Re: Belief & Knowledge

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2001 16:57:19 -0700

Hello Marchal

On 07-May-01, Marchal wrote:
> Robert W. wrote in part:
>
>> One must realize in the attempt to constrain common
>> everyday experience to a finite conceptual space,
>> that something will be lost in the translation.
>
>
> Brent Meeker answered in part
> (to Robert W., in the invisible post):
>
>
>>> Of course, ineffable mystical experiences will be
>>> left out.
>
>
> Is not consciousness the first ineffable experience?

In a sense it is - but in another sense it is the *only* thing we do
talk about, our conscious experiences and thoughts. Freud made a
career of supposing that some things we say come from an unconscious,
but this seems doubtful to me - or to be more precise most of my
thinking is unconscious, but what I say is one of the things I'm most
conscious of.

> At least it seems to me that consciousness in unprovable,
> uncommunicable.

That's why I'm intrigued by your project to capture consciousness in
computation (whatever that means); whereas Robert W. seems irritated by
it.

You can just hope people understand what
> you say by having had similar experiences.
>
> This is one of my motivation for thinking that consciousness
> and consistency share the formula:
>
> -[]c
>
> Saying just that c (consistency, consciousness) is not provable,
> not finitely communicable, ... ineffable?
>
> Goedel's second theorem: c -> -[]c (c = <>TRUE, or -[]FALSE).

There may be more than just a poetic analogy; although the unprovable
but true formulae that Godel's theorem exhibits are not at all
ineffable. They are just like the other WFF's and can be added as
axioms.

Brent Meeker
P.S. Bruno, I have added you to my file of tag-line quotes - I hope you
don't mind:
"Logic is just a polite way of helping people (including oneself) to
realise
they have prejudices."
    
      -- Bruno Marchal
Received on Mon May 07 2001 - 18:06:46 PDT