Hi Bruno,
OK. I think we are making progress. I will start the other thread
after this message
as I don't really have more obvious divergences from you and you are
kind enough
to indulge me in this little diversion. As before I will erase the
obvious points of
agreement below...
Godfrey Kurtz
(New Brunswick, NJ)
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
To: kurtleegod.domain.name.hidden
Cc: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Sent: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:48:06 +0200
Subject: Re: subjective reality
Hi Godfrey,
Le 18-août-05, à 20:27, kurtleegod.domain.name.hidden a écrit :
(skipped)
[BM]
"No YD, no Bruno"!?! You make me anxious :)
[GK]
I am sorry! That was very callous of me! I really did not mean to
imply that you would be "eliminated"
by my argument! Much on the contrary, I am hoping you will be...
illuminated (;-) !!!
[BM]
SWE : Schroedinger Wave Equation
YD: Saying Yes to a doctor who propose you an artificial digital
"generalized brain". First axiom of comp.
(Some people complains out-of-line for the acronyms, so I repeat them
once by mail).
> It seems to me that you are weaseling out of it but I don't quite >
care if you take refuge in another Everett World.
> That
> would be a cop out and I am sure you know it. I want you and I >
digitised IN THIS WORLD! I don't care for copies!
[BM]
Well: not of copies IN THIS WORLD, I guess. Giving that that is really
the by-product of saying YES to the DOCTOR (YD).
[GK]
I would like to leave copies out of the YD because I think those would
actually invalidate the premise. If you ran into
a copy of yourself in the street you may suspect that something is
amiss in your world!
> [GK]
> I don't much care what you can deduce from COMP, Bruno. I care that
> COMP=YD+CT+AR and that shooting down YD would
> shoot down COMP. You could very well deduce from COMP my >
non-existence if YD is false.
Only if YD is *proved* false!!! (I could deduce your inexistence from
the SWE if any TOE (theory of everything) which supposed SWE true, if
SWE is false!). You are saying something very general here!
[GK]
What I propose to do is to show you that your premise, YD, is false.
That allows me to dismiss anything you say based
on that premise. That is actually not general at all but extremely
specific. From here on I will make no comment on
any sentence you preface with "But from COMP (or YD) I can prove
that..." . Nothing personal, please understand.
> BM: Ouh la la. You are close to the 1004 fallacy (asking for more >
precise definition than the reasoning itself). At the start you can >
use the term "axioms", "postulates", "theses", "premises", >
"assumptions", "hypotheses", etc.. in a similar way.
>
> [GK]
> I think you get my point. I am not asking for precision at all. I am
> pointing out that thesis and doctrines are not hypotheses
> tout court. These three "assumptions" do not have the same epistemic
> status and it is misleading to call them the same.
> If you don't like it, than acknowledge my pragmatics: if your >
point-of-view is falsifiable it should be so without compromising >
either CT and AR which stand very well on their own as you underscore >
below:
[BM]
Mmhhh... This is your opinion, and perhaps mine. But not of most
people to which my proof is addressed (computer scientist).
[GK]
Oh I would not worry! Computer scientists are by, now, used to have
their hopes dashed (;-). And you strike me as a "real
grown-up" since you are not afraid of facing up to empirical testing!
(skipped)
> [BM]
> Well, I have decided to put it explicitly, because, in front of my >
reasoning, some people cop out simply by saying "Ah, but you are a >
platonist!". So I prefer to say it at once. I agree with you it is a >
sort of "cop out". Now, although 99,99999999 % of the mathematician >
are platonist during the week, most like to pretends they are not (the
> week-end!).
>
> [GK]
>
> Ditto.
Hope you are not serious!
[GK]
Sorry! "Ditto" over here in the States is used as a note of agreement.
(skipped)
[BM]
Well, you will perhaps accuse me of weaseling out again, but thinking
twice, I believe I have answer too quickly in the sense that for saying
yes for an artificial *digital* brain to a Doctor you need to know a
bit what "digital" means, and for this you need CT (Church Thesis), and
for this, I think, you need AR (Arithmetical Realism). But as you say,
CT and AR are mainly bodyguards of YD.
