weird philosophy stuff (elijah, come here!)

[Kuciwalker]

Counter-logics. I suppose if you're a logicist that allows for alternative mathematics.

What's a counter-logic?

That doesn't make any difference. All I need to do is formulate a series of symbols and a set of rules. That can be quite arbitrary.

You still haven't answered the question. What makes our mathematical system consistent other than that we can't seem to conceive of breaking the rules. I can't imagine non-euclidean spaces either, but that doesn't mean there can't be such things.

What do you appeal to, to ground your belief that our mathematical system is the only consistent one?

Appealing to our intuitions isn't much of a hope, the fact that we can't imagine something is no proof of its non-existence.

Every other mathematical system results in a statement like 1=0 or something like that. Thus, every other mathematical system is internally inconsistent. Thus, ours is true.

Probabilistic is not the same as random. Even Thermodynamics are statistically based.

Yes it is. If I roll a weighted die, it's still random, even if the probabilities are skewed.

So? You are just putting the cart in front of the horse.

Remember, I'm not proving that it's is, in fact, deterministic. I'm showing that it is a necessary assumption. Since I'll get nothing meaningful if I assume the universe is random, I might as well assume otherwise.

Huh?

If the universe is random enough, it would seem very dream-like and so it would seem more likely to be subjective

Well, self-awareness either came from matter alone, or it came from something else. Being a materialist, there's not something else.

I'm using the term "matter" poorly here. By "matter", I mean "stuff that exists". So, for example, Democritus' "soul-atoms" would count as matter. What I'm really saying is the universe can't get stuff from outside itself.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sava
our intelligence is a function of our biology... I doubt silicon chips with alternating switches 0 and 1 can become sentient intelligence.

but it may be possible in the future to create computers using bio-matter that functions like biological brains while maintaining or exceeding the mathematical computing power and speed of current computers.

anyways, I'm not even sure humans are self-aware. Computers have to be programmed, or else they don't function. I don't believe that an "intelligence" that has to be programmed can qualify as "self-aware". ANd since humans are pretty much programmed, who says we are self-aware? We may think we are self-aware, but perhaps our intelligence and personality is simply a reflection of our "programming" and learned experience.

For a machine to be considered "self-aware" it should be constructed in a such a way that it requires no programming. It would have to have input sensors, perhaps similar to our own senses... and then it would be "turned on" and have the ability to learn and develop a personality and consciousness based upon its experience.

Since human beings have two factors affecting our "programming": genetics and society (education and conditioning); it is quite possible we do not possess sentience. As Uber said, we are just smart apes. By comparing our genetics, we are not that different from apes. In fact, perhaps there is an advanced form of life that is much more evolved and intelligent than ourselves. Would that intelligence consider us to be "intelligent"? Or would it look down upon us as we do animals?

How is our intelligence a function of our biology? You are getting very close to having me ask you for a universal definition of life . The sole qualitative difference between computers and people is that computers are digital and people are analog. However, people are still computers, and if you simulated a person with a computer...

[Sava]

The sole qualitative difference between computers and people is that computers are digital and people are analog.

if you believe this, you need to take a few biology courses...

I don't expect you to have extensive knowledge of the brain, but the human brain (or any other biological life form's brain) fuctions COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY from a computer. A computer is just a large collection of switches... 0 and 1's... a living brain is a very complex organ with lots of different kinds of cells and neurons functioning in way that humans don't yet fully understand.

Sorry, but to say there is only one "qualitative difference" between computers and people is that computers are "digital and people are analog" is completely false.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by skywalker

Counter-logics. I suppose if you're a logicist that allows for alternative mathematics.

What's a counter-logic?

A logic that is internally consistent, but not consistent with our ordinary propositional calculus. Graham Priest's dialethic logic is an example.

That doesn't make any difference. All I need to do is formulate a series of symbols and a set of rules. That can be quite arbitrary.

You still haven't answered the question. What makes our mathematical system consistent other than that we can't seem to conceive of breaking the rules. I can't imagine non-euclidean spaces either, but that doesn't mean there can't be such things.

What do you appeal to, to ground your belief that our mathematical system is the only consistent one?

