I don't believe that intelligibility can extend to fundamentality. So, whatever names we use to denote it: substance, God, the Real, Firstness, the noumenal, the Will, the Apeiron, Buddha Nature and so on, will, with all their associations and connotations, be tools to relate them to our various systematic understandings in the intelligible world, the 'World as Idea' as Schopenhauer calls it. — Janus
So, the idea of tychism is really just a dialectical negation of the idea of regularity, stability, concreteness; in short of 'being something'. — Janus
Spinoza's substance was not thought by him to be "anything", but more like being everything and nothing, inasmuch as to be anything is to be a mode of substance. Hegel similarly said that pure being is close to being pure nothingness.We find apophatic notions of God or Buddha Nature that can be traced back thousands of years. So we can say of Tychism, as Hegel says in another context, that it is the "same old stew reheated". — Janus
or, on the other hand, that it is the emanation of an unfathomable, infinite intelligence — Janus
he point of this is that the emergence of concrete somethingness as a process cannot be intelligibly traced back into firstness, because that is where intelligibility ends. We cannot say what is the symmetry of firstness that is broken to produce secondness, unless we impute an intelligence (albeit of an unfathomable order) to firstness, an intelligence of which our intelligence is a temporal reflection. — Janus
That is the limitation of Schopenhauer's system; it is inexplicable that an ordered Cosmos can be the expression of a blind will. The same goes for any system that thinks firstness as a blind chaos. — Janus
And remember where this started - your claim that abstract thoughts are biochemical processes. You followed that howler by jumping the other way - saying the mind was in no way the product of informational processes. — apokrisis
This second misstep was based on your very narrow conception of information processing - one rooted in TMs. — apokrisis
The reason for the unreasonable effectiveness of TMs is that they are the theoretical limit on semiotic encoding. Semiosis depends on symbols. A TM is the conceptually simplest — apokrisis
This ignores the fact that the flying machine designers quickly gave up trying to copy the flapping wings of birds and instead focused on a non-bird model of flying machines. The flapping did not prove "unreasonably effective".
Whereas the opposite is the case with NNs. Having got programmable computers, it was the case that even just emulating biologically-inspired information processing architectures was "unreasonably effective" for certain tasks, like pattern matching. — apokrisis
So that is a particularly inapt comparison with which to make your case. — apokrisis
So an organism is a machine? You seem out of touch with biology. — apokrisis
Artificial Life Needs a Real Epistemology - H. H. Pattee
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.18.1316&rep=rep1&type=pdf — apokrisis
So on the one hand you can't even define what you might mean by mind. On the other, you can make confident claims about neuroscience having a quite limited understanding. — apokrisis
And you keep reverting to talk of "brain biochemistry" when the question is about cognitive functions. — apokrisis
Don't you see the inconsistency of one minute admitting to knowing little, the next to be making a sweeping judgement of the whole field? — apokrisis
That's my understanding of the Church-Turing thesis. If you have a different idea I'd be interested to hear it.
— fishfry
That defines computation in the general limit ... if you are computing number theoretic functions. — apokrisis
So perhaps brains might not be that kind of "computer". — apokrisis
Maybe there is not a single arithmetic operation involved in their neural processes. Maybe even "summing weights" is just an analogy for the integrative processes of brain cells. — apokrisis
Church-Turing may have zilch to do with neurology. — apokrisis
And yet it is still wrong to then attribute neural information processes to "biochemistry". — apokrisis
And how could you have a view either way without a little more neuroscience to inform your opinion? — apokrisis
Given that TMs require no more physics than a gate that can read, write and erase a symbol on an infinite tape, why the heck would we expect new physics to make a difference to Turing universal computation? — apokrisis
The power of Turing machines is that they need the least physics we can imagine. What more do you want - time travel, Hilbert space, quantum teleportation? — apokrisis
That's back to front. It is the virtual elimination of any complicated physics which is the guarantee of the computational universality. — apokrisis
When you say "information is meaning," that's something I absolutely deny by my definition of information.
