2009/8/14 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>:
> A good summary, David. However, there are some other possibilities.
> Physics as now conceived is based on real and complex numbers. It can
> only be approximated digitally. QM supposes true randomness, which
> Turing machines can't produce. Again it may just be a matter of
> "sufficient approximation", but the idea of a multiverse and
> "everything-happens" assumes real numbers.
But the possibility of 'mathematical ontology' would remain a
possibility for physics, even if it turned out that we needed an
alternative to the digital TM as the 'computational substrate'?
> A sufficiently detailed, accurate and
> predictive numerical model is as good as the stuff it models
And in terms of stuffy ontology, it would be a successful model - but
you wouldn't expect to be able to build a house out of emulated
bricks. By contrast, in terms of numerical ontology, a sufficiently
complete 'model' would actually *constitute* the stuff it emulated
(i.e. indicating the quite different force of 'emulation' in this
case). Yes?
> But also a sufficiently accurate, detailed and predictive stuffy model is as good
> as the consciousness it models.
If we take 'sufficiently' to the limit I suppose I must agree. But as
before, in terms of stuffy ontology, any digital emulation - if that's
what we're still discussing - is a model, not the stuff modelled, and
hence wouldn't meet any such criterion of sufficiency. If we accept
for the sake of argument a stuffy TM as equivalent to a stuffy brain,
then what we're asked to accept here is that - although emulated
bricks are no good for stuffy house building - stuffy neurons are just
great for stuffy brain building. But why isn't a stuffy TM running a
computation just a stuffy TM running a computation: WYSIWYG isn't it?
And if that is so, then a stuffy brain running a computation is
likewise just a stuffy brain running a computation: equally WYSIWYG.
The only way you invoke consciousness in either case is by the
straight a priori assumption: stuffy computation => consciousness.
But according to lazy Olympia, going about computation in such a
stuffy way reduces this assumption to an absurdity.
Of course, in terms of numerical ontology, the assumption that
computation => consciousness is equally a priori, but at least it's
not absurd. In this case, brains, TMs - and bricks - share a
computational ontology, so we can get building.
Reconsidering my recent statements in the light of this, I suspect I'm
trying to eat my cake and have it (an old tendency) - but this might
be OK. It still seems to me that the a priori ontological assumption
of choice is some fundamental conjunction of self-access +
self-relativisation: i.e.the One, I guess. Stuff and consciousness -
which I suspect to be a spurious dichotomy - get collapsed into this.
But given self-relativisation in the context of self-access, you can
follow the math in either 'stuffy' or 'computational' directions till
you get where you need to be, and like others I suspect this will play
out according as we discover the relative derivation of persons <=>
things. As before, perhaps this is a no-more-neutral-than-necessary
monism, and I guess it leaves the question of emulation as model or
reality to be settled empirically.
David
> Brent
>> Now of course this stricture wouldn't necessarily apply to model 3).
>> But the 'comp' that Colin claims to refute is, I suspect, not this but
>> stuffy-comp - i.e. the comp based on stuff rather than numbers, that
>> Olympia, in her lazy but decisive way, dismisses as ephemeral. This
>> is also the comp that I have argued against, but I don't intend this
>> merely to be a re-statement of my prejudices. I know that Colin isn't
>> precisely a proponent of model 3) nor model 4), arguing strenuously
>> for a distinctive alternative; so it would be interesting (certainly
>> for me) if he'd care to characterise precisely how it diverges from or
>> extends the foregoing stuffy-numerical dichotomy.
>>
>> Be that as it may, the punchline is: do we find this analysis of the
>> distinction between numerical 3) and stuffy 4) to be cogent with
>> *specific* respect to the significance and possible application of the
>> concept of 'emulation' in each case?
>>
>> David
>>
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Fri Aug 14 2009 - 02:18:59 PDT