Re: Dreaming On

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 17:47:49 +0200

On 01 Sep 2009, at 14:52, David Nyman wrote:

>
> 2009/9/1 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>:
>
>>> Bruno hasn't
>>> yet persuaded me that an explicitly non-computational theory of mind
>>> on some such basis is actually untenable.
>>
>>
>> I don't think I have ever said that.
>
> No, you're right. However I was referring to the fact that you
> sometimes attach certain, presumably in-your-view problematic,
> entailments to it (see below).
>
>> - Physicalism entails that any theory of mind should rely on actual
>> big infinities
>>
>> The proof is constructive: CTM implies that physics, in all its
>> precision, can be found in this way ..... (self-reference logic,
>> etc.).
>>
>> But the proof can be indeed weakened. We have still the reversal with
>> transfinite weakening of comp. Hypermachine, oracles, etc. does not
>> change the result. To keep physicalism intact we need a mind close to
>> being, not a god, but *the * God, if that is not inconsistent. Who
>> knows? In that case, comp, or CTM, is false.
>
> Does your comment above about "big infinities" and *the* God
> correspond in any way to Plotinus's view of the One, or the poetic
> idea that the universe is the "mind" of God?

Yes. I suggest to interpret the ONE of Plotinus by arithmetical truth.
This is a highly non computable object.
It is provably the "one" of little Löbian machine, and it is still an
open problem if it could be ours. Typically, human have in appearance
stronger provability power than Pean Arithmetic (my lobian machine pet).



> IOW that the context of
> mind would have to encompass *everything physical* (however we might
> express this in terms of current theory) rather than be based on some
> definable computational subset such as AR?

AR extends the computable. AR is the belief that arithmetical truth
makes sense, but it is far bigger than what machines can ever prove.
This will be made more precise in the seventh step series thread.
And the physical world becomes even more complex. Even undecidable in
company of an oracle for arithmetical truth. Plato's nous, Plotinus
intellect is bigger than "God", actually.



> In this case, I guess
> there might still be a way to recover the first-person "I" as
> attachable to physically-differentiated viewpoints within such a
> maximally generalised context. The WR problem might still be present
> with a vengeance, depending on choice of QM interpretation,

I don't really believe there is any intepretation problem of QM. QM is
the discovery of the quantum parallel universes, and right at the
start the founder have put a principle (collapse) so that such
universes disappears, but this has never been shown tenable. And then
the works of Everett, Deutsch, to Zurek, shows that QM solves the
white rabbit problem, except for the comp first person white rabbits,
which needs the extraction of QM (SWE) from numbers.




> and in any
> case current physicalist assumptions about mind IMO make light both of
> persons and mental appearances. Is there some more-or-less coherent
> way to characterise the dichotomies between CTM and physicalist
> theories of mind on some such basis?

Roughly speaking, because it is a vast subject, but for being short
argument against Everett are of the same type than argument against
comp.
Comp is an ally to Everett, except it shows that Everett has not been
enough radical. It is really Church thesis which asks for such a
radicality in the 'indexical approach.


>
> BTW, discussion of the strong entailment against PM as explanatory of
> the appearance of matter within CTM is still stalled on Peter's
> complaint that there has not been a clear demonstration of the
> validity of the UDA-8 MGA/Olympia arguments. Is there anything
> further that can be done to resolve this?

Certainly, especially at the pedagogical problem. It is subtle matter.


> I note that, in addition to
> your own papers, there have been many extensive threads on this topic
> on the list. Is there some way to summarise these that would aid the
> situation, or do you perhaps feel that sufficient has been published
> to place the burden of proof on the dissenter?

If the dissenter does not say where he has a problem, this is
difficult to answer.

Bruno



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




--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Tue Sep 01 2009 - 17:47:49 PDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Feb 16 2018 - 13:20:16 PST