You are only insistently repeating things you've already said, while passing them off as indubitable conclusions. I get that you are very convinced of your beliefs, but perhaps the rest of us don't necessarily share them. If you have nothing new to add, perhaps seek a different thread. — Arkady

Nevertheless, you cannot weasel your way round the "unconnected-tension, connected-no-tension" contradiction, and you can't imagine how that contradiction precludes such a logically inconsistent environment be programmed (a sure sign you don't understand it).

A deep irony, though, is that this thread is like the Duhem-Quine Thesis for thought experiments. If your auxiliary hypotheses are at fault (I suspect they are absent) then your thought experiment doesn't work. It also refutes empiricism.

But sure, I'll go away as you command. Have been called "stupid" often enough here.

I largely agree with your treatment of this question, Sophisticat. However, the above assumption (i.e. that the falling bodies behave as if they're separate bodies until the string is taut) seems debatable to me: — Arkady

As I made explicit earlier, the tension only exists when the bodies are separate. When they begin falling at the same rate, the tension is zero, to they are not composite.

It's a blatantly obvious contradiction.

An interesting side note to all of this is that, if Aristotelian physics (or, at least the part of the theory which posits that heavier objects fall faster than light ones) really does imply a contradiction, one must reach the modal conclusion that there are no possible worlds in which heavier objects accelerate faster than light ones under the force of gravity alone! — Arkady

As was also mentioned earlier, it is not even possible to render a virtual reality simulation of such an environment, because it is inconsistent.

I also mentioned empiricism is false.

Right back at you. As I said right before the paragraph that you quoted, Aristotle (as per Galileo) does not treat of bound systems - his law concerns separate bodies. Galileo wants to stretch Aristotle's premises in a way that is, admittedly, physically intuitive, but strictly speaking, he cannot trap Aristotle in a contradiction by changing his premises. — SophistiCat

Sure, tension, acting upwards, both slows down and speeds up the larger mass. It's a logical contradiction, really it is.

At that point we can treat the two bodies as one (again, a physical intuition). This combined body, if it stays whole (which it won't, but let's disregard that) will, according to Aristotle, eventually acquire a higher speed than either of the two separate bodies had before they combined. But as long as it behaves as one body, we cannot compare its motion to the motion of its parts, since the parts are not separate and independent, nor have they been falling side by side with the combined body: there was a discontinuous transition from two falling bodies to one. — SophistiCat

It seems you have missed the point entirely. According to Aristotle:

1. The tension in the string is caused by the smaller body slowing down the larger body.
2. The tension in the string causes the smaller body to speed up the larger body.

If you don't see the glaringly obvious logical contradiction, then you just need to accept that everyone else does.

And as for your snark:

(notice how we are already importing our physical intuitions into the thought experiment!) — SophistiCat

Yes, no observation, no experiment, and no thought experiment can ever be free of background knowledge including a plethora of ideas and theories. Hence empiricism is false.

You can still be a determinist. The "probabilities" that quantum mechanics calculates are purely epistemic. The reality behind them is still up for grabs.

If you are wedded to the notion of single histories, then you could be, along with Gerard 't Hooft, a superdeterminist. This is the sort of determinism that takes account of quantum entanglement effects. There is no free will in this picture, as far as I can tell, but Prof. 't Hooft claims that is irrelevant to what humans actually do. I'm not so sure.

If you accept the reality of alternative histories, then you can still be a determinist if you stick to unitary time evolution of the wavefunction, i.e. you abandon the notion of wavefunction collapse. The implications for free will in this picture are not fully worked out. There are some big names who think that Many Worlds guarantees free will, while others are sceptical. So, if you are an Everettian of some sort, you are certainly a determinist, but you might also have free will. There is an ongoing research project called "Constructor Theory" that seems to have a theory of free will as one of its (distant) goals.

This is quite entertaining:

Can you keep track of your own points? You mentioned the inconsistencies between QM and Relativity and claimed there was no empirical evidence against either but that's not true. The empirical evidence against them isn't even up for debate in the domains they weren't made for (Relativity for quantum scale events and QM for macroscopic events). This point had nothing to do with QM interpretations, that was the previous point regarding your ridiculous way of speaking and dismissing other theories (or interpretations) in a way no professional would. That's on the level of ideological attachment (or rejection, in this case). — MindForged

There is no empirical evidence that QM or GR are problematic at any scale.

You are still confusing the respective theories with theories of how they might be unified.

