Thank you, Pierre-Normand.

Autonomous, responsible, free personhood is a prerequisite to rationality.

If external forces beyond my control shape me with insurmountable arbitrary constraints and if there is nothing but blind ‘potentiality’ running into those imposed constraints, then I am not in control over my actions and thoughts. And if I am not in control over my actions and thoughts, then I am not rational. And if I am not rational then I ‘have no hope of providing an adequate understanding of the nature of reality.’ — Querius

I wanted to post a response to this point, made a couple of days back, because I think it's important, (if not directly connected with the OP).

I share the belief that 'the person' ought to be a central concern of philosophy and the belief that tendency to reduce or explain away the person on the basis of a purportedly naturalistic account of human life is a shortcoming of naturalism.

You can adhere to a naturalistic attitude in respect of the subjects of natural philosophy, but the 'naturalising' tendency also can tend to treat human kind as 'the human species', which I think amounts to a kind of 'objectification' (i.e. treating subjects as objects).

So, it appears to me to be that in the transition to an overall secular or naturalistic view of life, one of the essential aspects of 'the person' has been, as it were, lost in translation, because the Christian tradition had the notion of man as 'Imago Dei'. I'm not saying that as a Christian apologist or as an attempt to restore or return to such an idea, but out of a concern for the basis of values, in the absence of something of that kind of depth or profundity.

The Aristotelean idea of 'eudomonia' and its associated 'virtue ethic' is a worthy candidate, and it's noteworthy that such a 'neo-Aristotelean' philosophy is increasing in popularity.

In any case, I just wanted to acknowledge Querius' point in respect of 'the person'.

The mind isn't LIKE software, it IS software. — tom

Not true. Software is part of a computer - that's the actual definition. Humans are not computers, and thoughts are not software. At best it's a model or an analogy. But, there's been a thread running on Online Philosophy Club, since 2007, about this very question, and it just keeps running. (Maybe it has a halting problem. ;-) ). In any case, I don't expect this is a disagreement that can be resolved.

Not true. Software is part of a computer - that's the actual definition. Humans are not computers, and thoughts are not software. At best it's a model or an analogy. But, there's been a thread running on Online Philosophy Club, since 2007, about this very question, and it just keeps running. (Maybe it has a halting problem — Wayfarer

Denial is always an option I suppose, but history will not be on your side.

Of course, if you managed to formulate an argument that the brain is not computationally universal, and that it could not be programmed (e.g. by training), and that therefore the mind could not be an abstraction instantiated on a brain, then you might have a point.

Might be easier to show that the entire theory of computation is wrong though. Go for the jugular and attack computational universality. Best of luck!

Of course, if you managed to formulate an argument that the brain is not computationally universal, and that it could not be programmed (e.g. by training), and that therefore the mind could not be an abstraction instantiated on a brain, then you might have a point. — tom

You ought to check Robert Rosen's Essays on Life Itself for such arguments. Also Howard Pattee's paper, Artificial life needs a real epistemology.

But even just from a good old flesh and blood neuroscience perspective, where's the evidence that the brain is actually any kind of Turing machine (even if you believe that any physical process can be simulated by a UTM)?

Denial is always an option I suppose, but history will not be on your side. — tom

It's not 'denial' - it's another 'd' word, called 'definition'. The definition of 'software' is different to the definition of 'reason' or 'thought' or 'human consciousness'. They're different things. So yes, I'm denying that 'thought' and 'software' are the same thing. If you can prove they are, please send me an invite to the Nobel Ceremony. Best of luck!

Of course, if you managed to formulate an argument that the brain is not computationally universal, and that it could not be programmed (e.g. by training), and that therefore the mind could not be an abstraction instantiated on a brain, then you might have a point. — tom

The rational soul is the form of the human body, according to Aristotle. I likewise prefer to conceive of the mind as a set of powers exhibited by an embodied human being rather than as a feature of her brain, but that won't be my focus here. I would readily grant that humans are smart enough to execute whatever algorithm is given to them. Indeed they can do it as mindlessly as any old CPU, or as Searle would do it in his Chinese Room. I would also readily grant that mental abilities can be multiply realized in a variety of biological or mechanical media (be they better conceived as specifically implementing computational operations, or not) but this shows no more than that possession of mental skills is a formal feature of rational beings.

