Re: Dreaming On

From: David Nyman <david.nyman.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:57:06 -0700 (PDT)

On 27 July, 09:31, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:

> The UDA is a reasoning which shows that once we postulate an
> "ontological" physical universal, it is impossible to recover the
> first person from it

Do you mean to say that we can't recover the 1-person from a physical
universe on the assumption that the mind is a 'computation' executed
by elements of a physical brain, or that it can't be recovered *in any
manner* on the assumption of 'physical ontology'? I've always assumed
the former - which is the one attacked in your thought experiments;
the latter would be a much stronger and more startling claim, to say
the least.

> > Nonetheless, the inescapable implication is that any alternative
> > schema must from the outset explicitly and fearlessly address the same
> > problem space or else run foul of the same intractable 0-1-3 person
> > ontological and epistemological issues.
>
> This is tackled by the modality of self-reference.

Yes, I should have said 'otherwise intractable' - meaning intractable
for any schema that doesn't explicitly generate the dreamers and their
many viewpoints as well as their dream contents. This is the problem
space that must be confronted - as COMP does. My point is that any
approach to the mind-body issues that doesn't tackle this must fail at
the outset. Agreed?

> > This has profound implications for virtually all current cosmological
> > TOEs: i.e. a view from nowhere turns out to be nobody's view. As has
> > been observed in other writings, our understanding remains profoundly
> > obscured and distorted unless we restore the personal to the view from
> > nowhere. Only then can we conceive why indeed there is somewhere
> > rather than nowhere.
>
> OK. You will have to judge comp, in that respect, by yourself.

I'm still trying! I must say that the more I think about your
arguments in detail (some of the basic ones - like the teleportation
examples - have direct counterparts in my own intuitive history) the
more they exercise my intuitions in helpful directions. I feel that
there is something intuitively necessary in this generative approach,
and specifically in the way it seeks to resolve the 0-1-3-person
conundrums that - even if it turns out to be unsupportable as a whole
- would remain a core feature of any successor theory.