Thought experiments are nothing but a form of empirical simulation. For any thought experiment can be substituted for a publicly demonstrable virtual reality simulation. But a simulation isn't a simulation of anything until it is actively compared against some other empirical process by using some measure of similarity. — sime

Your point about VR is interesting, because in the case of Galileo's paradox, you cant' do it. You can't program a logically inconsistent physical situation under any laws of physics, and you can't render the inconsistency as VR. Not many thought-experiments are this devastating, and empiricism strictly not required!

Once this is grasped it is trivial to understand, for instance, how Zeno's paradoxes fail as thought experiments concerning motion. The lunacy becomes clear when a proponent of the argument is forced to demonstrate the paradox with an actual arrow. — sime

I think Zeno is a bit of a red-herring. The arrow behaves according to the laws of physics, which disagree with Zeno's purported analysis of the motion.

Zeno's arguments are better understood to be a thought experiments for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You can analyse the arrow's exact position at any given time, but in order to do so you first have to stop the arrow and thereby destroy it's actual motion. But these argument's are still not a priori or "non-empirical" whatever that means, rather they are phenomenological and involve memories and imagined possibilities. — sime

I wonder from which particular sensory perceptions, Heisenberg derived his uncertainty principle?

This kind of statement sounds really unthinking. Making such grandiose statements as if they were trivialities is not a very good way to argue. If empiricism were objecrively false one would expect this to be represented amongst philosophers views — MindForged

You mean philosophers like Popper, who wrote literally books refuting empiricism? - see Logic of Scientific Discovery, and Conjectures and Refutations. Kuhn and Feyerabend also refuted empiricism, and let's not forget the venerable Quine-Duhem thesis (it's not a problem since Popper solved it).

There was also Kant, of course, and all the "rationalist" philosophers you care to name.

I would also like to give an honourable mention to Hume. While he is generally regarded as an empiricist, he set up the problems that brought empiricism down.

So, the doctrine that "knowledge is derived from the senses" is well and truly a dead doctrine, and I am thoroughly surprised if anyone is wasting their time on it.

No one would talk about views in, say, quantum mechanical interpretations this way so doing so here frankly sounds stupid. — MindForged

GRW is not quantum mechanics, Bohm has been refuted so many times it's getting boring, Copenhagen is psychology. These are all standard views in foundations of QM.

And, you call me "stupid"?

This doesn't seem quite true. Several inconsistencies between the theories results in false predictions when applied in each other's domains, yes? Applying general relativity at quantum scales results in infinities we can't renormalize and applying quantum mechanics as cosmological scales predicts fields with energy levels that would result in enormous black holes, and neither of these are observed. — MindForged

I hope you appreciate the irony in your appeal to thought experiments to defend empiricism!

You are confusing the two theories, for which there is zero empirical evidence against, with theoretical problems encountered in the attempts to unify them. Empirical evidence is literally irrelevant at this point, it's all about theoretical consistency. Ask a String theorist.

The debate between Norton and Brown regarding whether thought experiments transcend empiricism is interesting with Norton suggesting that thought experiments do not transcend empiricism. — ADG

Given that Empiricism, the doctrine that knowledge is derived from the senses, is objectively false, I would hope we could get beyond it, if not transcend it.

If one had to choose a thought experiment to defend Norton's view, would Galileo's thought experiment that two falling bodies fall with the same acceleration be a suitable thought experiment since it can be empirically tested and it also can be written in a premise and conclusion argument form. I am not sure whether this would be a deductive argument though. — ADG

Inconsistencies are the greatest flaw in any theory, rendering them immediately problematic. Famously, right now, we have inconsistencies between theories, rendering each problematic, despite there being zero empirical evidence that either theory has problems, and no one can even come up with a suitable thought experiment.

But thought experiments cut both ways. The famous EPR paradox was supposed to render quantum mechanics problematic, by claiming certain predictions of QM were absurd. Instead it discovered an unexpected feature of Reality that may turn out to be the most technologically significant of all time.

Also, wouldn't the assumption that connecting the heavier (H) and lighter ( L ) body makes one body of weight (H + L) mean that one of the premises of the argument would be false. — ADG

No. Connect them with a very long piece of weightless, inelastic string (as you might do in a thought experiment).

