[Fis] New Perspectives. Reply to Bruno's. Inverse Phenomenology

Bruno Marchal marchal at ulb.ac.be
Fri Jun 21 18:54:58 CEST 2019


Dear Joseph,


> On 18 Jun 2019, at 10:06, Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch> wrote:
> 
> Dear Bruno and All,
>  
> As a way of positioning Bruno’s theory,

To be sure, it is not my theory. It is Descartes theory rendered in the digital framework. The Church-Turing thesis can be used to argue that this is a very general hypothesis. I use (Digital) Mechanism, not because I believe it could be true, but because it transforms the philosophical question into mathematical problem, whose solution ca be tested with Nature.


> I suggest that it is a kind of inverse phenomenology.

I agree. The main result is that Mechanism reduces the mind-body problem into a derivation of the physical observable (appearance) from arithmetic. Then we can compare with Nature.



> In standard phenomenology, one starts with phenomena and places them in a framework of interpretation. In his Digital Mechanism, Bruno starts with a mathematical framework, (to which he ascribes ontological properties), and comes out with the phenomena, or some of them.

OK. The ontology is very simple, and we can take any terms of a Turing complete/universal theory. I could use combinators, lambda expressions, but I use natural numbers as people are familiar with them. We know since the work of Gödel, Turing, Post, Church that “very elementary arithmetic” is Turing universal. With my students I use the combinators, and many others. 

People should not believe more than 2+2=4, or that the equation x+2=4 admits a solution. The ontology of the numbers is no greater than the one assumed by a physicist using some differential equation, or an architect conceiving some buildings. 

I define sometimes an “arithmetical realist” as someone who does not complain when their kids learn that there is no biggest prime number.


>  
> If there is – also – some dynamic, material principle underlying what we perceive and what we are, Digital Mechanism should also generate it.

I don’t think arithmetic can generate substantial/ontological matter. It can generate only the appearances of it, by emulating the computations. The physical principles have to emerges as invariant in all relative computation.




> If it does not, then DM may not be wrong, but it is incomplete, and a careful reading of Bruno would appear (sic) to permit this.

Unfortunately, that will not work. If we use a richer ontology, the inflation of computational histories leads to incorrect predictions. It is an open problem if we can put the induction axioms in the ontologies. I have thought so, but I have some doubt.

It is ontologically complete, and phenomenologically constructively incomplete, showing the mathematical shape of our abyssal intrinsic ignorance. But that obeys laws, and some can deduced from computer science/mathematical logic, by the machine’s themselves, or not.



>  
> We all look for theories, at some time in our lives or another, that will ‘carry us’ from one side of existence to the other. Bruno – your best statements come at the send of your note.
> “I hesitate to make my point, because it is of no use in any direct applications. It concerns more the afterlife than life per se.” I then would be very glad if, as a candidate for the ‘other part of the story’, you would look at my logical phenomenology. Logic in Reality addresses life per se, and I claim it is of substantial use in direct applications, last but not least informational processes.

I have taken a look sometimes ago, and I don’t think it is problematic with the conclusion of mechanism.
But yes, as Otto Rossler put it, mechanism makes consciousness into a prison. We never escape it. The best we can hope is amnesia. I don’t like this, but science is not wishful thinking, and we can also still hope mechanism will be refuted. But nature confirms Mechanism, and basically refute already Weak Materialism (the belief that physics is the fundamental science for the ontology, or the belief in some Aristotelian primary matter/substance).



> You say further: “nature confirms all this (which again is not an argument for saying it has to be true, of course) and can be helpful to get rid of the reductionist 19th century conception of numbers and machines”. It thus would be ridiculous to say that nature is limited by the one function you attribute to her here.

Nature and physics reappear at the phenomenological level, in a non limited form: indeed, it go farer than any effective mathematical theory, contains necessary continuous observable, and is fundamentally NOT computable, or at least contains non computable and non predictable events.

Digital Physicalism assumes that the physical universe is computable. But that is directly refutable with or without Mechanism. Indeed, Digital physicalism entails Mechanism, and Mechanism entails, as I have shown, the negation of Digital Physicalism, so Digital Physicalism entails its own negation.

If “I” am a machine, the reality in which I live cannot be a machine, or generated by a machine. 

Keep in mind that after Gödel we know that we know about noting about arithmetic already. Only a tiny part of it is computable. The main part is highly non computable, and the interesting intimation flows circulates on the frontier between the computable and the non computable.


> As long as you are not saying that man ­_is_, or is only, a machine, there is room for discussion.