Appealing to our intuitions isn't much of a hope, the fact that we can't imagine something is no proof of its non-existence.

Every other mathematical system results in a statement like 1=0 or something like that. Thus, every other mathematical system is internally inconsistent. Thus, ours is true.. [/QUOTE]

Yes, but 1=0 seems wrong to us, but other than it's seeming wrong to us, what can you appeal to to ground your belief that it can't be right?

[Kuciwalker]

A logic that is internally consistent, but not consistent with our ordinary propositional calculus. Graham Priest's dialethic logic is an example.

So you are saying there is another internally consistent mathematical system?

Yes, but 1=0 seems wrong to us, but other than it's seeming wrong to us, what can you appeal to to ground your belief that it can't be right?

1=0 is an inconsistency. Numbers and the mathematical system are two different things. Each number is distinct.

[Whaleboy]

Funny, I would've thought we'd need useful, productive members of society, instead of more philosophers.

Ah, the screams of those who do not understand. I use the analogy of a car. Most people work in the engine. A few are the drivers and backseat drivers. The historians are the rear-view mirror. Some are the headlights...

I concur with Agathon. The logic we use is a construct and based upon axioms that can change. The people we need to talk to here are computer scientists. Those who can program a computer to use the logic of + and -, as they are the ones that have to tell a computer in binary code, what to do in that situation.

Sky: What you're doing is looking at the possibility of other logical systems within the confines of your own. In effect, viewing it with tinted glasses, thus reaching your conclusion. Logic A says logic B cannot exist. I believe you can use logic A to prove logic B, but thats is beyond me, hence I posted the question on Ektopos:

http://www.ektopos.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=33

This is clearly a topic that needs resolution.

[LDiCesare]

A Perfect Vacuum.
This is the title of a book by Stanistlaw Lem, in which there is a nice short story where a computer scientist creates a computer simulation, using something like genetic algorithms and a mathematical model for a deterministic infinitie world in which self aware beings exist. They don't know whether they are a simulation or not. In fact they are not a simulation, they are a creation. Nothing proves our world is not the result of something running on some computer. Lem uses this to ask questions about God and has written several other stories along the same theme.

About different mathematics:
There ARE different mathematics. For instance, the one whose axioms are the groups theory (not sure about the words, in French, Theorie des ensembles) can prove Euclide's postulate about only one parallel line going through one point. Non Euclidian geometries are still valid, but different mathematics, because what you call a line in these mathematics is not the same thing as what you call a line in ensemble theory mathematics.
Even in our math system you may or may not accept the axiom of the 'choice', which I don't feel able to explain here, particularly in English. There's no proof the math with or without this axiom is inconsistent. It is needed, or at least useful, for certain demonstrations, but if it was false, many mathematical results would remain unchanged.

An example of different logical systems: True/False/Maybe. The Maybe state tends to absorb almost everything, but it makes for a different logic. There are also logics in which you keep true/false but refuse the proof by contraposition, which vastly reduces the array of tools available to demonstrate anything.

About randomness/probability of quantum physics: Quantum physics are the way we measure the world. By interacting with it, we change it (Heisenberg: no measuer can be perfect). It doesn't mean the underlying world is not perfectly determinsitic. It may very well be deterministic but impossible to measure. In which case, it is impossible to build a deterministic scientific theory (which relies on measures) to explain it. But it doesn't mean it's not deterministic. It just means we can't make a deterministic simulation of it, only a probabilistic one.

[Thucydides]

but it may be possible in the future to create computers using bio-matter that functions like biological brains while maintaining or exceeding the mathematical computing power and speed of current computers.

This actually isn't necessary. What your forgetting is that anything that can be created in hardware can be also be created using software as well. So while computers are built to do certain functions faster then others, that doesn't in anyway rule out building a artificial brain in a computers software using ordinary silicon technology. In fact people create neural nets all the time, and these can be programmed to analyze certain sets of data which changes the weights of the "neurons" connections to other neurons, and thus after interpreting sets of data a neural net can fill in the blanks when future data is given or make future predictions based off of current data.