[GK]
Oh. No problem there. Maybe I did not make it clear enough. What I am
suggesting is that we (you and I) agree implicitly
that CT and AR are unassailably true for the purposes of my argument!
I will in fact need that to be the case at the very least
for CT. As for "digital brain" I am sure we can reach some agreement
on that.
(skipped)
>
> [GK]
> Bruno, you are weaseling out again, here! Let me ask you this in >
clear terms again:
>
> Can you, Yes or No, derive your whole "grand manege" from CT and AR
> alone?
>
> Because if it is a "yes" here I will give you the Oscar (and the >
Nobel) and let you go. I can than concentrate on
> being a good machine for the rest of my existence since I don't want
> to loose my platonic allegiances or my
> heuristic acquiescence to CT.
[BM]
If by "grand manege" you mean the physical laws: the answer is YES !
(Thanks for the Oscar and Nobel :).
If by "grand manege" you mean deriving the physical laws and
understanding why it is necessarily so, the answer is probably NO. (Nor
could Everett derive the Wave Collapse appearance without something
equivalent to the YD).
[GK]
In that case enjoy the prize! If you derived the laws of physics from
CT and AR alone you surely deserve the recognition you
will enjoy because that is a remarkable accomplishment!
Congratulations!
I feel like saying: my work here is done! Without even trying I have
let you relinquish one of your hypothesis!
I hope you give me a note of recognition when you re-write your proof
and take that pesky YD from the set of
hypothesis! (:-)
(skipped)
[BM]
But this is just fair! For refuting a proof in applied logic it is
sufficient to show the inconsistency of the premises. If you succeed
not only you really don't need to follow the UDA steps (UDA= Universal
Dovetalier Argument), but nobody will ever need to do that!
Actually the two or three first steps of UDA are just there to make
the premises clearer.
Please note that in the UDA I generally add supplementary hypotheses
which I eliminate later with the Universal Dovetailer.
[GK]
See, now you put me in a really tricky position! People in this list
are already claiming that I am acting coy or trying to bluff
my way out of giving them what I promised!!! That is what is NOT fair!
On one hand you want to see my cards, on the
other you don't want to risk anything and you are now saying that YD
is worth nothing and that you just include it to
make computer scientists happy! That is not cool! Right when I was
taking you for a "grown up"!...
>
> What I would like to do next is the following:
>
> 1) State the YD hypothesis in a way that is both consistent with
your > statement and useful for my purposes. I will
> do that in a separate thread shortly. I need you to agree on that >
version, of course.
[BM]
Careful: your statement should not just be consistent with YD, but
equivalent to it or at least imply by it to derive something ...
[GK]
Well, YD is so secondary to your purposes, why do you care? I am
almost sure you would approve my version but I am not
putting it down until you give me a good reason to do it!!!
>
> 2) Once you agree I will tell you a little parable (allegory is more
> platonic, I guess) that illustrates the strict use of that
> statement and the contradition that obtains from it.
>
> 3) After that I will tell you what that contradiction may be useful
> in settling a certain dispute on the question of
> whether QM has anything to say about consciousness or not.
>
> OK? What do you say?
[BM]
I am very interested, Godfrey. Please go and shoot comp. You would be
the first.
But remember that in YD there is a use of folk-psychology or
grand-mother psychology (a fundamental concept of theoretical cognitive
science/philosophy of mind), and then I translate the argument in
arithmetic, and the grandmother will be substituted by the
introspective universal machine (which I call also the "Lobian Machine"
in honor of Lob).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
[GK]
I am sorry, Bruno, but I see no glory in disappointing a few computer
scientists(and their grand-mothers)
since, you and I agree that their physics stinks! You are the one that
claims to derive the true physics so you are the one I would like to
shoot down! If you really only need CT and AR I really have no other
choice but to worship at your altar (;-) since I really don't want to
have to go through your proof and I am no match for CT or AR. It is a
pity because it is a cute little argument I have up my sleeve ....
So long,
Godfrey
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Received on Fri Aug 19 2005 - 12:18:27 PDT