On 04 Feb 2014, at 18:20, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:54:26 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 04 Feb 2014, at 12:46, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> On 4 February 2014 22:32, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> My view is that if consciousness is epiphenomenal it's meaningless
>>> to
>>> ask why bodies emit utterances referring to the epiphenomenon.
>>
>>
>>
>> Why? You agree that there is still one way causal link. That is
>> consciousness is a necessary side, and real, effect of the brain
>> activity.
>> So why a body could not refer to it meaningfully?
>
> It's not that which would be meaningless: it would be meaningless to
> ask how a body could refer to an epiphenomenon, David's initial
> question.
Not sure if a body can refer to anything (but we can say that, as an
abuse of language to be short).
The question, it seems to me, remains: why a person (using her body)
could not refer to an epiphenomenon?
Why would that be meaningless? Why asking those question would be
meaningless?
If I tell you "I feel myself conscious right now"? Is that
meaningless?
It is meaningless that I hope you find that plausible?
And is it meaningless to ask such question?
May be, that's possible, but I need some justification. Without it, it
looks just like "don't try to understand, don't search, don't ask".
I do think that the modal logic will provide a *very* powerful tool to
see many nuances and possibilities in this context.
>
>> Ah, but then it looks like if there is a two way road, and
>> consciousness is
>> only a phenomenon. A quite peculiar one, as it relates 3p and 1p,
>> but still
>> a phenomenon, and it this leads to make physics also a 1p
>> phenomenon, why
>> not?
>>
>> Why do you think we gain by making consciousness into an
>> epiphenomenon?
>
> We don't have to explain why it apparently has no effect on matter
yet
> we can still refer to it.
May be we cannot [explain why it apparently has no effect on matter
yet we can still refer to it].
But if that is the case, the question remains: why? And here, comp,
and the arithmetization of metarithmetic, can explain, for similar
questions, why we cannot explain some truth.
I think we can't decide that something does not need to be explained,
above the more elementary assumptions.
I think we must explain the elementary assumptions also,
Of course. But unless we want do philosophical obfuscation, there is
also a need of some good-willingness in accepting sharing some
elementary belief.
So my question is what does need to be explained in the axioms of
arithmetic that I have given? For most people a first order logic
axiom like
0 ≠ s(x) (for all x) is simpler to understand that any statement
involving terms like "sense" or "aesthetic".
The axiom here says 0 is not a successor of any natural number. A FAQ
is "is not 0 the successor of -1 ?", and the anwer is that we just
accept "0 ≠ s(x)" to eliminate the negative numbers, in which we are
not interested because we want a very simple Turing universal base.
We could use all integers, as they are also Turing universal with
addition and multiplication, but we have chosen the natural numbers.
Beyond that type of explanation, at this stage, asking for more is
obfuscation.
and then we find that sense can only be self-explanatory. Nothing
else can be self explanatory because explanation itself can't be
anything other than a way of making sense.
I think that is Craig's fuel, and no comp fuel, to take sense has
fundamental. Epiphenomenalism has also that air of "let us not try to
understand".
I think that if you aren't seeing that sense is fundamental, it is
because you have stopped questioning it when you get to a
comfortable level of objective-seeming simplicity.
Sense is without doubt fundamental, and is indeed the base of the UDA
(with sense/consciousness assumed to be invariant for the digital
transplant). Then the math of comp makes it possible to pursue the
interrogation, not avoid it.
I'm seeing simplicity itself as a concept - a quality which is
revealed not by some mechanism, but by sanity itself - a sanity
shared by all phenomena without having to be taught or practiced
like arithmetic.
Yes, shared by all phenomena including the arithmetical one. Why not?
Fuzzy philosophy can be ok. Some people non well trained in science
can have insight, and sometimes even see what the experts can no more
see, by having their nose to close the subject matter.
But using fuzzy philosophy to make peremptory negative statement,
notably on the presence/absence of consciousness for some type of
being, makes me feel uneasy, especially when you don't try to answer
the arguments presented. I can't help myself to not think you do have
prejudices on numbers and machines.
Bruno
Craig
You confirm my feeling that "epiphenomenalism" is used by admitting or
introducing a bet on an explanation gap. Some explanation gap is there
indeed, but I think we can entirely explain it. This leads to a sort
of miracle: consciousness has a role, even in the physical events.
Mind can "act" on matter. (cf atomic bombs and computers), and this
without violating the physical laws. But eventually it makes the
physical laws emerging on something non physical (which comp allows to
limit on arithmetical truth or combinators truth, ...).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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