the mind is NOT computation;
because of the uncomputability of this issue. Why should the mind be
limited to the computable? Clearly it is not. Could an AI conceive of
Platonia? Now that would perhaps be to go one better than any Blade
Runner-style Turing Test! For Penrose, Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem
is enough to lock the door against the thought that the mind is
limited to the algorithms of the computable. The mind, apparently, can
understand things outside the realm of the computable. I guess it all
depends on what you mean by "understand". I would cite musical
understanding as an example of something that cannot be computed.
There is information that appears in the (listening) mind that cannot
be deduced from the notes, the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms
etc. All of the mechanics of music are of course computable, but my
subjective interaction with a particular musical discourse is
(probably) not.
I doubt that I am telling you anything you didn't already know...
(snip)
>>
>>
>> Our world may be a giant hologram - space - 15 January 2009 - New
>> Scientist
>
>
> Very interesting! Thanks.
> If consciousness is gravity (the wave selector), as Penrose find
> plausible, the blurriness of the hologram could necessarily (asuming
> comp) prevent the observation of the gravitational waves, making
> them definitely undetectable. Just thinking aloud.
Isn't this like the Turing lock-out with respect to truth and
provability? We "know" the gravitational waves are there, but we can
never directly detect them. Perhaps our "knowing" such a thing is non-
computable?
regards,
Kim
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Received on Tue Jan 20 2009 - 23:46:53 PST