David


> On 26 Jul 2009, at 16:52, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Thanks to everyone who responded to my initial sally on dreams and
> > machines.  Naturally I have arrogated the right to plagiarise your
> > helpful comments in what follows, which is an aphoristic synthesis of
> > my understanding of the main points that have emerged thus far.  I
> > hope this will be helpful for future discussion.
>
> > THE APHORISMS
>
> > We do not see the mind, we see *through* the mind.
>
> > What we see through the mind - its contents - is mind-stuff: dreams.
>
> > Hence dream content - i.e. whatever is capable of being present to us
> > - can't be our ontology - this would be circular (the eye can't see
> > itself).
>
> > So the brain (i.e. what the eye can see) can't be the mind; but the
> > intuition remains that mind and brain might be correlated by some
> > inclusive conception that would constitute our ontology: Kant's great
> > insight stands.
>
> > It is similarly obvious that 'identity' theories and the like are
> > non-sense: it would indeed be hard to think of two descriptions less
> > 'identical' than brain-descriptions and mind-descriptions: hence
> > again, any such identification could only be via some singular
> > correlative synthesis.
>
> > Hence any claim that the mind is literally identical with, or
> > 'inside', the brain can be shown to be false by the simple - if messy
> > - expedient of a scalpel; or else can be unmasked as implicitly
> > dualistic: i.e. the claim is really that 'inside' and 'outside' are
> > not merely different descriptions, but different ontologies.
>
> > By extension of our individual introspecting, a plurality of minds,
> > and the 'external world' that includes brains, can be conceived as
> > correlated in some way - to be elucidated - in a universal synthesis
> > or context: that context being our mutual ontology.
>
> > Such a universal context, or in common terms 'what exists', cannot be
> > fully known (i.e. can't be exhausted by description) although - or
> > rather because - it constitutes what we are, and by extension what
> > *everything* is.
>
> > Nonetheless we may seek a logic of dreaming so far as it goes, and
> > this will indeed be as far as anything goes in the way of knowledge
> > claims.
>
> > Mathematics may be deployed as a dream-logic: but mathematical
> > physics, restricted to 'physical heuristics', prototypically gets
> > stuck at the level of describing the content and behaviour of dreams,
> > not their genesis.
>
> The UDA is a reasoning which shows that once we postulate an  
> "ontological"  physical universal, it is impossible to recover the  
> first person from it.
>
>
>
> > To go further and deeper we need an explicit mathematical
> > specification of dreamers and their dreams, and of generative
> > mechanisms by which dreamers and their dream contents can be
> > constructed.
>
> Once comp is assumed, and UDA understood, including step 8, we get an  
> explicit mathematical specification of the dreamers (which will be the  
> universal numbers---to be (re)explained later) and the explanation of  
> the appearance of the dreams:  self-referential gluing (sigma_1)  
> arithmetical relations.
>
>
>
> > Such a schema will by its nature form an analysis of how we come to
> > believe that we and our world are real, and in what terms: i.e. how we
> > come to know a world in a present and personal manner.
>
> Except for the mystery of numbers, which has to remain intact  
> (mysterious). The first person arise from the difference of the logics  
> of the points of view. Each point of view is just a different modality  
> of the self reference. I recall (or anticipate):
>
> p
> Bp
> Bp & p
> Bp & Dp
> Bp & Dp & p
>
> With p any arithmetical sentences, Bp the arithmetical sentence of  
> Gödel (Beweisbar(Godel number of p)), etc. Note that "p" = 0-person.  
> Bp = 03 person, Bp & p = first person, Bp & Dp = "3-person matter", Bp  
> & Dp & p = first person matter. This makes 08 hypostases, due to the G/
> G* splitting.
>
> The first person view arise from the discrepancy between the logic of  
> Bp and Bp & p (mainly).
>
>
>
> > Consequently such a schema must subsume within its universe of
> > discourse: being, knowing, perceiving, acting and intending - as the
> > foundations of what it means to be real: i.e. it must be capable of
> > invoking the Cheshire Cat *to the life*, not merely leave its grin
> > hanging in the void.
>
> It is here that we may differ. All what needs to be subsumed is 0, and  
> successor axioms, together with addition and multiplication. Assuming  
> comp (which is a statement about RITSIAR, and in that sense you are  
> correct), everything (that is: every dreams and the way they glue  
> together) has to be derived from the way universal numbers reflects  
> each other.
>
>
>
> > Moving beyond bare analysis and description, any move to universalise
> > and 'realise' the axioms of such a schema is to make a claim on
> > ontological finality.  It has not been completely clear (to me)
> > whether COMP necessarily makes such a stipulation on realisation, in
> > the sense of a claim that its axioms *literally are* what is present
> > and personal (i.e. RITSIAR).
>
> Comp could be a little more than RITSIAR: it is the fact that RITSIAR  
> is preserved through a substitution of my parts done at some level.  
> Comp assumes "yes" for the question, will I *stay* as real as I am  
> here and now, once I say yes to the doctor and after he has proceeded.
>
>
>
> > However I'm coming to suspect that it does not in fact make such a
> > claim, although it allows any one of us to take this as a personal
> > leap of faith, specifically through the acid test of saying yes to the
> > doctor.
>
> OK then.
>
>
>
> > COMP may turn out to be false in its specific predictions - i.e.  
> > empirical tests
> > could rule out the possibility of our being finite machines; or
> > perhaps we can never be sure one way or the other.
>
> > Nonetheless, the inescapable implication is that any alternative
> > schema must from the outset explicitly and fearlessly address the same
> > problem space or else run foul of the same intractable 0-1-3 person
> > ontological and epistemological issues.
>
> This is tackled by the modality of self-reference.
>
>
>
> > This has profound implications for virtually all current cosmological
> > TOEs: i.e. a view from nowhere turns out to be nobody's view.  As has
> > been observed in other writings, our understanding remains profoundly
> > obscured and distorted unless we restore the personal to the view from
> > nowhere.  Only then can we conceive why indeed there is somewhere
> > rather than nowhere.
>
> OK. You will have to judge comp, in that respect, by yourself.
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Mon Jul 27 2009 - 05:57:06 PDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Feb 16 2018 - 13:20:16 PST