— fishfry
Who could win an argument against your private definitions? — apokrisis
So let's stick to the real world of science, maths and philosophy. — apokrisis
If you want to talk about Shannon entropy, fine. But then we all know that is based on counting meaningless bits. If we understood the pattern to mean something, then each successive bit would fail to be such a surprise. — apokrisis
If I know you are transmitting the digits of pi, I could stop you right after you said "3". — apokrisis
You don't get it. — apokrisis
Information theory defines a baseline where the meaning of a bit string is maximally uncertain. — apokrisis
Each bit says nothing about the following bit. — apokrisis
Then from that baseline, you can start to quantify the semantics. You can derive measures such as mutual information that speak to the information content. — apokrisis
That's one of the advantages of a semiotic approach to the whole issue. It recognises that there is a modelling relation involved. A symbol has meaning due to a habit of interpretation. — apokrisis
That habit is tied to action in the world. — apokrisis
So the informational side of the equation is causally connected to the material side. — apokrisis
There is only meaning in relation to the material consequences of any beliefs. — apokrisis
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Again, read Pattee - http://www.academia.edu/3144895/The_Necessity_of_Biosemiotics_Matter-Symbol_Complementarity — apokrisis
You keep misrepresenting my argument. — apokrisis
The significance of an NN would be that it captures something important about brain cognition. That is different from claiming the brain is literally just an NN. — apokrisis
And you seem confused about algorithms. — apokrisis
They are rules for making calculations. So they are something we think it meaningful for a TM to do. They are not the barest syntax of rule following we can imagine. They are semantic actions performed on a machine. — apokrisis
So already we are into the real world where computation carries extra semantic baggage. — apokrisis
The algorithms are intended to represent some actual informational process. — apokrisis
This could be just handling a company's payroll or driving a video display. Or it could be an attempt to mimic the connective behaviour of neural circuits. — apokrisis
A TM is just a universal algorithm runner. — apokrisis
How we then exploit that is down to the kind of information processing we think might be meaningful. We have to write an algorithm that seems to perform the task we have in mind. — apokrisis
That could be representing brain functions. — apokrisis
It could be representing accounting functions or moving image functions. Universal Turing machines have zilch to say about whether we humans are choosing to run usefully realistic routines or just scrambled garbage randomly concocted. — apokrisis
You are confusing yourself in jumping so interchangeably between talk of TMs, information, computation and algorithms. — apokrisis
Again, we write the algorithms. They have zilch to do with the universality of TMs. So you can't claim them as "mere". They are intended to represent some meaningful relation expressed as some mathematical operation. They have to perform a function we find useful. Thus they could model a company's payroll, or model the cognitive operations of a brain. — apokrisis
A payroll model is probably pretty ho hum. But a workable brain model? — apokrisis
Yes, the map is not then the territory. As someone pushing semiosis - a modelling relations view of "information processing" - you don't have to explain that to me. It is what I've been saying. — apokrisis
You are convincing me of your utter unfamiliarity with neural networks in practice. Or even in theory. — apokrisis
In fact it is completely custom hardware. It is not a simulation of a neural net on conventional technology. It is a direct hardware implementation of a neural network. — apokrisis
Yes, I've spent 40 years being critical of the over-blown claims of computer science. — apokrisis
So I am basically skeptical of the usual talk of getting close to building "a conscious machine". I know enough about the biology of brains to see how far off any computer system still is. — apokrisis
Indeed, I would like it if there was an in principle argument for why no mechanical device could ever simulate the necessary biological processes. It would suit my prejudices. So I am just being honest when I confess that there isn't an absolute argument. The effectiveness of NNs suggests that some level of mind-like technology - as good as cockroaches and ants - may be feasible. — apokrisis
And remember where this started - your claim that abstract thoughts are biochemical processes. — apokrisis
You followed that howler by jumping the other way - saying the mind was in no way the product of informational processes. — apokrisis
This second misstep was based on your very narrow conception of information processing - one rooted in TMs. — apokrisis
The reason for the unreasonable effectiveness of TMs is that they are the theoretical limit on semiotic encoding. Semiosis depends on symbols. A TM is the conceptually simplest machine for handling symbol strings. — apokrisis
A DNA strand can code for a pretty vast array of protein molecules, but that’s it really. Human language can code for a vast array of ideas. That's really powerful as we know. But a TM can implement mathematical algorithms. It can articulate any mathematically-constructable pattern. That is a whole other level of semiosis. — apokrisis
really basic. They represent pure syntactic potential, stripped of all physical constraints as well as all semantic. — apokrisis
ack the semantics - add the algorithmic structures - to make TM-based technology do actually useful things. Much like DNA has to code for the kind of neural connectivity that can do actually useful things for organisms. — apokrisis
Semiosis recognises the essential continuity here. It sees the ontological difference that codes or syntax makes, the new "unphysical" possibilities they create. — apokrisis
Maybe that's the "physics revolution" you are talking about. I certainly think that it is myself. It explains the information theoretic and thermodynamic turn now happening in fundamental physics I would argue. — apokrisis
The way this started IIRC is that you accused me of being a dualist and have then proceeded to make a dualist argument for the past several posts. — fishfry
Well, information processing is a TM. That's the technical definition. — fishfry
But that doesn't prove that minds work that way. Only that NNs have been doing some amazing things. — fishfry
In the beginning, we tried to program chess algorithms with expert knowledge. (You remember the expert systems movement I'm sure). That got the algorithms to a certain level. But to achieve mastery of the game, the designers gave up trying to teach the machine strategy. They just turned the NN loose and let it train itself. — fishfry
I objected to your claiming that neuroscientists think the mind is a computer program. Which is the same exact thing as an "informational process" even though you keep claiming it isn't. — fishfry
And by admitting that when it comes to brains, NN's are at best an analogy, you are conceding my point. Brains aren't NNs. You just agreed that they're only analogies to NNs. — fishfry
The technical definition requires the physical manipulation of an infinite tape. — apokrisis
If all there is to do here is to keep correcting your misrepresentation of my arguments, that is really a waste of time. — apokrisis
And because we know intelligibility to exist, then we know that - whatever else -its unintelligible ground had to contain intelligibility as its potential. So we can actually know something usefully definite about fundamental unintelligibility.
