Re: Emulation and Stuff

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:31:12 +0200

On 20 Aug 2009, at 10:46, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 19 Aug, 16:41, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>>>>>> I don't see, indeed, how you can both define matter from
>>>>>> contingent
>>>>>> structures and still pretend that matter is primitive.
>>
>>>>> I am saying that material existence *is* contingent
>>>>> existence. It is not a structure of anything.
>>
>>>> Plotinus says that too! Me too.
>>>> With church thesis this is can be made more precise in term of not-
>>>> computable or not-provable, or some relativizations.
>>
>>> You're still not getting it. PM isn't a non-computable number.
>>> It isn't mathematical at all. You really do think in a box..
>>
>> If you believe that a deduction is not valid, you have to say where,
>> and why.
>
>
> 1. Somehting X is non-computable
> 2. Everything is mathematical
> 3. Therefore X is a non-computable number.
>
> The conclusion is valid. But (2) is a belief of yours that
> I don't share. Hence *I* don't agree PM is a non-computable number

You have really decide to attack me without reading me.

I have send at least 05 posts where I explain why I am very dubious
about "2".


>
>
>>>>>> Somehow you talk like you would be able to be *conscious* of the
>>>>>> existence of primitive matter.
>>
>>>>> Well, at least I don't talk about immaterial machines dreaming
>>>>> each
>>>>> other.
>>
>>>> In arithmetic, that happens all the time. More below.
>>
>>> !!!!
>>
>>> In arithemetic. people write down problems on blackboards and solve
>>> them.
>>
>> If comp is assumed, some computation correspond to dream, and their
>> existence can be proved in arithmetic.
>
> Mathematics cannot prove metaphysical claims.


If comp is assume we are doing an hypothesis which is "metaphysical",
or "theological". It is a belief in a form of reincarnation.
You attacks me perpetually on statements which I never uttered.



> Backwards-E is metaphysically non-commital.

?



>
>> And the MGA argument shows that no machine can make the difference
>> between "real", virtual and arithmetical.
>
>>> There is no immaterial existence at all, and my agreeign to have
>>> my brain physcially replicated doesn't prove there is.
>>
>> Meaning: UDA is non valid. I am still waiting your argument.
>
> I don't grant step 00 -- the immaterial existence of a UD
> or any other mathematical structure.

Indeed, you don't believe in the number seven. But sometimes you seem
to believe in their mathematical existence, and that is all what I
need. The UD exists in the same sense than the number seven.
If you don't believe in the mathematical existence of the number
seven, then indeed you cannot go farther than step zero.
I let you know you are the first person on this planet who does not
believe in the mathematical existence of the number seven.


>
>>>> You have to deny the theorem of elementary arithmetic, which are
>>>> used
>>>> by physicists (mostly through complex or trigonometric functions,
>>>> which reintroduce the natural numbers in the continuum).
>>
>>> No. I don't have to deny their truth. I just have to deny that
>>> mathematical
>>> existence is ontological existence.
>>
>> I have no clue what you mean by "ontological existence",
>
> It is what Platonists affirm of numbers and formalists deny

Formalist accept arithmetical existence. They reject set theoretical
existence.
They need arithmetical existence to define their formal systems.


>
>> except
>> "physical existence", but this beg the question.
>> If you don't deny the arithmetical truth, you accept arithmetical
>> realism, and you cannot deny the UD, so you should be able to follow
>> the argument. And if you believe the conclusion is wrong, you should
>> say where.
>
> I have explained this over and over. I accept that
> true backwards-E statements are true. I don't accept that backwards-E
> means ontological existence.

When science tackle fundamental question, it is better to be agnostic
and abandon any ontological commitment.
Your ontological, and philosophical commitment, seems to prevent you
to even read the reasoning.




>
>>> Since it [UD] does not exist, it does not contain anything.
>>
>> UD exists like PI exists.
>
> That doesn't exist ontologically either

The point is that the proof goes on with such form on not necessarily
ontological existence, or you have to show where in the reasoning
things get wrong.



>
>> The rest is taken into account in the
>> argument that I am referring to.
>> Don't say that PI and circle does not exists. Say that PI and circles
>> does not exist physically. It is quite different.
>
> Even Platonists regard them as existing non-physically.

But this is what I was saying. You don't read the post either
apparently.

Here I was asking you to say that "seven does not exist physically"
instead of your usual "seven does not exist".





>
>
>
>>> That is never going to get you further than mathematical existence.
>>> You still need the futher step of showing mathematical existence is
>>> ontological RITISAR existence.
>>
>> I still don't know if by RITSIAR you mean "real in the sense my first
>> person is real" or "real as my body is real".
>> You told me that the difference is epistemological, and I can accept
>> this (for a while). But that makes a huge difference in the meaning
>> of
>> RITSIAR. I cannot doubt my first person, but I can doubt my body.
>> After UDA+MGA, my first person appears to have an infinity of bodies
>> (like in QM without collapse), and this makes the difference between
>> those two forms of RITSIAR even bigger.
>
> UDA proves nothing without an argument of the actual, if non-physical,
> existence of numbers.