This is slightly ambiguous. Would you say that a program which learn to play Chess and Go is only a machine? It is also a player of Go and Chess.

In fact, when I say that Digital Mechanism kill reductionism, it is because the universal Turing machine itself is not just a machine. 

Identifying the soul with the knower, using standard definition in the literature, it is a theorem in Arithmetic that all universal machine cognitively enough rich to know (in a precise technical sense) that they are Turing universal, will know that she has a soul, and that her soul is not a machine, nor even something representable in any third person construct. Mechanism leads to a non representational theory of consciousness, soul, qualia, etc.

The Digital Mechanist hypothesis is the thesis that there is no organ in our body which would not be amenable to be replaced by some artificial device, and concerning the brain, by one emulable by a Turing universal machine. The reasoning will follow if there is a substitution level where I would survive the substitution, even if the level is so low that I have to emulate the whole observable universe at the level of strings, with 10^100 decimals (to give an example of extremely low level of substitution. Most brain physiologist would suggest a much higher level, like the metabolism in the neurons and the glial cells.

The universal machine does not know which computations support them, and it predicted that if we look below our substitution level we must find infinitely many computations, and a (quantum) logic of alternative realities, which is arguably confirmed by the quantum logic formalism. 

The whole point comes form results in mathematical logic. There is a tiny part of the arithmetical reality which is unboundedly rich in histories and meaning when viewed from inside by the universal machine/number.

In the Aristotelian frame, this can be called super-atheism: no creator, no creation. Just number’s dream and relative information flows, and differentiating consciousness histories.

In the Platonic frame, this provides a simple neo-pythagorean theology, or an interpretation of Plotinus and Proclus in pure arithmetic. 

Peano arithmetic (elementary arithmetic, i.e. very elementary arithmetic + the induction axioms) is already much more than a universal machine, indeed she already knows that she is Turing universal, and all the problems which go with that, including a perpetual hesitation between security and liberty/universality.

Peano Arithmetic(*) already tell us that she is not “just” a machine, or a theory, or a code, or anything representable with words or numbers.

---

Just to help:

(*) Peano Arithmetic is 

Classical Logic,

+

Very elementary arithmetic, which is the seven axioms:

1) 0 ≠ s(x)                     (0 is not the successor of a number),
2) s(x) = s(y) -> x = y     (different numbers have different successors),
3) x = 0 v Ey(x = s(y))    (except for 0, all numbers have a predecessor),
4) x+0 = x                      (if you add zero to a number, you get that number),
5) x+s(y) = s(x+y) (if you add a number x to the successor of a number y, you get the successor of x added to y),
6) x*0=0                   (if you multiply a number by 0, you get 0)
7) x*s(y)=(x*y)+x    (if you multiply a number x by the successor of y, you get the number x added to the multiplication of the number x with y),

+

The infinitely many inductions. That if for all arithmetical formula P

P(0) & [For all n (P(n) -> P(s(n)))] ->. For all n P(n).

Gödel has shown how to define Peano arithmetic in Arithmetic. This is captured by its famous “beweisbar" predicate. Gödel has seen, and Hilbert and Bernays have proven, that PA can prove its own incompleteness.  Solovay has given in 1976 two modal logics arithmetically complete and sound for the logic of that arithmetical, and partially computable predicate: 
- G for what the machine or PA can prove about its provability/consistency ability, and 
- G*, the set of the true (even if non probable) proposition about the machine.

G1*, that is G restricted on the partial computable) proves that all the platonic nuance on “belief” given by the neoplatonician, with bewesibar(‘p’) written []p (the modal logic of provability) are equivalent: 

G1* proves 
             p <-> []p <-> ([]p & p) <-> ([]p & <>t) <-> ([]p & <>t & p)

But G proves non of them, making them obeying quite different logisc. The last modes are the material modes of the neoplatonist, but can be motivated through tough experiments, also, and they obey quantum logic. The ([]p & p) provides the first person, and it has an intuitionist logic.

Those logics remains valid for all consistent effective extensions of PA. With mechanism, we are one, well, many, of them. I can prove that you are more than PA, but that could be a little long. Yes, the problem here is that this supposes some work in Mathematical Logic, which is not well taught, when taught at all.

