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I present the premises of my research program.
In the course of the discussion I shall defend Rudolf Carnap, praise Charles Sanders Peirce and challenge Alan Turing, arguing finally for a new kind of positivism; one founded upon a model that meets the expectations of Carnap's liberal physicalism and is supported by biophysical evidence.
In his seminal paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence Alan Turing observed:
"I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about consciousness. There is, for instance, something of a paradox connected with any attempt to localise it. But I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question with which we are concerned in this paper." Alan Turing. Computing Machinery and Intelligence. (1950)This neglect or mystification of manifest qualities is taken further by contemporary authors Stephen Wolfram and Gregory Chaitin. Wolfram states a "Principle of Computational Equivalence," a common though flawed extension of Turing's position, and Chaitin has suggested mystifying breaks in the chain of functional dependence. Meanwhile, the apparent confirmation in quantum mechanics of a certain non-locality, and conceptual failures in the physical sciences, has led the fringe to draw associations that, some will argue, are no less reasonable.
Certain contemporary philosophers have rejected manifest qualities entirely, leaving us to face the necessary suspicion that there may indeed be Zombies among us. Yet, in contradiction, we are confronted by the expectations of populist computer science that machines will "awaken," and that in doing so there will be born an intelligence more capable and more profound than our own.
These breaks with traditional rigor have allowed the resurgence of pseudoscience and old-fashioned metaphysics; they are desperate and they are dangerous.
It is a surprising and remarkable fact that we can indeed imbue computing machinery with aspects of our intelligent behavior, but this is not sufficient to explain the presence of manifest qualities, of what we will call "experience." Turing never asserted that it was.
I will focus upon the historical analysis that illustrates our neglect of the issue. Essentially arguing that while the Turing model has given us much to celebrate, we've become distracted by its success. This point will, I hope, sow the seeds for a realization that there are identifiable limits to Turing's model.
I will then introduce the premises of a new model, one in which the basis of manifest qualities, experience, plays a role in the world, in the formation of physical structures and their behavior. I will argue that the failure of past models to identify such a role is a failure in the foundations of science. I look to evidence in biophysics to support the model.
The presented model has broad explanatory powers. It provides an account of the introduction of complexity into the world, it contributes to evolutionary theory and informs medicine. The model has implications for the Foundations of Logic that extend to the Foundations of Mathematics. It also provides the basis for the construction of a new logical machinery, a proof of the theoretical model in practice, and the development of machines that experience, capable of recognition and motility.
I will discuss the development of the model, its current status and remaining challenges; in particular I will discuss the challenges that formalizing the model present.