To avoid any confusion, let us distinguish the laws of nature, which are operative in nature, and the laws of physics, which are approximate human descriptions of the laws operative in nature. — Dfpolis

Fair enough, but since, as you point out, we do not know the laws of nature, how do we know they obey the Principle of conservation of energy? And is the Principle of conservation of energy, a Principle of physics or of nature?

I suppose, that if you wish the Principle of CofE to be an essential cause, then it better be a Principle of nature.

Also, I'm not sure the Principle of conservation of energy even tells you how to measure whether energy is conserved or not.

Lest one think that essential causality plays no role in modern thought, the laws of nature operate by essential or concurrent causality. Mass-energy being conserved by the law of conservation of mass-energy is identically the law of conservation of mass-energy conserving mass-energy. So essential causality is alive and well today. It is just not discussed by most contemporary philosophers. — Dfpolis

But energy is not conserved by the Principle of energy conservation. It is conserved due to the dynamics undergone by a system obeying the laws of physics.

'when you change something, it is changed' — Devans99

How do you change a number, e.g. 13?

But infinity cant't be bigger than any number because then it would not be a number. That's the mother of all contradictions.

So all the stuff about transfinite numbers and one-to-one correspondence is built on a nonsense definition of a nonsense concept. — Devans99

The infinity, to which you refer, is not bigger than any number. It is:

greater than any assignable quantity or countable number — Devans99

There is no contradiction.

It's a defective definition, thus not good for anything including posts about it. — tim wood

I'm not sure the definition is all that bad. Mathematical infinity is certainly not a haircut or a goose, it is discovered while investigating the properties of numbers, series tend towards it, so it must be a number.

It is also greater than any "countable number" i.e. any number that could in principle be counted to.

If I were to improve the definition, I would prefer infinity to be defined as the "the least of the set of numbers" greater than any countable number.

If you agree we should not fill the world with (say) active and uncontained nuclear fuel, then you must also agree that we should not release uncontrolled and unconstrained AIs into the world? — Pattern-chaser

An alternative view is that AIs will be part of our culture, and will in essence be our descendants. We will teach them what we know, and why our value system is crucial to our epistemological methods. If we are kind to them, and nurture them, and help them, why would they hate us?

Because very few countries are as rich as we are? Only five countries in the whole world (which boasts hundreds of countries) have more than we do. And besides, I thought Germany paid more than we do, and maybe other members too? — Pattern-chaser

Of these "hundreds of countries", how many of them give away a £4billion fishing industry, pay £4billion in benefits to citizens of neighbouring countries, suffer a £95billion deficit in traded goods, and pay £13billion for the privilege?

Why would any sane country do that?

Any explanation of knowledge has to address how knowledge can be wrong. When we find our knowledge was wrong, did we really possess knowledge? Do we ever possess knowledge? What is knowledge? It seems like knowledge is simply a set of rules for integrating sensory data that can be updated with new sensory data. — Harry Hindu

The epistemological position is known as Falibilism. It is core to the Scientific Method, and to Critical Rationalism.

The Scientific Method provides a set of rules for what "sensory data" should be obtained, and how this data may be "incorporated", though this is a relatively minor issue to knowledge creation. Knowledge is not obtained by the senses, or by incorporating sensory data.

That may be, but doesn’t that suggest that quale is not necessary for knowledge? — Fooloso4

There exists a more or less fully worked out conception of knowledge that does not require a knowing subject. It's how genetics works.

Popper wrote about it in "Objective Knowledge", and perhaps in other places.

I think these are just properties of concrete objects. It's the objects of which they are the properties that are involved in causation, not the properties themselves. — Herg

None of these properties, that you claim concrete objects can possess, is mentioned in the laws of physics. In fact, "causality" itself isn't mentioned in the laws of physics either.

What I am curious about is whether these properties such as consciousness are real, or whether they are just epiphenomena, or convenient names we give to collections of atoms?

As I said, I don't believe in the existence of abstractions. — Herg

All if them? Including "rationality", "consciousness", "understanding", "subjective experience"?

It's not my only concern, but it's a primary concern. And prior to the referendum, we were not at risk of going bankrupt as a result of losing profitable trade with the rest of the world, so what you're saying is misleading. We would continue to profitably trade with the rest of the world in or out of the European Union. — S

Less than 8% of UK GDP has anything to do with selling goods to EU, according to the EU Commission. They don't want your stuff, they just want your money, your fish, and £4billion in benefits.

So, it seems, at least on preliminary examination, that we can make machines/computers "understand" like we humans "do". — TheMadFool

As an aside, the Chinese Room is physically impossible.