All the best,

Bruno




>  
> Best,
>  
> Joseph
> From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
> Sent: lundi, 17 juin 2019 13:12
> To: fis
> Subject: Re: [Fis] New Perspectives. Reply to Bruno's Reply to Stan
>  
> Dear Gordana,
>  
> I will try to answer your questions. It is not easy, because this belongs to a very hot subject, and what I say is based on counter-intuitive, and not very well known, results in mathematical logic, which is not very well taught, if taught at all.
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> Note also that I am using the Digital Mechanist hypothesis as a working hypothesis. I never claim that it is true, and my work has only shown that it is testable, but eventually I can conclude that the experimental evidences favours this hypothesis.
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>> On 14 Jun 2019, at 06:45, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic <gordana.dodig-crnkovic en mdh.se <mailto:gordana.dodig-crnkovic en mdh.se>> wrote:
>>  
>> I have a few questions to your answers and would be happy if you can help me to understand.
>> Here they come, following formulations from your mail.
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>> “This seems to assume some primary natural reality, isn’t it?”
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>> Q: What is meant by “primary natural reality”?
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>> 1. If it refers to the EXISTENCE OF THE EXTERNAL/INTERNAL NATURAL WORLD, I think this is the most reasonable hypothesis to start with:
>> The world/nature EXISTS. It is the fundamental assumption of all sciences which are our best present knowledge about the world.
>> Otherwise, if the world does not EXIST, we can conclude any discussion about it.
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> So, this might already be in conflict with the Digital Mechanist hypothesis (simply called Mechanism hereafter). I will come to that hypothesis later. What I will say is derived in that theory.
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> We do agree that the physical-world/nature EXISTS. But with Mechanism, this is no more something that we have to assume, its existence has to become a theorem in the Mechanist theory. The physical reality does not disappear, but its existence becomes phenomenological, and physics get reduced to arithmetic, a bit like today most scientists would agree that chemistry is in principle reducible to quantum physics, if we abstract from the level of organisation. 
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> By Mechanism (Digital Mechanism) I mean the assumption that there is a level of description of my brain, or body, possibly including a finite part of the environment, such that a digital emulation of my body made at that description level would not change my first person conscious experience. 
> Mechanism is the belief that no organ in my body can’t be replaced by an artificial prosthesis, and in particular, that we would survive, in the clinical usual sense, with an artificial brain. Now, the level can be as much low as we want, like copying the brain at the level of the quantum field description, using the standard model of the particles, and using as many decimals as needed as long as it is a finite number.
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> Mechanism implies that physics has to be recovered from a statistics on (pure) partially computable number relations, and this will lead to the fact that neither matter nor consciousness are Turing emulable, contrary to a widespread confusion. Somehow, if “I” am a machine, everything else cannot be a machine.
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> Eventually, mechanism makes very elementary arithmetic into the theory of everything, but any Turing-complete (rich enough to define the notion of computation) theory can be used. Indeed, physics becomes independent of the ontological theory: they all lead to the same physics.
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> So, to answer your question: YES, the physical reality exists. But NO, it is not primary, which means that we don’t have to assume a natural world, we have to explain its appearance from a theory of consciousness or from some “theology”, in the pre-christian sense of the word. Today’s theology is still in the hands of institutions which practice the argument of authority, which is invalid with the scientific method.
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> What many people ignore is that the discovery of computation and computability has been done by mathematician, and those notion have been shown to be even *arithmetical*. A computer is an implementation in the physical reality of a universal machine, which is an object already implemented in all universal environment just through natural number relations. 
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> A universal machine cannot distinguish a physical computations from an arithmetical one, by introspection, and that enforce us to explain why the physical laws must be reduced to a statistics on "number's dreams” in arithmetic. This leads quickly to some “many-world” interpretation of elementary arithmetic, and it is testable by comparing the mathematics of that many-worlds, or better “many-histories” interpretation of arithmetic (or Turing equivalent) with the observations.
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> 2. The other question is HOW that EXISTENCE of the world outside/inside cognitive agents presents itself or unfolds in an agent in the interaction with the world.
> That is the question of UMWELT, and the construction of knowledge through information processing. (Natural information processing = natural computation.)
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> As a consequence of above, the natural computation emerges from the arithmetical computations. (I assume Mechanism all along).
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> The “primary natural reality” reflects itself in a myriad of local “realities” in cognizing agents. As we know from empirical observations, even though existence of the world induces various information processes in various agents, communities of agents are typically sharing common “languages” about that “primary natural reality”.