I need the usual mathematical existence of number. By comp, the ontic
theory of everything is shown to be any theory in which I can
represent the computable function. The very weak Robinson Arithmetic
is already enough.
The internal epistemology needs more, like the induction axioms. And,
most probably, matter and consciousness themselves get outside
mathematics.



>
>>>> See "conscience & mécanisme" appendices for snapshot of a running
>>>> mathematical DU. It exists mathematically. But it can be
>>>> implemented
>>>> "materially" , i.e. relatively to our most probable computations
>>>> too.
>>
>>> So? It hasn't been.
>>
>> It has been implemented, and it has run for a week in 1991. This is
>> anecdotical. Just to say that the UD is a concrete program.
>
> But it is hardly going to contain vast infinities after a week.

Even after billions of millenia. It is not relevant.

>
>>> The way to prevent it is the same way that all sceptical hypotheses
>>> are prevented. You just note that there is not a scrap of evidence
>>> for them. The only upshot of scepticism is that there is no
>>> certainty, and we have to argue for the position of the greatest
>>> plausibility.
>>
>> I have better that a scrap of evidence: a deductive argument. A
>> proof,
>> that COMP => physics has to emerge from numbers.
>
>> But I have also evidences for comp, in the sense that the physics
>> which emerge from numbers is a multiversial physics, and the quantum
>> reality makes many people to consider that we may live in a
>> multiversial reality. And I have also more technical evidences coming
>> from the Arithmetical UDA. That are evidence for comp.
>>
>>
>>
>>> I can't be "in" something that has merely mathematical existence,
>>> any
>>> more than I can be "in" Nanrnia
>>
>> ... then CTM (comp) is false, and you should help us to find the
>> error
>
> comp is false because comp=CTM+CTT+AR
> CTM is not falsified.

comp = CTM. You may repeat the contrary as much as you want, but comp
is CTM. You are the one who has invented a sequence of notion like
seven needs to have actual or ontological existence for the reasoning
to go through, but you have never show where in the reasoning I am
using such actuality or ontologicalness.



>
>> in UDA, instead of just denying existence for what almost everybody
>> accepts to exist mathematically.
>
> That is not true at all. Mathematicians tend to
> be instinctive Platonists.

And I am not. But I am platonist (I prefer to say "arithmetical
realist") in the arithmetical realm. This means that I believe that
classical logic can be applied to arithmetical sentences. I have met
mechanist who are not arithmetical realist. I have never met
computationalist which are not arithmetical realist, if only because
you cannot prove any "limitation result" in computer science without it.
You are not criticizing comp, you are criticizing computer science.



> One of the upshots
> of that is that they don't feel the need to argue
> for Platonism, which in turn means they
> never formulate good argumetns for it.

(I don't use platonism, even in the usual sense of the mathematician)

If you believe that arithmetical realism could be false, CTM lost all
its appeal and even sense.

Now the UDA reasoning can be done even with an intuitionist weakening
of arithmetical realism, but it makes the prose more technical. Only
ultrafinitism really break the UDA proof down.




>
> They have the same assumptions but "where" they are alters
> the truth of the assumptions.
> Since the truth of the conclusions
> depends
> on the soundness of the assumptions , they do not both have to be
> correct
> even if they are employing the same reasoning.


This shows you put the assumption in the conclusion!
The reasoning of the material P.Jones, about the existence of matter
is correct because it is material, and the reasoning of the
mathematical P. Jones is non correct because it is immaterial.
But the reasoning was supposed to show that P. Jones is material!

I begin to believe what Jesse and David says: you are dodging the
issue. You don't seem at all motivated in understanding, just in being
right by decision.





>
>>>> The mind-body problem comes from the fact that we have not yet find
>>>> how to attach consciousness to matter.
>>
>>> No, it comes from no being able to attach *phenomenal*
>>> consciousness to mathematical structures. There is no problem
>>> attaching *cognition* to matter at all. If the matter of your brain
>>> is disrupted, so are your though processes.
>>
>> What is *phenomenal* consciousness?
>
> http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.block.html

This is called consciousness in all our discussion. The other form are
type of cognition.


>
>> Is not consciousness always
>> phenomenal? How do you define matter and attach cognition to it? You
>> are talking like if materialist did find a solution of the mind-body
>> problem.
>
> You can attach cogninition to matter through computation or
> some other approach like connectionism. that's the Easy Problem.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
>
> Attaching Phenomenal Consiousness to matter is the Hard Problem,
> and CTM is not the tiniest bit more successful than materialism in
> that
> regard.

Read "conscience et mécanisme" *before* judging.