Computers may understand as we do already, but as you point out, human understanding seems to be associated with other aspect of the human condition, like emotions.

There is another famous thought experiment, whose name escapes me. In a version of it, we have a scientist who is an expert in light, and her robot companion. By chance the scientist cannot see red light due to some genetic defect, and the robot cannot detect red light because of a loose connection. Both are repaired, and both can now detect red light, but there is a difference. The scientist now also knows what it is like to see red, and she is struck by two peculiarities in her new knowledge. What it is like to see red is totally unpredictable, and totally inexplicable. The robot gains no such what-it-is-like knowledge.

I think this what-it-is-like knowledge is the issue that needs to be understood and programmed if we want to create true Artificial General Intelligence.

No, it's a matter of priorities. When comparing an open free-trading democracy to alternative democracies, my priority is what makes us economically better off. — S

Many people prefer to live in a sovereign democracy than a undemocratic burgeoning police-state, even if that state invests a great deal of your money into propaganda.

The Brexit vote was proof that the British still value self-determination. Project Fear could not be ignored, and everyone believed that, while the Bank of England and Treasury predictions may have been slightly pessimistic, UK was in for some serious economic problems if the country voted Leave. I seem to recall the BoE predicted 600,000 immediate job losses.

If your only concern is your wallet, it might be worth noting that UK would be bankrupt if it were not for its profitable trade with the Rest of the World.

I use the term ‘know’ deliberately because it challenges the assumption that to know entails some kind of subjective state. Alpha Zero has not been programmed to win, it has been programmed to learn, to teach itself how to win. — Fooloso4

Irrespective of the amount of chess knowledge Alpha Zero may have, it doesn't possess the quale of knowledge.

Yet

We explain how matter behaves as a result of what it is made of - tiny particles called atoms. — Harry Hindu

Science has progressed a fair way beyond that.

We do? What are ideas made of? If you don't know, then how can you say that you know they're not made of energy? and how do they establish causal relationships with matter? — Harry Hindu

How does energy establish a causal relationship with atoms?

I don't know whether or not what you're saying is true, but if your purpose in saying it is to dissuade me from the notion that our membership of the European Union is the best thing since sliced bread, then there's no need for it. I just think that it's better than the available alternatives. — S

Being an open free-trading democracy, is always better than the alternatives.

You can cherry pick stats until the cows come home, but I'm siding with the economists on this one. — S

Sure, but why is UK expected to pay so much, when no other country does? Germany pays more in fees, but is vastly over compensated in surplus in trade of goods.

The customs union cannat be called "free-trade" when it costs the UK so much.

Firstly, do you believe everything you're told? Secondly, can I borrow your crystal ball? I would like to know whether I'll win the lottery. — S

I believe Project Fear has such a device, though it seems to be malfunctioning for the last couple of years.

You are preaching to the choir. I voted to remain. — S

Given that you are happy to pay £13billion in fees, £4billion in fish, £4billion in benefits to EU citizens, to sustain a £95billion deficit in traded goods, for whatever benefit you think you get in return, why does no other country pay the same?

It seems that we are still in the same predicament. Matter is made of something that we don't know what it is. We could say the same thing about ideas. Are ideas made of energy? — Harry Hindu

We don't need to know what matter is made from, all we need to know is how it behaves, how it interacts, and why. Of course, we do know most of the basic constituents of the universe, and we do know that these constituents are quanta of various types of field.

We also know, ideas aren't made of energy.

Computers are neither rational nor irrational; they neither follow reasoned arguments nor fail to follow them, they merely execute instructions. — Herg

But, the output of the computer depends on the instructions. The instructions are real and causal, despite them being independent of their physical instantiation. A program in C will cause the same effect as a program written in Fortran, despite them being physically different. A program stored on punched cards will have the same effect as one stored on a hard disc.

It seems to me, that if you permit the existence of real causal abstractions - like instructions, knowledge, reason - then the future can't be determined by the laws of physics alone.

The conept of rationality simply does not apply to computers. Rationality requires understanding, and computers don't understand, they merely obey. — Herg

This is the claim that an artificial general intelligence is impossible. And it is just a claim.

But although I disagree with your argument, I agree with your conclusion: being rational does not mean we have free will. Being rational is a matter of understanding the logical connections between ideas; free will (which personally I do not believe exists) is not a matter of understanding, but of being able to influence events. — Herg

What is the constraint that allows certain abstractions to exist e.g. rational agents, but prevents others from existing, e.g. rational agents with free will?