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> Yes. If Mechanism would lead to solipsism, that would be enough for me to abandon it. Fortunately, the universal machine discourse explains already why some dreams get very long and sharable among population of universal machine/numbers.
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> That is true for bacterial as well as for human communities.
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> Note that I discovered computer science in molecular biology books. I would have become a biologist if I did not discover that the conceptual explanation of reproduction (which fascinated me in biology) was already implemented in the arithmetical reality. 
> After Gödel, we know that this is not a reductionist view, as such a reality is beyond all possible effective theories. Here, sometimes people confuse the arithmetical reality and the theories we built to put some light on that reality. 
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> Languages reflect our ability to collectively navigate “primary natural reality” and share common references. So much so that we are able to commonly build a new semantic layer, that is human culture, upon that “primary natural reality”.
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> Why primary? I am OK with what you say here, except that what you call “primary natural reality” is no more primary. It is already a sort of unavoidable social cultural building by the universal numbers in arithmetic.
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> The logical dependency is like this:
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> NUMBERS => CONSCIOUSNESS => PHYSICAL-REALITY => HUMAN-CONSCIOUSNESS
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> The arithmetical structure, which follows from the definition of addition and multiplication, determine a consciousness flux which differentiate itself in arithmetic, and the natural world appearance emerges from the first person (singular and plural) view of the universal numbers.
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> Consciousness can be quasi-axiomatically defined by
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> True,
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> Non provable,
> Non definable
> + (with Mechanism) invariant for some digital functional substitution made at some description level.
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> “As I have shown, this requires a non computationalist theory of mind, which seems to me to be highly speculative.”
> Q: Why would that follow from the EXISTENCE of the world? What kind of phenomenon is that “computation” which minds perform? Is it the Turing model of discrete sequential symbol manipulation – calculation of mathematical function?
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> Yes. I sum up often Mechanism by “Yes Doctor + Church’s thesis”. The notion of computations is the one discovered by many people like Emil Post, Alan Turing, Alonzo Church. Gödel discovered it implicitly, and already show it to be an arithmetical notion. He missed the Church-Turing thesis though, and the consequence of mechanism.
> Computations exists like prime number exists. The physical reality is secondary, and physics is in principle reduced to very elementary arithmetic. 
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> It may at best describe linguistic part of the mind.
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> This is described in the mind of the universal machine/number. Interestingly, they can only describe a part of this. Many arithmetical truth concerning those machine are extra-linguistic, and does not admit any third person description. They are not definable.
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> The universal numbers/machine can be shown to have a soul (in Plato’s sense, not Aristotle’s sense), and the universal numbers, in particular also those implemented in the physical reality, already knows that they have a soul, and that their soul are NOT a machine, nor anything describable in third person term. It is more like the meaning, and like the syntax.
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> In fact, a universal machine can refute all complete effective theories that we may use to study them. The universal machine is born universal dissident. They break down all reductionist conception of themselves.
> After Gödel and Tarski, we know that most of the arithmetical reality will be unprovable by any machine, but a part of that non provable reality is still experienceable and knowable by other (tag provability) diverse means. 
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> But mind as a natural process is both data-based (even continuous data)
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> OK. Mechanism proves the necessary existence of at least one continuous observable, even of a non computable one.
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> and symbol based. Not Turing computable in it entirety,
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> OK. Mechanism makes both consciousness and matter NON computable. That is why your approach is interesting in practice, probably even necessary. With Mechanism, only the assumption of primaries  would be wrong. In arithmetic, The machines are confronted all the time to a non entirely computable reality. The machines are themselves only partial computable, and most of the arithmetical reality is highly not computable, and plays a role in the development of mind.
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> but “naturally computable” i.e. the result of natural information processing performed by living embodied minds.
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> I use computable in the mathematical sense of Church and Turing. I would use here “naturally experienceable”, or “naturally manageable” or something. I am aware of many attempt to define different sort of computations, but they have no corresponding “Church’s thesis”, and usually, they are Turing emulable, or they use non computable elements that it is simpler to recover from the first person indeterminacy imposed by incompleteness to all machines. If not, it looks like assuming something just to add complications, when the complications is already there.