The mind/software analogy also glosses over other significant differences between rational beings and computers. Computers don't give a damn. Deep Blue could exhibit some level of intelligence through winning chess games, but, if given the opportunity, it will also play the same game one trillion times in a row and never get bored (or interested) in the least. The software can be tuned to exhibit some degree of randomness and learning, but doing so would only fulfill the wishes of the programmers or users. What is missing for the merely computational operations of a computer to constitute true mindedness is embedding and functioning within the animate form of life of creatures who give a damn what they are doing and what happens to them. As John Haugeland might have put it: people follow normative rules that they voluntarily endorse because those rules are constitutive of phenomena that they care about. So, people are quite unlike computers passively running programs on whatever data they are given to process.

I would also readily grant that mental abilities can be multiply realized in a variety of biological or mechanical media ... — Pierre-Normand

I have to say that the latest understanding of biophysics at the nanoscale is now a serious challenge to multirealisabilty. Organic molecules have physically unique properties that allow them to flourish in a dissipative environment and function as various kinds of functional components. So the biologists don't have to grant the computationalists any kind ground at all anymore if life and mind are semiotic processes rather than information processes.

And the beauty is that the onus is on computationalists to show that life and mind are "just information processes" now if they want to keep pushing that particular barrow. This is no longer the 1970s. :)

Peter Hoffman has done a great book - Life's Ratchet - on this.

I would readily grant that humans are smart enough to execute whatever algorithm is given to them. Indeed they can do it as mindlessly as any old CPU, or as Searle would do it in his Chinese Room. — Pierre-Normand

The brain is computationally universal, but the mind certainly is not. There are many operations a mind will not perform, for reasons as diverse as morality and boredom. Humans can't execute algorithms mindlessly, and they don't execute algorithms like those we program into machines.

I would also readily grant that mental abilities can be multiply realized in a variety of biological or mechanical media (be they better conceived as specifically implementing computational operations, or not) but this shows no more than that possession of mental skills is a formal feature of rational beings. — Pierre-Normand

I certainly wouldn't grant that. The only known object in the universe which instantiates mental abilities - i.e. creates knowledge, possesses qualia and general intelligence, is the human brain.

The mind/software analogy also glosses over other significant differences between rational beings and computers. — Pierre-Normand

It would have to gloss over the significant difference between rational beings and abstract beings instantiated on computationally equivalent hardware. Or more precisely, the significant difference between minds instantiated on human brains and minds instantiated on computers.

Computers don't give a damn. — Pierre-Normand

Brains don't give a damn either.

The brain is computationally universal, but the mind certainly is not. There are many operations a mind will not perform, for reasons as diverse as morality and boredom. — tom

This doesn't show that humans can't perform those operations; only that they may occasionally choose not to. Humans don't really instantiate universal Turing machines because they are finite mortal beings, but then so are human brains. But I don't quite know what your argument is anymore. You seemed to be arguing that the mind was the software of the brain, quite literally. Your ascribing vastly superior computational powers to brains than you do to people supports this contention how?

Brains don't give a damn either.

On this, at least, we agree.

Of course, if you managed to formulate an argument that the brain is not computationally universal, and that it could not be programmed (e.g. by training), and that therefore the mind could not be an abstraction instantiated on a brain, then you might have a point.

Might be easier to show that the entire theory of computation is wrong though. Go for the jugular and attack computational universality. Best of luck! — tom

Well, according to this, "real computers have limited physical resources, so they are only linear bounded automaton complete. In contrast, a universal computer is defined as a device with a Turing complete instruction set, infinite memory, and infinite available time."