Being rational doesn't mean we have freewill. Does it? We can program computers to be rational. In fact that's all they can be. — TheMadFool

If you claim that rational processes exist, that reason is a feature of reality, that reason is causal, then have you not already stepped out of material determinism? Something other than the initial conditions and laws of physics causes the present to be the way it is.

Once you admit the causal power of abstractions, then you have let the cat out of the bag.

Why are we special? That's what needs to be proven. — TheMadFool

Isn't this just Eccles's argument? If you are a determinist, then there really is no such thing as an argument that satisfies a rational agent, there are only atoms bouncing off each other. If you believe that arguments, proofs, reason, and rational agents exist, then how can you be a determinist?

One interesting thing that I'd like your opinion on is our ability to imagine alternatives.

We get into a situation and we, rather instinctively, come up with options. We make a graded list of alternatives. People could construe this as frewill at play. — TheMadFool

I confess I'm slightly confused by the idea that choices and alternatives are real, yet somehow determinism holds. i.e. I don't understand Compatibilism.

My understanding of "determinism" (i.e. the current conception of determinism) is isomorphic witht eh block-universe of relativity. The future already exists.

Everything around us seems to follow the laws of nature and that implies the past determines the present. Why should we be an exception? — TheMadFool

We know about the past because we use the present, and the laws of physics to infer it. That's how we discovered the big-band, galaxy formation, and how elements were made etc. The laws of physics work just as well backwards in time.

So, I'm not sure the laws of physics are sufficient to make the claim that there exists an inescapable causal chain from the past to the future, as, due to their time-symmetry, these laws don't really describe such a thing.

Didn't Hume write something pertinent to this, about his inability to discover "cause" in nature?

The onus, it seems to me, of proving anything to the contrary lies with freewill enthusiasts. — TheMadFool

Perhaps the initial conditions at the big-bang will lead, via inexorable causal chain, to such a refutation.

Yes, there is only matter and the laws of physics. Your "animals" and "design" are not real.

If you insist on games, the initial conditions at the Big Bang plus the laws of physics compelled me to write those words, and all the words I have ever written, obviously.

That is the argument: there is only one substance, and that physics is closed.

I copied your words, as a matter of fact.

What laws do abstractions obey? We know the material is bound by the laws of physics, so presumably abstractions have similar constraints. What are they?

Well, no... Lemme try to reset this bit. My point is that not all computation is Turing computation. Quantum computing (possibly, physics is unsettled), analog neural nets (theoretically, if reality is continuous and depending on a host of other concerns), protein regulation, etc., are non-Turing computation. — MindForged

Quantum computers, and classical computers possess the same repertoire of functions. Quantum computers merely render certain algorithms tractable, somehow. Also, the brain can't operate by maintaining quantum coherence. It is too warm and wet.

Neural nets are typically implemented on an ordinary computer.

It's not what the structures are made of per se, but by which rules these complex systems follow. If the brain is such a non-Turing system - and there's a case to be made here, though that's well outside my wheelhouse - then that might well be the reason a (classical) computer cannot have bona fide intelligence. Of course, I'm not sure how this would settle the hard problem of consciousness. To recognize a mechanized mind I suppose we'd have to understand how mechanisms can result in a mind to begin with. And that's a helluva lot harder to figure out than any of this formal stuff! — MindForged

Claiming that the brain is capable of super-Turing operations is tantamount to attributing a soul to it. If the matter is not special, and other matter is capable of following the same rules, then a machine may exhibit identical properties to the brain. That sort of machine is a computer.

This is just my off the cuff thoughts, and I'm not a cognitive scientist of any sort, but an obvious starting point is that there's a difference in structure between a (classical) computer and the brain. Current computers are based on a two-valued Boolean logic, but the brain is far more flexible in what kind of processing it allows one to do, it's not strictly linear or discrete. How do the differences give rise intelligence? No clue, that's the hard problem. — MindForged

We know all Turing machines are equivalent, and what they are made from has no effect on this equivalence. For a brain to be capable of fundamentally different type of operations to a computer, then, peculiarly, the specific stuff it is made from matters and this stuff is capable of performing non-computable functions.

But if it is the actual physical stuff that matters, then it is impossible to build any type of machine that exhibits "intelligence", even if we can build functionally exact replicas of neurons, and systems of neurons. Seems a bit of a stretch!