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> “I am not sure we can avoid the mind-body problem in a philosophy of information context.”
> Q: Why? Natural information processes in living organisms seem to me as the best way to bridge the mind-body chasm. Mind is a result of a complex network of networks of information processes going on in a cognizing agent. That process is implemented in their bodies as a material substrate that is self-organized structure growth from that “primary natural reality”. There is no contradiction between the morphology (shape, structure, material) of an organism and its functions (processes performed by that morphology. At least those organisms who have nervous systems capable of representing their bodies and their relationships to their environments can be seen as possessing intrinsic “self-models” or simply having “self” or “mind”. That “mind” is the result of the relationships of its subsystems that constitute that “self”, that process which for an organism makes a distinction between the “self” vs. the world and the relationships between the two.
> Mind is a process, matter is its substrate on which the process is going on. Those are inseparable in a living organism. In-formation has it roots in the concept of formation (of a material substrate). Matter and form are two aspects of the same reality. It is not a problem, it is a way how we conceptualize the world, in order to manage its complexity.
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> With mechanism, mind is a process. OK. But there is no substrate. That is a necessary collective hallucination coming from the differentiation of consciousness in arithmetic. 
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> This is admittedly counter-intuitive/ There is no ontological/primary space, nor time, nor particles, nor energy, nor waves, etc. But the conscious appearance of this can be explained, in a precise way enough to be tested (and thanks to quantum mechanics, which I predicted before realising that the physicists were already there, we get confirmations of this).
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> With Mechanism we are back at Pythagorus. There is only numbers and the only laws are addition and multiplication. With this we can define computations, and the appearance of ontological/primary space, time, particles, energy, waves, … is explained by the theory of machine’s consciousness.
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> “There are no evidences for physicalism or for a physical primary reality, nor are there evidences for a non computationalist theory of mind.”
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> Q: What is meant with “physicalism” here?
> Wikipedia offers two different definitions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism> according to which
> Physicalism is the metaphysical <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical> thesis assuming that
> a) "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical,[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism#cite_note-1> or
> b) that everything supervenes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervenience> on the physical.[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism#cite_note-DStoljar-2> 
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> Those are two very different proposals. The first one is obviously false, as it negates all the emergent levels of organization of the world above physics.
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> I agree.
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> With mechanism, the physical level is itself an emergent level of organisation above arithmetic. Nature is no more primary in the sense that we can explain it without an ontological commitment in some physical universe. 
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> It is not exactly like a dream, but like infinitely many dreams statistically interfering.
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> The second one depends on what is meant by “supervenience”. If it means that higher levels of organization of matter-energy emerge from the lower ones bringing completely new properties, it is in perfect agreement with what sciences today say about the world and how they model the world.*
> Molecules are made of atoms but bring completely new possibilities of structures, processes and interactions. Biology is more than chemistry for the same reason.
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> Yes, but with mechanism, physicalism is false in the sense that the physical reality is due to a psychological phenomenon. A very precise one, which should give the laws of physics, so we can test empirically Mechanism, and the test made until today confirms mechanism. That does not prove it to be true, of course.
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> Q: What would be “a physical primary reality”?
> Am I wrong if I imagine that I cannot go out of this room through its walls? Does not that mean that there is “a physical primary reality” that stops me from doing so, no matter how much I wish and try?
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> Not really. In most of my dreams, I cannot go through wall too. It just means that there is wall, and that we cannot go through. It does not mean that a wall really exist, just that some dreams are lawful, and this is what mechanism show to exist statistically.
> Note that with both Digital Mechanism, and quantum physics, we can go through wall (!), but the probability of that event is shown, in quantum physics, to be very rare for massive object, and yet common for very small object. That is used in the miniaturisation of the transistor, which makes up the physical computer around us.
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> “Of course some people confuse the evidences for physical laws with evidences that such laws are primary, but that is just because they “believe” in some natural world to begin with.”
