Bruno wrote on Saturday, November 12, 2005 3:37 PM
> Indeed the link with quantum suicide and comp suicide are in my
> older paper "Informatique théorique et philosophie de l'esprit,
> Toulouse 1988". Also explained in my 1991 paper "Mechanism
> and personal identity".
>
So you say that that is your key paper to the quantum suicide ! So
I will spend more time on that one. But I see that you claim a
"Strong Mechanistic" viewpoint. I take it from that and your other
comments that we therefore have to accept 'strong mechanism'
through the series of papers. If it does not we probably need to
know at this point.
To me, that is not an unreasonable point of view as physics is a
very mechanical or mathematical subject. But it does rather make
the presupposition that physics and all its applications are to be
grounded in old quasirationalist values. That does not allow much
space for epiphenomenalism even, let alone dualism if we need
to use 'isms'. I am not bothered about a humanism aspect, it is
more the logical and philosophical aspect
> 1-death and 1-loss-of-consciousness have no
> meaning, I would say, although lack of coffee in the morning can
> create some trouble which we could easily confuse with some
> first person paradoxical apprehension of its own lack of
> consciousness, like a zombies complaining nobody want to
> believe they are zombies!
>
So you seem not to mind if people are zombies (in the sense of
Chalmers). But
> 3-death and 3-loss of consciousness are alike, except we can have
> more hope in the latter.
Interesting. So 'hope' will somehow ultimately arise as a parameter in
the system or is it somehow disgarded as a relatively worthless
semantic concept, which I am sure is logically possible in such a
scheme. I begin to see "the baby being thrown out with the
bathwater" in 'strict mechanism'.
So we end up with 'no zombies' and 'no hope'. Or possibly still 'we
don't know'. Modern computer science is full of 'parameters
which we will eventually sort out' but have not done in 100 years.
However the point here is that consciousness and related phenomena are
not easily categorised in your system. There are so many ways that
individual consciousness can be eliminated or partly eliminated from
the system , by quantum suicide or otherwise.
It seems a very great weakeness to me that a simple statement like
> 1-death and 1-loss-of-consciousness have no meaning, I would say
has to be made. There are so many intermediary conditions between life
and death that exist or are manmade. I mentioned two of them. Jail
imprisonment and hypnagogic myoclonus. Another could be simple
dreaming. All these are different in your 3-system to what they would
be in a 1-system. This make your 3-system (if I can call it that) more
immediately manageable but much less descriptive. SO MAYBE
YOUR 3-SYSTEM IS SOME MANY-ONE MAPPING FROM A
"REAL" SYSTEM !!!? (Maybe that can be stated in category theory
terms).
One problem with 'strong mechanism' is that it only allows
20th Century computer level explication of the human mind at this
time. That is like assuming that the sun goes around the earth.
The fact that Occam's razor must be watched for in other
interpretations, does not prove their lack of validity, rather
the converse.
> Could you tell me what is a myoclonus?
>From http://ruv.net/infopedia/my/Myclonic_jerk.html
"A myclonic twitch or hypnagogic myoclonus consists of one or more
sudden full-body twitches, and often preceded by a sensation of
falling. The twitches occur during very light sleep as the conscious
brain relinquishes control of the body's motor functions. While not a
cause for medical concern, these twitches can be startling. The cause
of myclonic twitching is unknown: they appear to be associated with
(a) anxiety and (b) faint stimulus."
There is a lot more that can be written on the topic. Some claim a
similar effect occurs with 'lucid dreaming' as well.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruno Marchal" <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
To: "uv" <uv.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2005 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: Question for Bruno
>
> Le 12-nov.-05, à 14:53, uv a écrit :
>
>
>
> > [bruno]
> >> Now, the "real" important things to grasp for
> >> making clear the way I use modal logic, consists in understanding
> >> the theorem of Solovay. Have you heard about it? It generalizes
> >> in some way
> >> the theorem of Godel and the theorem of Lob. it makes precise the
> >> connection between modal logic and the logic of arithmetical
> >> reference.