Given that we don't have infinite memory or infinite available time (or a Turing complete instruction set?), the brain isn't Turing complete. It's only linear bounded automaton complete.

I'm highly sympathetic to dualism, but I think everyone is flummoxed by the idea of how 'res cogitans' coud be a 'non-extended substance', because the very idea of 'non-extended substance' appears self-contradictory. (I think I know how to resolve that, but I am never able to explain it.) — Wayfarer

Actually when you come to fully grasp the concept of "substance", especially in light of modern physics, the very opposite becomes apparent. Spatial extension refers to the form of an object. Following Aristotelian logic, the existence of matter is assumed to substantiate the independent existence, the particularity, of such objects. In order that what we say about things may be true, and applicable to particular things, and our logical proceedings may be properly grounded, we assume matter, as substance. Matter is inherently distinct from form, and this is Aristotelian dualism. Therefore it is impossible that substance, as matter itself, has spatial extension because this would be to say that it has a form.

The problem which modern physics has, is how to come to grips with "non-extended substance". Non-extended substance has been assumed in the concept of "point particle", which derives from the way that gravity has been modeled, as centred on a point. This is inherent within the concept of mass. But non-extended substance may be given properties, such as charge, and spin, in a way that extended forms would have such properties. If the difference between extended and non-extended existence is not properly determined, through some form of dualist principles, and upheld in the principles of physics, mistakes are inevitable. The use of non-extended substance, in conceptual form, has run rampant through physics, with complete disregard for any need to distinguish between spatially extended and non-spatially extended existence, to the point that we now have things like virtual particles.

Exactly. I mean who needs a physics textbook to know about physics, or a neuroscience textbook to know about brains? Just make the damn shit up to suit yourself. — apokrisis

I've read a lot of books, but I do this to enrich my own mind, not because I think it will make me part of some fictitious "group-mind". The problem with your group-mind idea is that it makes the false assumption that society is some sort of whole, a unity, without determining the real principle "God" which validates this unity. So it is God which is the true unity, and the group-mind is just an unsuccessful attempt to conceptualize that unity without the necessary and essential aspect of that concept - God.

This is the sin of Lucifer, Satan, the fallen angel. Because of his great power, given to him by God, he believes that he is God. That is the sin of self-deception, and God has no recourse but to exile that angel. By saying that human beings create a group-mind, without attributing this unity to God, you assign to the human race the property of God, and commit the sin of the fallen angel.

By saying that human beings create a group-mind, without attributing this unity to God, you assign to the human race the property of God, and commit the sin of the fallen angel. — Metaphysician Undercover

Cripes. So social constructionism is the work of the Devil.

Damn straight!!!
Metaphoorically speeaakiiing ;)

What I don't see in the mechanisms of downward causation offered so far — 'social constraints', 'the mind is software' and so forth — is an attempt to ground a free rational responsible person. Perhaps I missed something, but, in the context of the mechanisms offered so far, the person cannot be in control of downward causation.

If downward causation is indeed beyond the control of the person, then this flies in the face of rationality, as I have argued before.

Cripes. So social constructionism is the work of the Devil. — apokrisis

I don't believe it is good to make generalized judgements like this, casting a blanket of good or bad over an entire 'ism. That appears to be your approach to reductionism. But many such 'isms are epistemological only, providing principles of guidance within particular epistemic categories. It is how these principles are related to what is outside the category, how we relate an epistemology to an ontology for example, which is where we should make such judgements of good and bad. So in the case of social constructionism, some might belief that social constructs are natural, and some might believe that they are artificial, and others might simply use some of the epistemological principles without making such a judgement..

This doesn't show that humans can't perform those operation; only that they may choose not to. Humans don't really instantiate universal Turing machines because they are finite mortal beings, but then so are human brains. But I don't quite know what your argument is anymore. You seemed to be arguing that the mind was the software of the brain. Your ascribing vastly superior computational powers to brains than you do to people supports this contention how? — Pierre-Normand

The distinction I am drawing is between the physics and the abstraction.