>
>> This is not the case.
>> And yes, if the matter in my brain is disrupted, so are my thought
>> processes. This is one reason to accept comp. So what?
>>
>> I have some colleagues who argues that MGA is not needed. They have
>> read some papers on the phantom limbs, and they argue that
>> consciousness (like the consciousness of a pain in the limb) is
>> obviously non material, because it cannot be located in the limb, and
>> cannot be located in the brain, nor elsewhere.
>
> That's a terribly bad argument. All you need for phantom limb
> pain is a map of the body in the brain. There is even an anatomical
> structure that does the job
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_homunculus
>
> And it's been know for a century!

Yes. and you agree with this? You agree that consciousness is not
located in space and time at all, not even in the brain. This is
indeed accepted by many, and this is why PM+CTM has so big
difficulties, unanimously recognized.
With PM you have to attach consciousness to something spatial or
temporal of physical. CTM, per se, has not that problem, given that it
attach the non physical consciousness to non physical relation between
numbers.



>
>> They find that the "yes
>> doctor" hypothesis, when well understood (yes doctor *qua
>> computatio*)
>> makes us immaterial at once, and that it is obvious that matter is
>> what needs an explanation. I have succeeded in explaining to some of
>> them that such argument can't go through, on purely logical grounds,
>> but MGA does go through, and if you think plausible, against such
>> colleagues, that consciousness is a material phenomenon, then UDA
>> shows you that such a material phenomenon cannot be Turing emulable.
>
>
> MGA doesn't go through if mental activity is taken to supervene
> on computational activity.

MGA forces to attach consciousness on computational activity, only.
But it prevent to attach it on physical activity, except when physical
activity is itself determine by the many, first person equivalent,
computational activities.




>
>>>> It is the same reasoning.
>>>> Or you have a special sense making you know that you are the "real"
>>>> one, but either that special sense is Turing emulable and your
>>>> doppelganger inherit them, or it is not Turing emulable, and you
>>>> better should say "no" to the doctor, because you would loose that
>>>> sense.
>>
>>> I don't need to strenuously argue against that there is something
>>> special about me that makes me un-emulable , or un-BIV-able.
>>> I just have to note that there is no evidence for either hypothesis.
>>> The burden is on the sceptic.
>>
>> There are ton of evidences. My favorite one is that *primary* matter
>> is not even assumed in any physical text.
>
> Who's the physicist here?
>
> Results 01 - 10 of about 18,800,000 for" physics matte"r. (0.35
> seconds)


You are joking or what? Physics is quasi defined by the study of
matter, with or without comp.
But I was taking about your notion of PM, primary matter, or primitive
matter.

I have never find a paper by a physicist which makes such an
assumption. Only philosophers, and theologian address the question.

CTM does not entails the disappearance of matter, only the idea that
it is primary notion.



>
>> I have finished to read Aristotle for the second times, and I am not
>> sure at all that he is responsible for that notion. I think that such
>> a notion appeared the first time in catholic texts to prevent a
>> protestant understanding of the relation between Jesus and braid.
>> I may begin to ask you to define what is primary matter. Your use of
>> it looks more and more like the use of "God".
>> And about conceptual analysis of that notion of matter, I would
>> like a
>> definition of matter which does not rely on matter, like Dennett asks
>> for consciousness. If not, it is a sort of fake God.
>> To say that matter is fundamental, comma, is the same as saying that
>> consciousness is fundamental comma. It is the same kind of misuse of
>> God-like notion which explains the difficulty to keep a reasonable
>> scientific, modest and agnostic, attitude in the fundamental fields.
>
> And saying maths is fundamental is somehow OK?


Numbers, together with addition and multiplication can be useful for
the fundamental, because it can be proved that no simpler theory can
justify them, and then they lead to an explanation of why
consciousness develop and get the physical appearance. Math itself is
far too big and undefined. With CTM, it is a theorem than the
existence of anything above addition and multiplication is absolutely
undecidable.


>
>> I am sorry Peter, but CTM + PM just does not work, and it is a good
>> news, because if we keep CTM, we get a sort of super generalization
>> of
>> Darwin idea that things evolve. Now we know, assuming comp, that the
>> physical laws have a reason, and that they evolves, in a non tempral
>> or spatial way, in some arithmetico-logical space.
>>
>
>> It is not yet a complete solution of the mind-body problem, but it is
>> a progress.
>
> So is materialism!

No. It has been a not too bad simplifying methodological assumption,
and it has helped up to develop some technological skills. But it has
made ridicule the human science, and has led to the abandon of the
science theology to the temporal authoritative powers.

And concerning the mind-body problem, materialism is the box which
makes it impossible to solve that problem. Honest materialist like
Dennett knows that eventually to keep matter and current physicalism,
you have to eliminate persons, and explain consciousness away. UDA
+AUDA explains why, and provide the tools and ideas to understand how
the illusion of matter, and its stability, comes from.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Received on Thu Aug 20 2009 - 12:31:12 PDT

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