Colin,
We agree on the conclusion. We disagree on vocabulary, and on the
validity of your reasoning.
Let us call I-comp the usual indexical mechanism discussed in this
list (comp).
Let us call m-comp the thesis that there is a primitive "natural
world", and that it can be described by a digital machine.
UDA shows that I-comp entails NOT m-comp.
Obviously m-comp entails I-comp.
So m-comp entails NOT m-comp.
This refutes m-comp.
Now you seem to believe in a stuffy natural reality, so you have to
abandon I-comp. This is coherent. Now you have to say "no" to the
doctor and introduce actual infinities in the brain. I find this very
unplausible, but it is not my goal to defend it.
Now I find your reasoning based on informality not convincing at all,
to say the least. It is really based on level confusion s Peter Jones
was driving at correctly. You "B" above seems also indicate you have
not study the argument.
Bruno
On 12 Aug 2009, at 08:11, Colin Hales wrote:
> Hi,
> I guess I am pretty much over the need for any 'ism whatever. I can
> re-classify my ideas in terms of an 'ism, but that process tells me
> nothing extra and offers no extra empirical clue. I think I can
> classify fairly succinctly the difference between approaches:
>
> (A) Colin
> (a) There is a natural world.
> (b) We can describe how it appears to us using the P-consciousness
> of scientists.
> (c) We can describe how a natural world might be constructed which
> has an observer in it like (a)
> Descriptions (b) are not the natural world (a) but 'about it' (its
> appearances)
> Descriptions (C) are not the natural world (a) but 'about it' (its
> structure)
> (b) and (c) need only ever be 'doxastic' (beliefs).
> I hold that these two sets of descriptions (b) and (c) need not be
> complete or even perfect/accurate.
> Turing-computing (b) or (c) is not an instance of (a)/will not ever
> make (a)
> Turing-computing (b) or (c) can tell you something about the
> operation of (a).
> NOTE:
> If (b) is a description of the rules of chess (no causality
> whatever, good prediction of future board appearances), (c) is a
> description of the behaviour of chess players (chess causality).
> There's a rough metaphor for you.
> ---------------------------------
> (B) not-Colin (as seems to be what I see here...)
> There are descriptions of type (b), one of which is quantum
> mechanics QM.
> The math of QM suggests a multiple-histories TOE concept.
> If I then project a spurious attribution of idealism into this ....
> then ....if I squint at the math I can see what might operate as a
> 'first person perspective'
> and .... I realise/believe that if I Turing-compute the math, it is
> a universe. I can make it be reality.
> Causality is a mystery solved by prayer to the faith of idealism and
> belief in 'comp', driven by the hidden mechanism of the Turing 'tape
> reader/punch'.
> ---------------------------------
>
> What's happening here AFAICT, is that players in (B) have been so
> far 'down the rabbit hole' for so long they've lost sight of reality
> and think 'isms explain things!
>
> In (A) you get to actually explain things (appearances and causal
> necessity). The price is that you can never truly know reality. You
> get 'asymptotically close to knowing it', though. (A) involves no
> delusion about Turing-computation implementing reality. The amount
> of 'idealism', 'physicalism', 'materialism' and any other 'ism you
> need to operate in the (A) framework is Nil. In (A) the COMP (as I
> defined it) is obviously and simply false and there is no sense in
> which Turing-style-computation need be attributed to be involved in
> natural processes. It's falsehood is expected and natural and
> consistent with all empirical knowledge.
>
> The spurious attributions in (B) are replaced in (A) by the
> descriptions (c), all of which must correlate perfectly
> (empirically) with (b) through the provision of an observer and a
> mechanism for observation which is evidenced in brain material. The
> concept of a Turing machine is not needed at all. There may be a
> sense in which a Turing (C-T) equivalent of (c) might be
> constructed. That equivalent is adds zero to knowledge systems (b)
> and (c). Under (A) the C-T thesis is perfectly right but simply
> irrelevant.
>
> My motivation to kill COMP is purely aimed at bring a halt to the
> delusion of the AGI community that Turing-computing will ever create
> a mind. They are throwing away $millions based on a false belief.
> Their expectations need to be scientifically defined for a change. I
> have no particular interest in disturbing any belief systems here
> except insofar as they contribute to the delusion that COMP is true.
>
> 'nuff said. This is another minor battle in an ongoing campaign. :-)
>
> Colin
>
>
> Stephen Paul King wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> >
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Wed Aug 12 2009 - 09:34:30 PDT