At the risk of repeating myself, it has been proved that all real universal computers are equivalent. The set of motions of one can be exactly replicated on the other. It has further been proved that any finite physical system can be simulated to arbitrary accuracy, with finite means, on a universal computer. The brain can thus be simulated on a universal computer, whether it is itself universal or not. Whatever a brain can do, a computer can do. There is nothing beyond universality.

The idea that the brain is not computationally universal seems somewhat churlish. Given that we know that the capabilities of the Mind far exceed the capabilities of any currently known programs which run on computationally universal hardware, to claim the brain is non-universal, does not give credit where credit is due!

The brain is computationally universal, just like my laptop.

Very strange, I was never warned about your message here at all. First time I see it was now, accidentally while browsing through.

If we are not knowing nature-as-it-is through the Laws and they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us — John

I've never said this. I've never said through the laws we know nature as it appears to us, nor have I ever implied such a noumenon/phenomenon distinction. In fact I said quite the contrary - the laws themselves do not even reveal the phenomenon to us.

then our understanding of nature through science tells us nothing about 'what really is', nothing of ontological or metaphysical significance — John

This is true.

On that assumption the notion that the self would seem to be groundless — John

Not so, because it's something that we observe phenomenally directly. We observe how the self is given birth and arises out of nature and out of our community.

The self as we experience it to be cannot be understood by rational and empirical means — John

Why not?

Spinoza's philosophy, for example, which you say you so admire is completely incompatible with any reasonable conception of Christianity, with any conception of it that does destroy its essence; its uniqueness as a religion, that is.
:s — John

That would depend on what you consider its essence to be I think. If you consider its essence to be the special significance of the Trinity, or man-become-God and God-become-man and such Hegelian notions then I'd agree with you. If you consider its essence to be love, then I don't think it's contradictory at all, except in showing that God cannot love us the way we love God. But I don't see why that's so bad for Christianity. Furthermore - it is utterly rational and undeniable, so given that philosophy is such and such, we have to shift our religious understanding by its lights.

Your version of Christianity seems to be quite Protestant - do you consider yourself a Protestant Christian by the way?

I've never said this. I've never said through the laws we know nature as it appears to us, nor have I ever implied such a noumenon/phenomenon distinction. In fact I said quite the contrary - the laws themselves do not reveal the phenomenon to us. — Agustino

Apart from entanglement, the geometry of the universe, the big-bang, cosmic microwave background ...

Sure, the laws reveal nothing.

Apart from entanglement, the geometry of the universe, the big-bang, cosmic microwave background ...

Sure, the laws reveal nothing. — tom

:-} http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/54437#Post_54437

I forgot, gravitational waves were revealed by theory 100 years before they could be measured. It only took ~50years to observe the other features of reality like entanglement and the cosmic microwave background.

And don't forget cosmology takes us to times before the big-bang, whose signal is revealed to be within the CMB.

No, theory clearly reveals nothing.

entanglement — tom

big-bang — tom

cosmic microwave background — tom

You realise all these are nothing except useful fictions which we have invented in order to conceptualise our measurements, and create a system which enables us to make conceptual-based predictions? There is no big-bang, entanglement, cosmic-microwave background, etc. above and beyond their effects and predicted effects. We could re-name and re-conceptualise all of those. The Big Bang could be a Small Whirl, etc. There's an infinity of re-conceptualisations which we could use, and which could predict the same things.

gravitational waves — tom

Again - this is pure concept, it has no reality. It's useful because it helps us think about a model, and thinking about the model helps us predict the world.

And don't forget cosmology takes us to times before the big-bang, whose signal is revealed to be within the CMB. — tom

Big-bang, CMB, etc. are concepts, not realities. They are pieces which together form a coherent whole, which is our scientific model of reality. Nothing more.

No, theory clearly reveals nothing. — tom

I see nothing revealed there about reality.

