On 14 Aug 2009, at 03:18, David Nyman wrote:
>
> 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'?
Not at all. With comp, the basic "level" has to be any universal
system. (N,+,*) of combinators or JAVA, whatever. Quantum like stuffy
bricks have to emerge from the inside first person indeterminacy. The
proble of comp is that such a stuff is a priori not digitally
emulable. The quantum computer is a threat to comp! That is why I have
developed AUDA, it shows that universal machine have a highly non
trivial epistemology and physics, so that hope remains to save comp by
providing the comp explanation of the origin of the apparent quantum
waves.
>
>
>> 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.
You are right, with comp. Stuffy bricks cannot be emulated by turing
machine, except perhaps by quantum one, but that has to be justified
from number and logic alone.
> 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?
Only for the mind. Matter escapes computation, once we assume that
"we" are machine.
I think that you fail to take into account simultaneously UDA1-6,
UDA-7, and UDA-8. I know it is not easy.
>
>
>> 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?
You are dismissing the first person indeterminacy. A stuffy TM can run
a computation. But if a consciousness is attached to that computation,
it is automatically attached to an infinity of immaterial and relative
computations as well, and from the perspective of that consciousness,
it entails that if the person (with consciousness) decide to look at
his stuffy neighborhood, below its comp-substitution, he will discover
the trace of that, a priori non turing emulable, infinities of
computations.
>
> 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.
OK. And then UDA1-7 shows that any possible observable "stuffy" thing
is given by a probability/credibility measure on an infinity of
computations.
>
>
> 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.
Hmm... Not really. The bricks become a priori beyond the computable.
Immaterial, like number relation, but non computable, like a
probability on a infinite, even continuous, realities made of infinite
computations.
>
>
> 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.
Here we are back on our little theological divergence. I may insist
you take a look on the Plotinus paper. The ONE is really arithmetical
truth before any notion of self is yet defined. Once a notion of self
appears, truth degenerate into provable provability and true
provability (G and G*, the eterrestrial intellect and the divine
intellect), which will degenerate into the universal self/soul (the
God of the eastern). And this one, due to tension with the intellect,
will fall, and that fall generate the non Turing emulable stuffy
matter. Then the soul will try to go back to the ONE. Except that this
temporal image is a bit a simplification. In a sense the fall and the
coming back are the same arithmetical process. "The ONE see the
falling souls, and the souls see their rise to the ONE. Same
arithmetical truth, but from different points of view.
> 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.
With comp, reality is definitely not Turing emulable. If we discover a
computable theory of reality, then we will know that we cannot say yes
to the doctor, we will have to abandon the comp hyp.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Fri Aug 14 2009 - 10:48:55 PDT