> Q: What is primary? Indeed, physical laws are not primary, in the sense of eternal and unchangeable, as they evolve with the universe*.
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> I am not sure if many physicist would agree with this. I don’t know a physical laws which would have evolved, except in speculative theory used to explain the big-bang. With mechanism, the laws of physics becomes eternal and unchangeable laws derivable from their theology/psychology/biology, which are themselves eternal and unchangeable, given that they belong to arithmetic/computer science. The only things which change are the indexical notion, like here and now, or me and you, which are related to interval view of arithmetic from arithmetic. 
> Physicalism is mainly the idea that there is an ontological physical universe, and that the fundamental laws on which everything supervene are the physical law. With Mechanism this can be shown leading to contradiction, en eventually we need to derive the physical laws from number psychology/theology. Then incompleteness provides the tools for doing this, and to make the testing. Mechanism makes metaphysics into a science, even an experimental science.
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> Primary is the EXISTENCE of the world that we all share and experience.
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> That remains correct if by world you mean the (standard) arithmetical reality. The physical world is an emergent organisation coming from the (non trivial and irreducible) arithmetic, taken in its after-Gödel understanding. 
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> Many people agree that Gödel’s theorem kills the reductionist conception of man and mathematics, but it kills already the reductionist conception on natural numbers and machines.
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> Mechanism leads to a sort of fictionalism for analysis, set theory and physics. A physical universe becomes a convenient fiction invented by the numbers to figure out what they are, somehow. 
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> It presents itself in both fluid, intrinsic ways (subjective feelings and emotions) and crisp, well defined inter-subjective forms (as in sciences, logics, mathematics).
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> OK. But with mechanism, the physical somehow arise from the natural or canonical inter-subjective agreement between all universal machines/number.
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> To help a bit, I always fix one universal system in my head, say the programming language LISP. Then we can enumerate all machines (Lisp program), by length order, and by alphabetical order for those having the same length. This permits the enumeration of all partial computable functions (which include the total one, defined on all numbers). I identify a machine with its number in that enumeration (like we can identify a vectors with its coordinate once we have chosen a basis in linear algebra).
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> “We can’t have both Mechanism in cognitive science, and materialism, or just physicalism, in the “natural science”. That has been shown logically inconsistent.”
> It depends on the choice of “mechanism”, “cognitive science” (classical-computationalist disembodied or contemporary EEEE models of cognition), along with the kind of “physicalism” assumed, and even the choice of “natural sciences” to support your thesis. In the paper below (*) I argue, for a given choice of all those terms and with heavy reliance on the contemporary scientific knowledge, that computational mind is not only (naturally) compatible but essentially dependent on its physical substrate on succession of levels of organization.
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> That is true for the human mind. And it is important for the human application. But with mechanism, eventually, we get very close to de Chardin, when he says that we are not humans having spiritual existence, but we are spiritual beings having a human existence. We are not human thinking about numbers, but we are numbers thinking about humans.
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> Q: If we have such model in which “mechanisms” of information processing (natural computation in the framework of computing nature) from the lowest levels of exchanges between elementary particles to the highest levels of exchanges among people of symbolic structures and artifacts, wouldn’t that constitute a counter-example to the claim that mind and body have nothing to do with each other ? (**)
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> With Mechanism, we have the curious, non Aristotelian, consequences that bodies are constructs of the mind, but also a result of the fact that we don’t know which computations, among an infinities in arithmetic, supports us. 
> A material reality, with some primitive substrate, is unable to select a computation from the infinitely many computations going through our state in arithmetic. That would require an added non computational ability to the brain or to the particles, or whatever we assume to be physically primary.
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> But the overall picture is the same, except that the physical supervene of the number theology which supervene on elementary arithmetic.
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> It is not necessarily a pleasant theory, as we can no more die in this theory, consciousness becomes a sort of inescapable prison, and arithmetic, if it contains some paradise, contains also some hell, etc. What is nice, is that it is a vaccine against reductionism of both man and machine.
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> I hope this helps. I refer to my papers for the proof of the assertions, and the description of why we can say that most of current physics favours mechanism on naturalism. With the important understanding that this does not mean that nature does not exist or is not important. It is only not primarily real.
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> Like I say above, we get:
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> NUMBERS => CONSCIOUSNESS => PHYSICAL-REALITY => HUMAN-CONSCIOUSNESS