Big-bang, CMB, etc. are concepts, not realities. They are pieces which together form a coherent whole, which is our scientific model of reality. Nothing more. — Agustino

You are in a state of irrational denial.

The Earth really does orbit the Sun, and the Earth really is not flat and it's not turtles all the way down, really.

And entanglement was really predicted in 1935 and really observed in 1982.

And gravitational waves were really predicted in 1916 and really observed in 2016.

And do you think solid state electronics was an accident, or did solid state physicists really predict that if they could really build a p-n junction, they could make diodes, amplifiers ... ? Solid state theory could not even be conceived of without quantum mechanics!

And the CMB really is light from the big-bang, and certain as-yet-unobserved patterns in the polarization of the CMB radiation will be evidence of eternal inflation.

>:O >:O >:O >:O

the Earth really is not flat — tom

What does this mean? Does this mean that if I go in a straight like I will return ultimately to the point I started from? Yes it does. Therefore the Earth not being flat is a model for the underlying reality. The underlying reality is what you experience directly - ie returning to your starting position if you go in a straight line.

What does this mean? Does this only mean that if I go in a straight like I will return ultimately to the point I started from? Yes it does. Therefore the Earth not being flat is a model for the underlying reality. The underlying reality is what you experience directly. — Agustino

I had no idea you really did that. Quite a trip eh?

I've never said this. I've never said through the laws we know nature as it appears to us, nor have I ever implied such a noumenon/phenomenon distinction. In fact I said quite the contrary - the laws themselves do not even reveal the phenomenon to us. — Agustino

You said this:

And I think laws of nature are merely models we use for purposes of modelling and predicting the world. — Agustino

And I said this:

If we are not knowing nature-as-it-is through the Laws and they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us, then our understanding of nature through science tells us nothing about 'what really is', nothing of ontological or metaphysical significance. On that assumption the notion that the self — John

Now, as I understand it, there is no difference between "models we use for purposes of modelling and predicting the world" and "they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us" since "the world" just is the term we use for "how nature appears to us", or vice versa; they are synonymous.

But in your response, you have subtly changed the wording of what I had said: "I've never said through the laws we know nature as it appears to us". You go on to say "the laws themselves do not even reveal the phenomenon to us". Well, of course they don't, our senses reveal the phenomenon to us, obviously. The laws are models that tell us only about how the world appears to our senses, and including about the functions of our senses themselves vis a vis their objects.

The salient point is that the laws are models that tell us stories about the world only as it appears to us. They do not tell us anything about the world as it is in itself. The latter is something we are capable of conceiving of as a mere possibility; it is a possibility we can know nothing about. It's importance lies only in the very obvious fact that we can conceive of it. The fact that we can conceive this way of something hidden from us has had incalculable effects on human social, historical, religious and creative development.

The salient point is that the laws are models that tell us stories about the world only as it appears to us. They do not tell us anything about the world as it is in itself. — John

Then explain how our theories can tell us stories about things we will have to wait 50 to 100 years to observe?

If you look at any scientific theory, it explains what we see in terms of what we cannot see. Our theories tell us stories of how the world really is and, from them we deduce what we will see, even if we it takes 100yrs to develop the technology.

Our theories tells us about how we think the world might be in itself. Any understanding of how the world could be in itself in accordance with our theories can only ever be given in terms of how the world appears to us, and so would be utterly speculative. Anything that we see in the future will be the world as it appears to us; what else could it be?

edit: Posted in wrong thread

At the risk of repeating myself, it has been proved that all real universal computers are equivalent. The set of motions of one can be exactly replicated on the other. It has further been proved that any finite physical system can be simulated to arbitrary accuracy, with finite means, on a universal computer. The brain can thus be simulated on a universal computer, whether it is itself universal or not. Whatever a brain can do, a computer can do. There is nothing beyond universality. — tom

Still this dualistic crackpottery.

