Hi all,

I am rather busy finishing my (french, alas again) paper on the debate between the french biologist J.P. Changeux and the french mathematician Alain Connes.
Actually the book has been translated:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691004056/wwwlink-software-21/202-7192216-8003069
Changeux is a materialist elimininativist. He believes in monistic materialism. Mathematics, according to him, is exclusively a construction of the human brain.
Connes is platonist for mathematical truth, but seems to accept some form of physical realism, so that he accepts a form of platonistic dualism (an invention of Aristotle, not Plato: it is the position of realism with respect to both math and physics). Connes acknowledges that his position entails the mystery of the relation between math and physics (the unreasonable effectiveness of math in physics). Obviously the comp hyp can reconcile them, but at the price of dismissing physical realism. I recommend the book. It makes clear the inevitability of a clash between two forms of realism in science. It is also interesting that Connes uses the term of "bifurcation" both in relation with Everett's quantum mechanics and Godel's theorem; that's a point which is made utterly clear in the comp approach I follow for the fundamental questions.


I hope also you have been able to buy the little and cheap book "Forever Undecided" by Smullyan, which
has been re-edited recently, but seems to be again out of print. I will make some critical comments about it soon. I definitely consider that book as a royal introduction to the modal logic G, which, as you (should) know is the basic material on which the technical comp derivation of physics is extracted. (Well the beginning of the derivation, of course ...). Be sure you have no more problem with the Universal Dovetailer Argument, and please don't hesitate to send last minute objections ;)


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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