Hi, Bruno,
You're tending -- too selectively, arbitrarily -- to try to go by what was
meant by words many hundreds and even some thousands of years ago. Original or
early meanings can be very illuminating, but a lot has happened since then, and
there is some degree of _stare decisis_ in these matters. Words like "property"
(originally, a non-essential differentia, i.e., an idiosyncrasy) and "physics"
(which meant "pertaining to growth, especially to plants as growths," as in
_phyton_, "plant") could not withstand the standard which you apply. And it's
best if you seem to prioritize your theory much, much higher than you
prioritize the correcting of wrongs which you believe to have been done in
theologically related politics over a thousand years ago. And you can't
simultaneously do that and justify the use of the word "theology" as the
correction of an ancient wrong and restoration of the original, legitimate
meaning. People just don't care _that_ much about pedigree or ancient politic!
s. And if you don't really care that much either, but are basically just
seeking a justification, it's good to pick one which will bear up under the
weight which you place on it, so that you don't give the appearance of
over-prioritizing such ancient occurrences. And if you do actually care that
much, then you should consider whether you care about your machine theory even
more. It's good to give your intended audience the sense that you share &
understand their concerns and are familiar with the same intellectual world as
they are.
Your best arguments on terminology all seem founded in the present, e.g., the
vagueness of the word "metaphysics," plus its causing opprobrium among
scientists. However, if its causing opprobrium among scientists is a sufficient
objection, then the opprobrium which the word "theology" will cause among
scientists is a sufficient objection too. The opprobrium would likely be even
greater, and the objection, therefore, that much stronger. Add to that, the
opprobrium which would be caused by your use of the word "theology" among
religious people generally in proportion as your theory were to gain fame or
notoriety. What will they say?
Worst-case scenario: They'll say and believe that you're founding a religion of
worship of some Big Machine in the Sky.
Imagine having myriad academic people and highly religious people united, as
strange bedfellows, against you, and declaring against that which they call the
nightmarish bastard offspring of a shotgun wedding between religion and
science. Even Romeo's & Juliet's circumstances were less forbidding.
Of course lots of people have startling and evocative theories, deriving
physics from various abstract considerations. The odds of your particular
theory's becoming famous seem small to a comparatively ignorant outsider like
me. Yet, if you have confidence in the persuasiveness of yourself & your
theory, then you should think very carefully before actually naming your theory
as a new and scientifically based competitor in the religious field, and
subjecting your theory, your intentions, and yourself to wild caricatures which
people will "take as gospel" and spread as gospel and which will form the basis
of their dispositions to act in regard to you if the occasion ever arises or is
made to arise.
Now, "metaphysics" and "theology" both seem like bad ideas for names, given the
intellectual climate. Nevertheless, between the two, I think metaphysics is
preferable, for the reasons that I've stated here & elsewhere. As to the
meaning of "metaphysics," the biggest problem is the number of people, for whom
it is synonomous with "supernatural issues," in languages other than English
(I'm told that such is the primary meaning of the Spanish "metafisica."). Not
much that one can do about that, but at least most such people are far from
your intended audience. There might indeed be confusion over the use of the
"meta-" prefix. But I suspect that most people take the word "metaphysics" as a
whole, it's a familiar word. Certainly, for what it's worth, in English many
will take it as a whole, because that's the kind of language that English is,
words are heard in English differently than they are, for instance, in German,
whose speakers like a feel for the elements of a compound. !
In English we often just traffic the whole word unanalyzed across speech. It
is quite possible in English to go through life without any awareness, for
instance, that the words "cross" and "crusade" are cognate.
The word "metaphysics" will be taken in various senses developed within
philosophy itelf. Its primary sense is not "book after the physics book,"
obviously, whatever its ancient origin, about which hardly anybody worries in
construing it in current philosophical use. ("Do you think Bruno just means a
book after a physics book?" Nobody will ask such a question.) About the best
that one can do is to try to come up with a meaning which stands up in terms of
modern traditions in philosophy. As I said, there have been traditional
developments, and you can count on C.S. Peirce, who even wrote an "ethics of
terminology," to have knowledgeably & respectfully synthesized those
developments into his account of metaphysics as a field up to his time
http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/cl_o_sci_03.htm :
[summarized]
Metaphysics
i, General Metaphysics, or Ontology;
ii, Psychical, or Religious, Metaphysics,
~ 1, God
~ 2, Freedom
~ 3, Immortality
iii, Physical Metaphysics (real nature of time, space, laws of naure, matter,
etc.)
"The second and third branches appear at present to look upon one another with
supreme contempt." - Peirce, 1903
That's all the stuff that you're talking about, even if you might not arrange
it in that order.
I just looked at "The Ethics of Terminology," for a phrase on which to search
for the paper online (but it seems not to be online), and there's some stuff in
there worth reproducing here. It's in _The Essential Peirce, Volume 2._
"... The first rule of good taste in writing is to use words whose meanings
will not be misunderstood; and if the reader does not know the meaning of the
words, it is infinitely better that he should know that he does not know it."
By that criterion, I think that "metaphysics" is less bad than "theology."
"Yet if I were to develop the reasons the force of which I feel myself, I
presume they would have weight with others.
