Re: Emulation and Stuff

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:05:28 -0700

Flammarion wrote:
>
>
> On 19 Aug, 01:51, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> David Nyman wrote:
>>> On 19 Aug, 00:20, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>>> Note that I have never said that matter does not exist. I have no
>>>> doubt it exists. I am just saying that matter cannot be primitive,
>>>> assuming comp. Matter is more or less the border of the ignorance of
>>>> universal machines (to be short). There is a fundamental physics which
>>>> capture the invariant for all possible universal machine observation,
>>>> and the rest is geography-history. Assuming comp the consistent-
>>>> contingent obeys laws.
>>> AFAICS the essence of Bruno's dispute with Peter consists in:
>>> 1) ***If you accept the computational theory of mind (CTM)*** then
>>> matter can no longer be primitive to your explanations of appearances
>>> of any kind, mental or physical.
>>> 2) ***If you assert that matter is primitive to your explanation of
>>> appearances of any kind, mental or physical (PM)*** it is illegitimate
>>> to appeal to CTM.
>>> Bruno's position is that only one of the above can be true (i.e. CTM
>>> and PM are incompatible) as shown by UDA-8 (MGA/Olympia). I've also
>>> argued this, in a somewhat different form. Peter's position I think
>>> is that 1) and 2) are both false (or in any case that CTM and PM are
>>> compatible). Hence the validity of UDA-8 - in its strongest form -
>>> seems central to the current dispute, since it is essentially this
>>> argument that motivates the appeal to arithmetical realism, the topic
>>> currently generating so much heat. UDA-8 sets out to be provable or
>>> disprovable on purely logical grounds. I for one am unclear on what
>>> basis it could be attacked as invalid. Can anyone show strong grounds
>>> for this?
>>> David
>> I think you are right that the MGA is at the crux. But I don't know whether to regard it
>> as proving that computation need not be physically instantiated or as a reductio against
>> the "yes doctor" hypothesis. Saying yes to the doctor seems very straightforward when you
>> just think about the doctor replacing physical elements of your brain with functionally
>> similar elements made of silicon or straw or whatever. But then I reflect that I, with my
>> new head full of straw, must still interact with the world. So I have not been reduced to
>> computation unless the part of the world I interact with is also replaced by computational
>> elements
>
> If you were a programme interacting with the world before,
> you still will be after a function-preserving replacement is made.

Yes, but my future experience will not have been reduced to the running of Turing-emulable
program - it will depend on impinging effects not part of the program, unless the
environment is also part of the emulation.

Brent

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Received on Wed Aug 19 2009 - 10:05:28 PDT

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