Re: subjective reality

From: <kurtleegod.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:01:23 -0400

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
 To: kurtleegod.domain.name.hidden
 Cc: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
 Sent: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:01:42 +0200
 Subject: Re: subjective reality


 On 29 Aug 2005, at 18:41, kurtleegod.domain.name.hidden wrote:

 [GK]

  You ARE doing something speculative whether you admit it or not! And I
don't really have to study your argument because

  it is derived from premises that, you already admitted, are
incompatible with the conclusions you claim.


 [BM]
  Please explain what you mean. I have never say I got conclusions
incompatible with the premises. I would have concluded the negation of
comp. I am open that such event could occur of course, and that is why
I say my derivation shows that comp is testable. I try hard to
understand what you miss in my posts (not my work!). We are not yet at
the point of agreeing about what we are not agreeing upon.
  To be clear my derivation does not involve an atom of speculation.
Perhaps you could tell me what is the object of my speculation, but I'm
afraid you are only confusing hypothetico-deductive reasoning and
speculation (in which case all theories are speculative: in that large
sense I agree.


 Bruno


 [GK]
  Speculation for me is not a pejorative term, to begin with. Yes, there
is a sense in which all theories are speculative but
  some have ceased to be purely so because either empirical or heuristic
evidence was found in their favor. That is the sense
  in which they are no longer considered speculative. So QM, for
example, is no longer called a speculative theory, though
  people do speculate a lot around it since it poses some serious
intepretative problems. The Everett version of QM is either
  an interpretation of QM or a better theory (let us call it EQM)
depending on whom you ask, and that is actually another
  item of speculation, btw. But the people who claim that EQM is a
theory need to come up with feasible empirical tests for
  which EQM gives predictions distinct from QM. Until these tests are
proposed and are performed EQM remains a speculative theory!!

  Now, you start with a number of what you call hypothesis (YD,CT,AR)
from which you claim you can derive the *whole of
  physics*. Since I don't know what the *whole of physics* is but I
think that QM is likely to be included in it since is the
  less speculative theory we have ever found I take your claim is that
you either (1) derive QM as we know it or (2) derive
  a better theory than QM by which I understand some theory that makes
all the same predictions that QM where QM
  makes right predictions and makes others that QM does not predict or
predicts wrong.

  You are also speculating in a narrower sense and that is where I have
concentrated my objections, thus far. Though two
  of your premises (CT & AR) seem quite legitimate to me because, though
they remain conjectural, there is some heuristic
  evidence that favors them, there is one of them, YD, which is purely
speculative. To make it precise this is the claim that
  "one can replace the entire experience of a human being by that of a
"digital computer" without prejudice to that experience".
  Though you seem ambivalent about how necessary this hypothesis is to
your derivation of the *whole of physics* you
  cannot deny that you currently use it as an axiom! You seem also aware
of the fact that QM invalidates this hypothesis,
  in other words, if QM is true physics than you cannot accomplish such
replacement (which I assume might involve some
 physical interventions).

 From this I see only a couple of ways out: Either

  1) your derivation leads you not to QM but to a better physical theory
with testable empirical predictions that falsify
  those of QM, presumably including those that lead to the invalidation
of YD. I would very much like to see that
 theory if you have it!

  2) you actually prove (by non-QM means, I assume) that YD is
empirically implementable and that would only require
  that you replace the experience of one human being (may I suggest
yours?) by a digital computer version of the same.
  (Of course you can always claim that it has already occurred, as you
sometimes suggest and that is cute but just plain silly,
 too. )

 Which is it?

  Just to show you I am not mean spirited may I make the following
suggestive question: "Could your argument be
  made on the basis of something not as drastic as YD, say a Turing Test
type argument, which would not require
  you to take someone apart but just produce a convincing simulation?".
Just a thought...


 Godfrey Kurtz
 (New Brunswick, NJ)






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Received on Tue Aug 30 2005 - 12:08:15 PDT