"Those reasons would embrace, in the first place, the consideration that the
woof and warp of all thought and all research is symbols, and the life of
thought and science is the life inherent in symbols; so that it is wrong to say
that a good language is _important_ to good thought, merely; for it is of the
essence of it. Next would come the considerations of the increasing value of
precision of thought as it advances. Thirdly, the progress of science cannot go
far except by collaboration; or, so to speak more accurately, no mind can take
one step without the aid of other minds. Fourthly, the health of the scientific
communion demands the most absolute mental freedom. Yet the scientific and
philosophical worlds are infested with pedants and pedagogues who are
continually endeavoring to set up a sort of magistrature over thoughts and over
symbols. It thus becomes one of the first duties of one who sees what the
situation is, energetically to resist everything like arbitrary d!
ictation in scientific affairs, and above all, as to the use of terms and
notations. At the same time, a general agreement concerning the use of terms
and of notations, -- not too rigid, yet prevailing with most of the co-workers
in regard to most of the symbols, to such a degree that there shall be some
small number of different systems of expression that have to be mastered, -- is
indispensable. Consequently, since this is not to be brought about by arbitrary
dictation, it must be brought about by the power of rational principles over
the conduct of men.
....
".... For every symbol is a living thing, in a very strict sense that is no
mere figure of speech. The body of the symbol changes slowly, but its meaning
inevitably grows, incorporates new elements and throws off old ones. But the
effort of all should be to keep the _essence_ of every scientific term
unchanged and exact; although absolute exactitude is not so much as conceivable.
I don't know why you would expect or demand "precise frontiers" in meaning
between important words in order for their distinctions to have your respect.
Even in maths, words sometimes get fuzzy. The mathematically oriented person
will, nevertheless, still feel the need to respect distinctions. There is a
tendency among mathematically oriented people to disparage the vaguer
distinctions made in other fields as being no real distinctions at all. This
tends to create the impression that mathematically oriented people do not have
strong or reliable understanding of issues in fields beyond their own. In fact,
many intellectuals, mathematical & non-mathematical alike, tend to exhibit a
remarkable confidence even when they are far off their own turfs, as if things
outside their own turfs were a holiday from serious, doubt-weighted thought. In
fact, it's not just intellectuals, it's everybody! If I weren't that way myself
to some extent, I could never muster the courage to post to t!
his list. Okay, a certain boldness and cavalierness is part of what is needed
in order for one to do things. Nevertheless, if you feel yourself licensed to
use important words loosely, nobody will take seriously any self-defense by you
on the basis of distinctions in meaning. Suggesting that a bunch of words are
so blurry in their distinctions that you can use them interchangeably, just
means that they and still other words all can be used interchangeably against
you. And, basically, you don't want to sound willfully sloppy in your use of
important words at variance with traditional accepted meanings; you don't want
people taking it as a representative sample of how you deal with ideas. And, as
I said in some old post, the words themselves don't care about you or what you
meant to do or meant to mean, and the words themselves will trap you if you
give them an inch.
Since you're talking not only about metaphysics but also about machines as
metaphysicians, maybe there's some way to coin a word there.
"Metaphysicianology" sounds & looks awful.
"Metaphysicistics." Better, but not much better.
"Machine metaphysicisms."
"Metaphysicology." "Metaphysicalistics." Those are, at least, pronounceable.
I'm not doing too well. It's definitely easier to criticize your word choice
than to supply you with a better word choice. Still, if plain old "metaphysics"
is out of the question because of the reception which it gets, then "theology"
would seem even more out of the question.
Best,
Ben
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruno Marchal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Benjamin Udell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 30-janv.-06, à 22:07, Benjamin Udell wrote, in part, sometimes ago
(30 January):
> Most people, however, do have some sort of views, which are or have
> been significant in their lives, about what are traditionally called
> metaphysical questions -- God, freedom, immortality, psycho-physical
> relationships, etc. Many have one or another kind of metaphysical
> faith. It seems increasingly clear to me that Bruno is doing a machine
> metaphysics, or a computer metaphysics, or a metaphysics of, by, and
> for computers or machines
Yes. I am interested in what machines (and other entities) can prove
about themselves.
And also about what is true about themselves, but that those
machines/entitities cannot prove, but can deliver as true in a way or
another.
The propositional parts of those discourse has been captured by the
modal logical systems G and G* respectively (Solovay 1976).
> (I can't remember why Bruno opts for "machines" instead of "computers.").
I use "computer" for universal machine. "Ordinateur" in french. All
loebian machines I talk about are universal machine. All universal
machine "believing" in classical tautologies and in the laws of
addition and multiplication, and in some induction formulas is lobian.
> It's a shame that the word "metaphysics" is ruled out by (if I remember
> correctly, it was in a post a while back) reaction of intellectuals in
> Belgium.
In Belgium, in France and in other countries, I'm afraid, among most
scientists, I mean.
I rule out also "metaphysics" because I don't know what it means.
Historically it concerns the books which were on the sides of the books on
physics in the texts by Aristotle (but is this a legend?).
In "metaphysics", "meta" has not the same sense that "meta" in computer
sciences and mathematical logics. Create confusions.
> Moreover, "machine metaphysics" is kind of catchy in its alliterative
> way.
Sure. Look: digital machine metaphysics is a branch of metamathematics!
> Metaphysics is not religion but instead a philosophical study of
> questions which are among the important ones in religion. Philosophy,
> however, can be applied in living, so the distinction is not a barrier
> impenetrable in practice (or, therefore, in theory either)
I don't even really believe in any precise frontiers between all those
things. It is useful only for the curriculum vitae and for searching
job and getting social profile, but any fundamental questioning is up
to eventually move frontiers or suppress some.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
