Re: Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental?

From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:52:43 -0400

Hi Colin,

    It seems that to me that until one understands the nature of the extreme Idealism that COMP entails, no arguement based on the physical will do...

    "I refute it thus!"
-Dr. Johnson http://www.samueljohnson.com/refutati.html

Onward!

Stephen

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Colin Hales
  To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
  Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 9:51 PM
  Subject: Re: Can mind be a computation if physics is fundamental?




  Bruno Marchal wrote:


    On 10 Aug 2009, at 09:08, Colin Hales wrote:


      Bruno Marchal wrote:


        On 06 Aug 2009, at 04:37, Colin Hales wrote:


          Man this is a tin of worms! I have just done a 30 page detailed refutation of computationalism.
          It's going through peer review at the moment.

          The basic problem that most people fall foul of is the conflation of 'physics-as-computation' with the type of computation that is being carried out in a Turing machine (a standard computer). In the paper I drew an artificial distinction between them. I called the former NATURAL COMPUTATION (NC) and the latter ARTIFICIAL COMPUTATION (AC). The idea is that if COMP is true then there is no distinction between AC and NC. The distinction should fail.


        Why? COMP entails that physics cannot be described by a computation, but by an infinite sum of infinite histories. If you were correct, there would be no possible white rabbit. You are confusing comp (I am a machine) and constructive physics (the universe is a machine).




      This is the COMP I have a problem with. It's the one in the literature. It relates directly to the behaviour (descriptive options of) of scientists:
            COMP
           This is the shorthand for computationalism as distilled from the various sources cited above. The working definition here:

            “The operational/functional equivalence (identity, indistinguishability at the level of the model) of (a) a sufficiently embodied, computationally processed, sufficiently detailed symbolic/formal description/model of a natural thing X and (b) the described natural thing X”.

      If this is not the COMP you speak of, then this could be the origins of disparity in view. Also, the term "I am machine" says nothing scientifically meaningful to me.


    This is not comp. Actually the definition above is ambiguous, and seems to presuppose natural things.
  I did not make this up. I read it in the literature in various forms and summarised. 'Mind as computation' is a specific case of it. If I have a broken definition according to you then I am in the company of a lot of people. It's also the major delusion in many computer 'scientists' in the field of AI, who's options would be very different if COMP is false. So I'll use COMP as defined above, for now. It is what I refute.

  'presupposing natural things..." ?? hmmmmmm....

  Natural things........You know... the thing we sometimes call the 'real world'? Whatever it is that we are in/made of, that appears to behave rather regularly and that we are intrinsically ignorant of and 'do empirical science on'. The 'thing' that our consciousness portrays to us? The place with real live behaving humans with major brain and other nervous system problems who could really use some help? That natural world that actually defined COMP as per above. That 'thing'.Whatever 'it' is... that will do for a collection of 'natural things'.

  The idea that the "presupposition of natural things" is problematic is rather unhelpful to those (above, real, natural) suffering people. Sounds a bit emotive, but .. there you go .. call me "practically motivated". I intend to remain in this condition. :-)

  Colin


  

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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 Tue Aug 11 2009 - 23:52:43 PDT

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