> >
> > [uv]
> > I understand that "Solovay's theorem is so significant because it
> > shows that an interesting fragment of an undecidable formal
> > theory like Peano Arithmetic -- namely that which arithmetic
> > can express in propositional terms about its own provability
> > predicate -- can be studied by means of a decidable modal logic,
> > GL, with a perspicuous possible worlds semantics." As such
> > it should be very relevant, I most certainly agree
> > - but how does it relate to "quantum suicide" ?
> >
> > [uv]
> > I could not work out how it relates to quantum suicide and first
> > or third persons in your papers "mechanism and personal
> > identity" or "amoeba, planaria and dreaming machines" or
> > "Computation,Consciousness and the Quantum" or "The Origin of
> > Physical Laws and Sensations" but the logic of the matter has to
> > be considered, as you say.
>
>
> Indeed the link with quantum suicide and comp suicide are in my
older
> paper "Informatique théorique et philosophie de l'esprit, Toulouse
> 1988". Also explained in my 1991 paper "Mechanism and personal
> identity".
>
> With Kripke, to say Bp is true in the observer moment (OM) alpha
means
> p is true in each accessible from alpha observer moment beta. The
> problem is that with comp, or just with the lobian interview, each
OM
> can access to a cul-de-sac world (Dt -> DBf). In cul-de-sac worlds,
it
> follows by elementary classical propositional calculus that Bf is
true,
> so Bp cannot be taken as the probability of p is one. So we have to
> postulated explicitly the consistency of the the proposition we are
> proving, and this correspond to the passage from
>
> Bp, to
> Bp & Dp
>
> The second Theatetic trick! Define a new bow Cp by Bp & Dp in G.
>
> Now G* (the propositional truth theory on the machine's
> provability/consistency) proves that Bp is equivalent with Bp & Dp.
But
> the machine itself (G) cannot, and this makes the logic of Bp & Dp
> quite different of G, and non trivial.
>
> (And then the comp hyp itself can be shown equivalent with adding
"p ->
> Bp" to G, then if comp is true the logic should give the
"propositional
> physics", and give indeed already logics belonging to the family of
> quantum logics.
>
>
> >
> > [bruno]
> >> If you are interested I could try to say more, and that could
> >> perhaps helps me to present the result I thjink I got. I do have
> >> underestimated
> >> the novelty of mathematical logic for the physicists. I know
> >> physicists
> >> who have a rather good understanding of the incompleteness
theorems,
> >> but I realize they does not know the completeness theorems, which
is
> >> indeed the background making what logic really consists in. Other
> >> people asks me similar questions so that I will try to post
better
> >> synthetical summary of what I have try (at least) to communicate.
> >>
> >> Bruno
> >
> > [uv]
> > Anything you can add on quantum suicide seems interesting to me.
> > In particular, where does the difference between death and loss
> > of consciousness fit in, for example?
>
>
> 3-death and 3-loss of consciousness are alike, except we can have
more
> hope in the latter. 1-death and 1-loss-of-consciousness have no
> meaning, I would say, although lack of coffee in the morning can
create
> some trouble which we could easily confuse with some first person
> paradoxical apprehension of its own lack of consciousness, like a
> zombies complaining nobody want to believe they are zombies!
>
>
>
> >
> > [uv]
> > And does it make all that much difference in that scheme whether
> > a person is PERMANENTLY removed from the system or just
> > REMOVED FOR A SPACE.
>
>
> Remember I don't postulate a physical primitive world.
>
>
> > There are a lot of ways that can
> > be done, possibly with very different parameters. (e.g. like in
> > Parfit's conjectures, which involved identity in even very
> > specific examples like say a long spell in prison). Something like
> > 30-40% of people get hypnagogic myoclonus and that is
> > another (slightly differing) case.
>
>
> Could you tell me what is a myoclonus?
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
Received on Sun Nov 13 2005 - 00:47:00 PST