Re: Numbers

From: 1Z <peterdjones.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 10:17:51 -0800

Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Le 24-mars-06, à 16:31, 1Z a écrit :
>
> >
> >
> > Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >> Le 20-mars-06, à 00:04, John M a écrit :
> >>
> >>
> >>> A Turing machine does nothing (by itself). Don't take
> >>> the power for granted. Something has to OPERATE it to
> >>> do anything.
> >>
> >>
> >> Why? How could a digital machine distinguish reality, virtual
> >> reality,
> >> arithmetical reality, etc.
> >
> > The question is about what computers are , form a 3rd-person
> > perspective,
> > not about what a machine would see from its own 1st person perspective.
> > We know we have a 1st person perspecitve, and we have 3rd person
> > knowledge
> > of computers. That is the perspective of John's question. You question
> > is
> > from a machine's 1st person perspective. We don't even know that
> > digitial computers have a 1st-person perspective.
>
>
> It is our assumption. "I" am conscious and "I" am turing emulable. So
> some machine "can think".

That doesn't follow. An emulation of you must have some kind of
functional
equaivalence or isomomrphism, but that leaves it as a map, not as
a territory. You can no more guarantee that your functional equivalent
is conscious (not a Zombie) than you can guarantee that you can gor
potatoes
in the map of a farm.


> >>> Bruno:
> >>> let me draw your attention to one little phrasing in
> >>> Hal's (and everybody else's, I presume, as I read
> >>> these posts)- text:
> >>> "If we assume..."
> >>> And if we do not?
> >>
> >>
> >> You will miss the consequences of the assumption. All science is based
> >> on implicit or explicit assumption, related to (non definable)
> >> world-views.
> >
> > Almost all science is based on the implicit assumption of a "stuffy"
> > world view.
>
>
>
> No. This is a simplifying methodological assumption, but there is no
> evidence it is necessary. Few physicists use it.

I can assure you that real-life physicsists do use it. If you get your
information about physics from new-age books, that is another matter.

> Except the week-end
> when they doesn't want to be copnfronted with tricky foundational
> problems. True, the idea that there is a stuffy universe, and that
> "real" = what we measure, is in vogue since Aristotle, but it is
> incompatible with comp (this has been proved, I am not speculating. I
> can prove it to you if you are interested).
>

So much for comp. I wasn't very convinced by it anyway.


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Received on Sat Mar 25 2006 - 13:18:52 PST

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