There are only two limitations to making an artificial brain, one is that we don't have all the details of how a real brain works, and second is that we would need a machine capable of keeping track of a trillion plus neurons and the connections as well as the weight of those connections they make to other neurons. There's also a third practical limitation of the computers speed. While sentience can be slowed to any speed in theory, it still isn't practical to wait a million for the brain to cycle through a throught.

As for humans being sentient, we are to a certain extent, since we are aware not only of our physical state of being, but of our own state of mind. Thus there is at least some feed back in our thought process. This by the way can also be mimiced by a neural net. Of course we can't be fully aware of our state of mind or else we'd also be aware of the part of our mind that was monitoring the state of our mind, and thus would require level of awareness above that, that would also have to be monitored, ad infinitum.

[Thucydides]

Originally posted by Agathon


The denial of this premise is usually a consequence of global scepticism. However, global scepticism has in my mind been conclusively refuted by the American philosopher, Donald Davidson...The beauty of the last argument is that all you have to agree to is the notion that it omniscience is possible (and there seems no uncontroversial reason why not), and by the very nature of belief, it turns out that scepticism is false.

This is interesting in that I read the other day an interpretation on how scientists works that sort of fits in to how Donald Davidson interprets scepticism and belief.

The basis is that all scientists have a shared set of beliefs about naturalism that allows them to function. They then specialize in certains areas of science different then what other scientists are doing, usually learning as a master-apprentice relationship. Lets say you have scientist A-Z, and scientist L makes a discovery. How do the other scientists know whether scientists L's discovery is valid? well, Scientist M's specialty happens to overlaps L's, and so do K's. Both interpret his work and decide if it's valid and legitimite science. Then scientist I and Scientist N look at what Scientist L and M has done to see if that is valid, and so on until you get to scientists A and Z who have no real knowledge of Scientist's L's specialty but rest assured that his work is valid because it's been validated by a series of peers thatt knowledge all overlaps each other. Thus by starting out sharing a series of beliefs, scientists can work together to continue to determine the validity of future statements even though no one person can see the whole picture.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Agathon
Well, Davidson has an answer for that. If you agree that it is possible (not actual, but possible) for there to be someone omniscient, then it follows from the argument that that person must find all of our beliefs to be largely true, and since he's omniscient, that means most of our beliefs have to be true, so scepticism must be false.

The beauty of the last argument is that all you have to agree to is the notion that it omniscience is possible (and there seems no uncontroversial reason why not), and by the very nature of belief, it turns out that scepticism is false.

Actually, there is an argument against the possibility of omniscience. It's the fact that you simply can't fit the knowledge of all that is the universe into something that is not the universe.

Your argument up there stated that an individual - someone distcint and separate from other individuals, and thus not omnipresent - was omniscient, and that doesn't really hold. An individual that is not omnipresent is necessarily finite, and so cannot hold the data set of the universe.

[Solly]

Skywalker

The thing is, everything is either deterministic or random. So, if you think determinism elimininates free will, well, that sucks. Because if so, "random" eliminates free will too, so your conclusion is that there is no free will.

There are non-algorithmic processes, neither random nor deterministic.

Urban Ranger

Well, self-awareness either came from matter alone, or it came from something else. Being a materialist, there's not something else.

Explain, in material terms, the colour green.

Material reductionism is a superstition.

[Whaleboy]

Sky: Free will, in the existentialist sense or the subjectivist sense?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
Skywalker

There are non-algorithmic processes, neither random nor deterministic.

No, there aren't. A (closed) system ALWAYS behaves in one of two ways: either a) given the total state of the system at a moment in time, you can predict any future state of that system or b) you cannot. The first is deterministic and the second is random. There is no alternative.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Park Avenue
Explain, in material terms, the colour green.

Material reductionism is a superstition.

Easy: a fuzzy set (in that not everyone would define it with EXACTLY the same bounds) of the wavelengths of light between two values (which I won't specify because I don't know them).

[Solly]

No, there aren't. A (closed) system ALWAYS behaves in one of two ways: either a) given the total state of the system at a moment in time, you can predict any future state of that system or b) you cannot. The first is deterministic and the second is random. There is no alternative.

So please tell, which is the reduction of the quantum mechanical state vector?