Godfrey writes
> Hi Everythingers,
>
> Though I am new to the list I have been reading your fascinating posts
> on this troubling issue of "reality" and subjectivity
> so please pardon if I skip the protocol and delve into the discussion
> right away. I have a background in computer
> and cognitive science if you want to know, but little chance to
> engage in exchanges on philosophical matters
> such as the ones in which you guys are involved in. Forgive me if I
> misunderstand some of the finer details (yes I know,
> the devil is there...)
Welcome! But there's no pecking order here, we're all equal! :-)
> Scientific Reality is definitely more specific
> than reality in general. There is also much that
> one can aknowledge without admitting to its reality. I have heard of,
> say, alien abductions but would not swear to their reality,
> though others may differ.
Is that so? So the Saucerians exist in their reality, but not
mine. I guess we're all, like I said, equal? How can anyone
be crazy? After all, their reality is as good as anyone's,
right?
(As you see, we are not equal in our capacity for sarcasm, and
I'm currently the most irascible frequent poster on this list.
Bill Taylor is on vacation, I guess. It's a tough job, but
someone has to do it.)
> [GK]
> I would argue that numbers are rather objective, perhaps even more than
> physical laws and surely so if you [Bruno] are right, no?
Yes, quite a few here are what we call (and maybe you do too)
mathematical Platonists. When "Platonist" is used, it's always
in the sense of *mathematical* Platonism. IMO.
Sorry I don't have time to comment on the rest of your 23 kilo-byte
post. Thanks for joining and contributing!
Sincerely,
Lee
> If that derivation is just a piece of your subjectivity that may dash
> your hopes to convey it to others...
>
> There is also an "animal" called *self-delusion* that inhabits this
> realm between the subjective and the objective and amounts
> to taking for real what isn't quite so. But why bring it into this
> already confusing and confused exchanged.
Actually, thanks for bringing this up. I'm almost sorry I wrote
what I wrote above, but I love everything I write and so won't
delete it.
> [LC]
> > My friends and I (and probably Daniel Dennett and so on) believe
> > that people who demand a 1st person "account of the world" (e.g.
> > Chalmers) will never get anywhere.
>
> [BM]
> Actually, this is one of the main point where I differ from George
> Levy (OK George?), although I could make sense of it. The point is, and
> Dennett agrees on this, that, in cognitive *science*, we need to
> develop some third person discourse on the first person discourses.
> OK, strictly speaking the quantum and physical discourses appears at
> some first person (plural) level.
>
> Chalmers is not getting anywhere(*), ok. Perhaps we agree on this.
>
> [GK]
> Dennett might have evolved in his position but the whole effort behind
> cognitive science has long been that of "unpacking"
> the notion of "qualia" out of the philosophical discourse. But that is
> hardly the same as explaining the 1st person discourse in
> 3rd person language. Explaining what elation or sadness correspond to
> in terms of neural processes does not help me find
> out why I am elated today and sad tomorrow. Usually those experience
> are much easier to explain and in objective terms.
>
> [BM]
> (*) Using Everett to defend dualism! See the quite good explanation
> how Everett is deeply monist in the book:
> PRIMAS H., 1981, Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics and Reductionism,
> Springer-Verlag, Berlin (second, corrected edition : 1983)
>
> > That the "hard problem" or
> > whatever is just a horrible consequence of the way sense impressions
> > traveling on neurons give rise to people thinking that their
> > own perceptions are a sort of reality independent of the physical
> > reality. We think that this is a sort of delusion, although the
> > very #?!&$-AT_SYMBOL-! structure of our language hideously leads from that
> > to "who or what is being deluded?".
>
> Mmhh....
>
>
> > This might be a good time to ask what is meant by that word you
> > just used. Hal explained "computationalist hypothesis" as used
> > by philosophers, e.g., that a robot (that was just CPU driven)
> > could be conscious.
>
> Actually this is the strong AI thesis. Logically comp is stronger,
> because comp is the thesis that "I" am a machine (I, You, ...). Comp is
> stronger because the fact that machine could think does not entails
> that only machine could think! (despite Occam!).
> Now comp is weaker than most functionalism in the philosophy of mind,
> because comp asserts only the existence of a level of substitution at
> which we are Turing-emulable. Functionalist reason like if the level
> was known, but that's impossible.
>
> > have believed that since 1966 when I used
> > to argue about it with people in high school. *Lots* of people
> > believe that. I have taken "COMP" to be Bruno's Thesis, in which
> > practically everything can be derived fundamentally from the
> > integers alone, using Gödel's results, and other rather recently
> > discovered truths.
>
> No no. That's the theorem. Comp is precisely the conjonction of Church
> Thesis, of some amount of belief in arithmetic, + the act of faith
> saying "yes" to *some* digitalist surgeon.
> All what I say, I derive it (hopefully correctly) from comp.
>
> It is also different from Schmidhuber (and many others) who makes the
> thesis that there is a "physical universe" and that it is computable
> (programmable). I think that comp is quasi-incompatible with this.
>
> [GK]
> Quasi-incompatible, indeed! Thanks for clearing this out. It is
> understandable why you need a 1st person belief statement
> if your hypothesis is that You (Bruno) are a machine. I will grant you
> that straight away, as it occurred to me already while
> noticing that most of your interventions "loop" around that COMP thing.
> You, Bruno Machinal are a machine! I will even grant
> you that I am a machine and will say "yes" to your digitalist, if he
> hasn't replaced all my parts yet. But let me ask you: doesn't
> everybody have to believe you for your hypothesis to be true? And if
> everyone does so, doesn't it automatically cease to
> be an hypothesis and become the universal religion of happy machines?
>
> Mmmmmh!
>
> [LC]
> > So I dismiss the 1st person, remarking that it's "existence" is
> > but only to be expected. If an ape or a parrot could talk, it
> > could yak on about it's impressions. And they'd be of little
> > but therapeutic value.
>
> [BM]
> Thanks for acknowledging the therapy! With comp, this would mean the
> appearance of the physical world originates in some intrinsic universal
> machine self-therapy. It makes sense...
>
> ...
>
> I must go now. Apology for not having respected the order of your
> paragraphs, but my computer take some initiative apparently!
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
> [GK]
> Funny, mine just did the same!!! It erased something about Bip Bip or
> some such thing. Oh well... It may just need some
> good self-therapy. God knows what will come out of that...
>
> Best wishes with ... "the Work",
>
> Godfrey
Received on Wed Aug 10 2005 - 19:14:09 PDT