Re: Consciousness is information?

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 12:36:18 +0200

Le 17-mai-09, ā 12:43, Alberto G.Corona a écrit :

>
> The hard problem may be unsolvable, but I think it would be much more
> unsolvable if we donīt fix the easy problem, isnīt?


I think that the hard problem is more easy to solve than the easy
problem.
Indeed it is a theorem in computer science that an (ideally) correct
universal machine which introspects itself (in the usual mathematical
self-referential (Lobian) sense) will discover (not prove, but still
"produce as true") many non machine-communicable statements.

AUDA gives a thorough precise theory of qualia, which is Popper
refutable, in the (idealist) sense that the quanta appears as
particular type of sharable first person plural qualia. If it appears
false on quanta, we can abandon that theory of qualia too!

What is cute in AUDA, is that it provides an explanation why the "hard
problem of consciousness" has to seem "hard" from the point of view of
the machine. In a sense the hard problem is proved to be unsolvable by
any direct means, but completely "meta-solvable".

It relies mainly on the Gödel points where Penrose and Lucas are wrong:
machine *can* access their own incompleteness theorem through local
self-consistency assumptions.





> With a clear idea
> of the easy problem it is possible to infer something about the hard
> problem:
>
> For example, the latter is a product of the former, because we
> perceive things that have (or had) relevance in evolutionary terms.
> Second, the unitary nature of perception match well with the
> evolutionary explanation "My inner self is a private reconstruction,
> for fitness purposes, of how others see me, as an unit of perception
> and purpose, not as a set of processors, motors and sensors, although,
> analytically, we are so". Third, the machinery of this constructed
> inner self sometimes take control (i.e. we feel ourselves capable of
> free will) whenever our acts would impact of the image that others may
> have of ourselves.
>
> If these conclusions are all in the easy lever, I think that we have
> solved a few of moral and perceptual problems that have puzzled
> philosophers and scientists for centuries. Relabeling them as "easy
> problems" the instant after an evolutionary explanation of them has
> been aired is preposterous.
>
> Therefore I think that I answer your question: itīs not only
> information; Itīs about a certain kind of information and their own
> processor. The exact nature of this processor that permits qualia is
> not known;


I think we know (assuming comp) the exact nature of that "processor".
It is an immaterial universal machine. The machine does not need to be
Lobian (as some people think). It needs only to be lobian to be able to
develop by its own this very special theory of qualia and quanta.

I agree with your critic of "consciousness = information". This is "not
even wrong", and Kelly should define what he means by "information" so
that we could see what he really means. I suspect Kelly is confusing
"information" and "information content". Information content needs the
(immaterial and atemporal) processing of a universal machine or number.
Not a physical processing, but a processing similar to those in the UD,
or implemented naturally in (a tiny part) of Arithmetic.




> that’s true, and itīs good from my point of view, because,
> for one side, the unknown is stimulating and for the other,
> reductionist explanations for everything, like the mine above, are a
> bit frustrating.


I can explain in what sense comp is a vaccine against reductionism, but
you have to be familiar with the UD Argument. Even the physics which
appears cannot be reduced, still less the person. Hmm ..., you still
believe we can have both comp and a primitive material universe, isn't
it?

Computationalism leads to a genuine non trivial and refutable solution
of both the hard problem of matter *and* the hard problem of
consciousness. It preserves the necessity of an irreducible gap between
those things (and other things), but it provides a geometry of that
gap, together with an explanation of the mystery feeling. Of course (in
case you have read some of my older post), the geometry of the gap is
provided by the possible modal semantics of the logic G* \minus G, and
its intensional variants, (all this on the Sigma_1 restriction, to take
into account the comp hyp and the Universal Dovetailer in Arithmetic).

The bad news is that the "easy problem" of matter and consciousness,
thorugh comp could as well be as diificult as possible. It remains
possible that only very long computation can lead tp present form of
human mind and matter. Computationalism does not just reverse math and
physics, or theology and physics, it reverse hard and easy ...

Eventually everything is reduced to the (deep) mystery of our
understanding of an assertion like N = {0, 1, 2, ...}. But, by
accepting that the expression "N = {0, 1, 2, ...}" makes sense, we can
explain in all detail why this one is absolutely unsolvable. We cannot
explain the elementary "infinity quale".

Bruno

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


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Received on Mon May 18 2009 - 12:36:18 PDT

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