A computational simulation is of course not the real thing. It is a simulation of the real thing's formal organisation abstracted from its material being.

This should be easy enough to see. A computer relies on the physical absence of material constraints. It is cut off from the real world in that it has a power supply it doesn't need to earn. It doesn't matter what program is run as the design of the circuitry means the entropic effort is zeroed in artificial fashion. The whole set-up is about isolating the software from dissipative reality so it can do its solipsistic Platonic thing.

A brain is quite different in being organically part of the material world it seeks to regulate via semiosis. And you can see this in things like the way it is fundamentally dependent on dissipative processes and instability.

Where a computer must be made of Platonically stable or eternal parts - logic circuits frozen in silicon - the brain requires the opposite. It depends on the fact that right down at the nanoscale of cellular structure everything is on the point of falling apart. All molecular components are self-assembling in fluid fashion. So they are constantly about to break apart, and constantly about to reform.

And in having this critical instability, it means that top-down semiotic constraint - the faint nudges to go one way or the other that can be delivered by the third thing of a molecular message - become supremely powerful. This is the reason why a level of sign or biological code can non-dualistically control its world. It is why the "software" can regulate the materiality of metabolic processes, and on a neural scale, the material actions of whole bodies.

So science has looked at how organisms are actually possible. And the answer isn't computation but biosemiosis.

Computers are abstracted form. So they have the fundamental requirement that someone - their human masters - freezes out the material dynamics of the real world so they can exist in their frozen worlds of silicon (or whatever super-cooled, error corrected, machinery a quantum computer might get made of).

And organisms are the opposite. They depend on a material instability - being at the edge of chaos - that then makes it possible for top-down messages to tip stochastically self-organising processes in one direction or another.

As I say, that is what makes multi-realisability an issue. A Turing Machine can indeed be made out of anything - tin cans and string if you like.

But biology - in only the past 10 years - has shown how organic chemistry may be a unique kind of "stuff" that can't be replicated or simulated by simpler physical machinery (circuitry lacking the critical instability that then gives semiosis "something to do").

It is a happy fact that Turing himself was on to it with his parallel work on chemical morphogenesis. He was an actual genius who saw both sides of the story. But sadly UTMs have given licence to decades of academic crackpottery as hyped-up computer scientists have pretended that the material world itself is "computable" - as if an abstracted simulation is not the opposite of existing in a world of material process.

It is how these principles are related to what is outside the category, how we relate an epistemology to an ontology for example, which is where we should make such judgements of good and bad. — Metaphysician Undercover

So you mean ... exactly what I said then?

Ie: Holism is four cause modelling, reductionism is just the two. And simpler can be better when humans merely want to impose their own formal and final causality on a world of material/efficient possibility. However it is definitely worse when instead our aim is to explain "the whole of things" - as when stepping back to account for the cosmos, the atom and the mind.

Now, as I understand it, there is no difference between "models we use for purposes of modelling and predicting the world" and "they are merely predictive models that tell only about how nature appears to us" since "the world" just is the term we use for "how nature appears to us", or vice versa; they are synonymous. — John

Except what if there is nothing besides nature as it appears to us? Away with the noumenon/phenomenon distinction. The noumenon doesn't exist in the sense the phenomenon exists - empirically. Hence there is no discussion of noumeonon asking what is it, bla bla - that is what you ask with regards to empirical matters.

The laws are models that tell us only about how the world appears to our senses, and including about the functions of our senses themselves vis a vis their objects. — John

I agree, but I'd say the laws are merely models which we can use to predict certain sense experiences in the world.

The salient point is that the laws are models that tell us stories about the world only as it appears to us. — John

Only if you accept a noumenon/phenomenon distinction.

It's importance lies only in the very obvious fact that we can conceive of it. — John

Well I can conceive of flying pigs too - are flying pigs therefore important? :P

The fact that we can conceive this way of something hidden from us has had incalculable effects on human social, historical, religious and creative development. — John

Why do you say this?