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> Many posts in this list plays on the 
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> PHYSICAL-REALITY => HUMAN-CONSCIOUSNESS,
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> part, where I have no critics. But sometimes some people seems to conclude that digital machine, à-la Church and Turing cannot be subject of private conscious experience, which is a string assumption, and indeed it is needed to have a primary reality. I prefer to remain open to Mechanism, and which case, that part going from the physical reality to the human consciousness is itself a consequence of us being universal number, borrowing the consciousness common to all universal machine, which is also the consciousness we should come back in some state of sleep, and plausibly after the death of the biological body.
>  
> I hoping this is not too much shocking. Please ask any question if something is not clear. I do agree with many important points made in this list by diverse people, but sometimes, some comments are presented like if it was in contradiction with Digital Mechanism, when in fact they are confirming long term prediction I derived  from it. I hesitate to make my point, because it is of no use in any direct applications. It concerns more the afterlife than life per se. But as it predicts the very weird quantum computing notion,I tend to think that nature confirms all this (which again is not an argument for saying it has to be true, of course) and can be helpful to get rid of the reductionist 19th century conception of numbers and machines. 
>  
> Kind Regards,
>  
> Bruno
>  
> 
> 
>  
> Gordana
>  
>  
> * http://www.gordana.se/work/PUBLICATIONS-files/2019-Laws%20of%20Science%20as%20Laws%20of%20Nature.pdf <http://www.gordana.se/work/PUBLICATIONS-files/2019-Laws%20of%20Science%20as%20Laws%20of%20Nature.pdf>
>  
> ** No model or framework can explain everything about the world (including humans) at the same time, but info-computational approach can be used to model some interesting aspects of the mind emergent from, in interaction with its matter/energy substrate.
>  
> From: Fis <fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es>> on behalf of Bruno Marchal <marchal en ulb.ac.be <mailto:marchal en ulb.ac.be>>
> Date: Thursday, 13 June 2019 at 15:11
> To: fis <fis en listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis en listas.unizar.es>>
> Subject: Re: [Fis] New Perspectives. Reply to Stan
>  
> Joseph,
>  
>  
>> On 12 Jun 2019, at 16:40, Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <mailto:joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>> wrote:
>>  
>> Stan,
>>  
>> Thank you for your question. I reply with a modified excerpt from an article in Philosophies. The full article is Open Access. I am indebted to Rafael Capurro for part of this formulation. Comments welcome.
>>  
>> Best wishes,
>>  
>> Joseph
>>  
>> Natural Philosophy: Excerpt from Brenner, J. 2018. The Naturalization of Natural Philosophy. Philosophies 2018 3, 41.
>> Natural Philosophy deals with the question of nature as a whole stated by beings (ourselves) that find themselves in nature without having the possibility of a holistic view, being ourselves in nature and not beyond it. The fact that we are able to ask this question means that we have some kind of pre-knowledge about nature as a whole while at the same time this pre-knowledge is problematic, otherwise we would not ask the question and would not be able to become natural philosophers.
>> The question then changes to the difference between nature and reality as a whole, including fictions, non-verifiable beliefs and intangible objects of thought. Since the idea that classical Natural Philosophy evolved into  science  seems  correct,  we  are  left,  for  the  domain  of  Natural  Philosophy, with only a speculative interpretation of nature viewed in its entirety. This interpretation is, ipso facto, at a lower ontological level than the science which has largely replaced it. Much of the 20th Century linguistic turn, expressed in both analytical and phenomenological and residual transcendental traditions, is well visible in contemporary philosophy.
>> The reaction to this unsatisfactory state of affairs has been the reinstatement of realisms and materialisms of various kinds, associated today with the names of Derrida, Badiou, Zizek, and others. The ‘ontological turn’ in philosophy is a term of art that designates dissatisfaction with descriptions of reality based on analytical, semantic criteria of truth. Starting with Heidegger’s critique of hermeneutics and the basing of philosophy on human life, the ontological turn is a challenge to neo-Kantian epistemologies, and looks to what the structure of the world might be like to enable scientific, that is, non-absolute knowledge. Unfortunately, ontological theories have been hobbled by the retention of static terms whose characteristics are determined by bivalent logic. In 2002, Priest suggested that such an ontological turn in philosophy was taking place, away from language in the direction of an contradictorial view of reality. Priest proposed paraconsistent logic as appropriate to this turn, but his system suffers from the epistemological limitations of paraconsistency. Lupasco, on the other hand, anticipated the ontological turn by some 60 years. (In the complete article, I show that his logical system can be used to differentiate between Natural Philosophy and Philosophy tout court.)
>> The most important point for me is that Natural Philosophy tells us something real about the world that is consistent with our best science, physical, biological and cognitive. Speculative philosophy can always re-illuminate ‘eternal’ questions such as what it means to be a thinking being in a non-thinking environment. This non-Natural Philosophy, to repeat, exists for ‘natural’ reasons: it is a natural necessity for human beings to create it, by a natural process, but it is not part of nature qua content. 
>  
> This seems to assume some primary natural reality, isn’t it?
>  
> As I have shown, this requires a non computationalist theory of mind, which seems to me to be highly speculative.
>  
> I am not sure we can avoid the mind-body problem in a philosophy of information context. 
>  
