Le 24-mars-06, à 17:19, 1Z a écrit :
>
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> Le 18-mars-06, à 16:00, peterdjones.domain.name.hidden a écrit :
>>
>>> If every mathematical structure exists , then mathematical structures
>>> consisting
>>> of a counterpart of me plus a "Harry Potter" universe exist. Yet this
>>> is not
>>> observed. Of course that might be coincidence.
>>
>>
>> No it can't. This what the computationalist (or weaker) must explain.
>> This is mainly what the list is all about.
>>
>> Hal Finney, like my oldest attempts, try to explain the lack of Harry
>> Potter or white flying bunnies, by the abonormal huge rate of
>> computations needed to sustain such "illusions" in a coherent way.
>> My critics in a nutshell is that such an explanation cannot work once
>> we make explicit the first and third person description. The first
>> person, being unable to know the UD's delays of computations, cannot
>> distinguish a high variety of little and less little programs, so that
>> Hal Finney sort of explanation is incomplete (at best). My way of
>> tackling the problem consists in translating the UDA in the language
>> of
>> a universal machine. Thanks to incompleteness this makes sense, and we
>> eventually are lead to an arithmetical interpretation of the Platonist
>> theories of everything, which observable consequences, like quantum
>> logic, many-worlds interfering in a wavy fashion, etc.
>>
>> Peter, what are your postulates? I think you are postulating an
>> aristotelian stuffy universe.
>
> Yes. If we use matter to answer the question "what is it about
> mathematical structure
> A that explains it's existence, rather than mathematical stucture B",
> we immediately
> arrive at a *definition* of matter which is non-solipsistic.
>
>> Are you postulating comp?
>
> I am fairly lukewarm about comp. I certainly wouldn't use it to
> expalin anythig else. What we can be sure of is that
> 1) we exist
> 2) we are conscious
> 3) there is some sort of external world
> 4) there is some phenomenon of time.
I agree with the four point. But I don't believe in any (single or
multiple) stuffy universe. Nor do I believe physics can stay the
fundamental science once we postulate comp. It is not a matter of
choice but of reasoning and taking our hypothesis seriously. We just
cannot distinguish material, virtual, and purely arithmetical realities
when we quantify the first person indeterminacy. See my url and this
list for more information.
Of course, you are free to abandon comp if you assume physicalism. (But
then this moves will not help you because the reasoning goes through
with considerable weakening of comp).
>
> These are all quite problematical for Mathematical Monism;
> assuming another problematical hypothesis, COMP, and using
> it to deny some or all of (1) to (4) is cart-bfore-the-horse. Arguments
> should start with what you can be sure of.
Sure, but comp is ok with the four. Of course the external reality can
be just arithmetical truth.
>
>> If yes, you are
>> in difficulties (cf UDA), if not, what is your theory of mind?
>
> A materialist cannot possible be worse off in explaining mind that
> a Mathematical Monist, sice he has at least one extra ingredient to
> play with.
Study the UDA. It is a reasoning which show you are precisely wrong
here. If you want I can explain it step by step. UDA shows that "weak
materialism" (the existence of some primitive stuff) and
computationalism (or just self-referential correctness) are
epistemologically untenable simultaneously. If you want we can proceed
step by step (could help some others).
> He is not obliged to deny that mind has anythign to do with
> computation, but
> when he hits problems he can appeal to matter itself -- for instance
> hypothesising
> that something about the specific physics/chemistry of the brain
> explains qualia.
But he should first explain what he means by matter, and then qualia
and how it relates it. If he assumes comp he will fail, by UDA.
bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Mon Mar 27 2006 - 05:31:54 PST