This is apophatic reasoning. But hey, in metaphysics that is unreasonably effective. ;) — apokrisis
So, my question is, just as with finite temporal being we extrapolate to in-finite, eternal being; then why not from finite, temporal creativity to in-finite, eternal creativity, from finite, temporal intelligence to in-finite eternal intelligence, from finite, temporal order to in-finite, eternal order, and so on? — Janus
but I will just point out that by 'in-finite' I don't mean to refer to "an infinite amount"; all amounts are finite. — Janus
If it "contains the potential" for intelligence and intelligibility, then it would seem to make more sense to think of it as in-finitely and eternally intelligent, than to think of it as brutely blind. — Janus
So take embodied human intelligence and creativity. You want to lose the necessity of the body and imagine the mind spread generally. — apokrisis
But that is a dualistic metaphysics. And it doesn't in the end work. — apokrisis
In-finite mind is not "spread" anymore than infinite being is. You need to free your thinking from it's customary presuppositions to get this. — Janus
No, I'm not proposing any kind of dualism; that it might seem so is again due to your own prejudice. How can you tell, beyond its failure to gell with your own particular set of presuppositions, that a metaphysics is not working? — Janus
The problem is that an infinite pure potential that is not actual makes absolutely no sense. — Janus
I mean what is the opposite of an actual potential? — Janus
An infinite potential would then make anything and everything possible. At least at the "beginning". — apokrisis
A universe of cartoon characters? A universe which is just a giant hamburger? A universe consisting of fairy floss? A universe where the inhabitants are heavier than the planets they inhabit? An infinitely complex and changing world which nonetheless consisted in absolute thermodynamic equilibrium? Or could any world such as our present one simply pop into existence 'fully formed' and without a history? I mean imagination's the limit; — Janus
So it seems impossible for me to imagine that there would not be an actual lawfulness inherent in the primordial indeterminate potential, that always already limits what could possibly come to exist. — Janus
And I do think it should, and probably inevitably will, remain ultimately an individual matter. We are not constrained by what the "community of enquirers" will ultimately come to think, because we cannot have any idea what that will be. — Janus
Might be a good idea to start with trying to decide - to define - what a number is. — tim wood
So all your suggested worlds, chosen because they are silly and contradictory, are already ruled out - unless apophatic reasoning finds some way they are a logical consequence of the "whatever" which would be the kind of potential which also produces such a highly constrained Cosmos such as the one that works to produce us. — apokrisis
I have a strong sense of the numinous which I am disinclined to give up on account of a belief that to do so would be to impoverish my life. — Janus
I asked you before what would be a universal presuppositon-less criteria for judging whether a metaphysics "works" — Janus
I have a terrible time trying to prevent a loss of enthusiasm and interest when confronted with mathematics. — Janus
That's one reason a definition for number is good to have before talking about them. — tim wood
Yet there is not one single definition of number. It's an amorphous concept. Mathematicians "know one when they see one." I don't know if this has caught the attention of philosophers. But there is no definition of number. — fishfry
And I'll try one: number is that which has neither extension, substance, nor quality, but that expresses/represents quantity. — tim wood
Yet there is not one single definition of number. It's an amorphous concept. Mathematicians "know one when they see one." I don't know if this has caught the attention of philosophers. But there is no definition of number. — fishfry
The theme of mathematical structuralism is that what matters to a mathematical theory is not the internal nature of its objects, such as its numbers, functions, sets, or points, but how those objects relate to each other. In a sense, the thesis is that mathematical objects (if there are such objects) simply have no intrinsic nature. The structuralist theme grew most notably from developments within mathematics toward the end of the nineteenth century and on through to the present, particularly, but not exclusively, in the program of providing a categorical foundation to mathematics.
Mathematical structuralism is similar, in some ways, to functionalist views in, for example, philosophy of mind. A functional definition is, in effect, a structural one, since it, too, focuses on relations that the defined items have to each other.
A structure is the abstract form of a system, which ignores or abstracts away from any features of the objects that do not bear on the relations. So, the natural number structure is the form common to all of the natural number systems. And this structure is the subject matter of arithmetic.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/m-struct/
And I'll try one: number is that which has neither extension, substance, nor quality, but that expresses/represents quantity.
— tim wood
Ok I'll play. Four questions.
* What is quantity?
* The imaginary unit i with i^2 = -1 ... what quantity does it represent?
* Do you regard i as a number?
* Does i exist? — fishfry
It's a philosophical curiosity that there is no definition of number in mathematics. In other words if you major in math, get a Ph.D. spend a career as a professional mathematician, you will never encounter a book or a paper that says, "A number is such and so." — fishfry
* What is quantity?
* The imaginary unit i with i^2 = -1 ... what quantity does it represent?
* Do you regard i as a number?
* Does i exist? — fishfry
In a sense, the thesis is that mathematical objects (if there are such objects) simply have no intrinsic nature.
A structure is the abstract form of a system, which ignores or abstracts away from any features of the objects that do not bear on the relations.
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