> There are no evidences for physicalism or for a physical primary reality, nor are there evidences for a non computationalist theory of mind. Of course some people confuse the evidences for physical laws with evidences that such laws are primary, but that is just because they “believes” in some natural world to begin with. I think it is better to be agnostic and see where the facts (experimental) and working theories lead us.
>  
> We can’t have both Mechanism in cognitive science, and materialism, or just physicalism, in the “natural science”. That has been shown logically inconsistent (ask for reference if interested).
>  
> Bruno
>  
>  
>  
>  
> 
> 
> 
>>  
>>  
>> From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es>] On Behalf Of Stanley N Salthe
>> Sent: mardi, 11 juin 2019 21:09
>> To: fis
>> Subject: Re: [Fis] New Perspectives
>>  
>> Joseph -- Would you like to write how you define Natural Philosophy?
>>  
>> STAN
>>  
>> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 12:03 PM Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch <mailto:joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>> wrote:
>>> Dear Pedro and All,
>>>  
>>> Many thanks are due to you, Pedro, for this new and valuable formulation of the – daunting - task at hand. The task is logical and philosophical, as well as scientific. Philosophy here, exemplified by the Philosophy of Information, does not mean standard discussions of ‘where did we come from’ and ‘does a transcendent deity exist’, which are as sterile in their way as the excesses of the IT and AI ideologists. Natural Philosophy can be a ‘vehicle’ for interaction between people of good will, the collaboration that you point to that may help to advance IS4SI. Some of you who may not have been at the Conference in San Francisco (Berkeley) may wish to look at abstracts of papers from the Philosophy of Information sub-conferences at the 2015, 2017 and 2019 Summit conferences on Information.
>>>  
>>> To revitalize the list is indeed a key first step. But it starts, in my opinion, with some self-examination, examination of whether one’s own theories are just ‘pet’ theories. Applying this criterion to my own Logic in Reality, about which I have written on several occasions, I claim that it is not just a pet theory. It is a new perspective on how information, logic and thought operate as real processes, following laws within the laws of physics, without loss of a human, ethical dimension. However, LIR makes many demands on one. It requires an understanding and acceptance of what is /not/ Natural Philosophy, which may include some of the ideas that have appeared in this list.   
>>>  
>>> Again, accepting my own criterion of interactive non-separability, I do not call for any exclusions or limitations on the list. I only wish that everyone makes the necessary effort to position his or her own views in relation to the overriding need for furthering the Common Good. The sum of all such honest self-referential (or second-order recursive) opinions of people about their own work would itself be a useful creative effort, I think.
>>>  
>>> Thank you and best wishes,
>>>  
>>> Joseph 
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es>] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan
>>> Sent: mardi, 11 juin 2019 13:05
>>> To: 'fis'
>>> Subject: [Fis] New Perspectives
>>>  
>>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>>  
>>> A few days ago took place the IS4SI Meeting, in SFco, with one of the 
>>> parallel sessions devoted to FIS and other sessions also with presence 
>>> of veteran parties of this list. Relevant speakers in the plenary 
>>> sessions covered the main topic of the conference, expressed as: Where 
>>> is the I in Artificial Intelligence and the Meaning in Information? From 
>>> Tristan Harris to Melanie Mitchell, to Paul Verschure, etc.
>>>  
>>> In my view the perspectives in these IT fields are changing 
>>> significantly. The tremendous hype in AI, Deep Learning, IOT, etc. keeps 
>>> unabated, but critical voices are being heard, not just from a few 
>>> Academia corners as usual, but now by leading technologists and 
>>> researchers of big companies in these very fields. "Dissent" on the 
>>> contents, methodologies, and consequences of social applications is growing.
>>>  
>>> The industrial development of this IT sector --notwithstanding the 
>>> inflated proclamations and all the hype of the gurus-- does not mean the 
>>> arrival of some great singularity, or the symbiosis with machines, or 
>>> widespread menace of robots & cyborgs... these are slogans coming from 
>>> the industrialists to maintain social/ideological preeminence for their 
>>> whole sector. Rather I think they are starting to feel the consequences 
>>> of their social overstretching in different ways.
>>>  
>>> The fundamental point, in my opinion, is that our solitary, isolated 
>>> efforts from a few Academia places (Sciences & Humanities) in the quest 
>>> for new perspectives in Information Science, and not just AI 
>>> development, should not isolated any more. We can now establish an 
>>> interesting dialog and partnership with those new "dissenters" of the 
>>> technology in its concepts, methods, and social applications. It is upon 
>>> us to improve the discussion procedures, the collaborations, the 
>>> organization, etc. so that this opportunity might materialize 
>>> progressively. Do not ask me how... In any case I pointed out three 
>>> future directions for IS4SI advancement: community building, attracting 
>>> scientific/technological avantgarde, and organizational improvement.
>>>  
>>> Revitalizing this discussion list--shouldn't it be one of the first steps?
>>>  
>>> Best greetings to all,
>>>  
>>> --Pedro
>>>  
>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>>> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>>>  
>>> pcmarijuan.iacs en aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs en aragon.es>
>>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Fpedrocmarijuan%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786234083&sdata=rRk9RxUKvWoq1nnH7eSkg5gRTil1tVUTgTK0pDa5Ihg%3D&reserved=0>
>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>>  
>>>  
>>> ---
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