...but I send it anyway .... It is a way to recall that I think the main point I want to convey has already be defended by many thinkers a long time ago. ----------------------------------------------------------------
Hi, Interrupting a thread which was going much too technical, George asked me to explain the main points like if I was talking to a grandmother. I guess he means someone with some motivation but with no background in math, physics or computer science. Now this is not so much difficult, but I guess it will be disappointing for those who asks a little more. So I will begin by a short explanation to the "grandmother" and I will finish by extending the grandmother to ...well, hopefully you all :), and that will be a roadmap, that is not only a summary, but a plan for progressing (in my work and in our discussion). Now if the grandmother knows about Aristotle and Plato, I can sum up by saying that about the nature of matter, we can show that if we assume that we are (numerical, digital) machine then Plato's theory of Matter is correct and Aristotle's theory of Matter is incorrect. If grandmother asks for recalling the main difference between Plato and Aristotle's theories of matter, I would just say that in Plato, the visible (observable, measurable) realm is taken as appearances or shadows related to a deeper unknown reality. Aristotle's theory is more subtle. Matter corresponds to what can take any shape, and as such is defined by its indeterminateness. This is an impressive progress, but alas, Aristotle will reify that indeterminateness, and will suppose the independent existence of a substrate (defined as something entirely determinable by its parts when we act upon it), and in that manner will be at the origin of naturalism, physicalism, materialism, and we know the success this idea will have. And now if Grandmother is interested, probably I would offer her an exemplar of Plotinus Enneads, and suggest she read the Ennead 3 treatise II, where he corrected Aristotle theory's of matter (indeterminateness, obscurity, privation, ...) with respect to the Plato theory. And that's it. "And what about the formidable success of modern physics?" asks the grandmother. No doubt that as a methodology, Aristotle hypothesis has been a clever simplification which has without doubt played a key role in the development of "modern" science. But if you look in the details, modern physics does not even rely on Aristotle's reification of matter, it just ease the mind for the ontological background. Now, when you do that reification, even just in "modern physics" you will suffer many form of "hallucinations", like wave packet collapsing at infinite speed or like proliferation of "classical physical worlds" (some "naïve" view on the many worlds), etc. But what if grandmother does not care about history, and would like a sketch of the "modern" reasoning? OK that's for tomorrow ... Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
