Sorry for the comment delay.
Le 23-oct.-06, à 16:49, David Nyman a écrit : > > Bruno Marchal wrote: > >>> As usual, the truth of a mathematical existence-claim does not >>> prove Platonism. >> >> By Platonism, or better "arithmetical realism" I just mean the belief >> by many mathematician in the non constructive proof of "OR" >> statements. >> > > Lest we go yet another round in the 'reification' debate, is it not > possible to reconcile what is being claimed here? > > Bruno, I'm assuming that when you eschew 'Platonic existence' for AR, > you are thereby saying that your project is to formalise certain > arguments about the logical structure of possibility - and through > this, to put actuality to the test in certain empirical aspects. Yes. Although people are so often wrong on what "formalization" consists in, that I prefer to say that I just interview a machine. > Questions of how this may finally be reconciled with 'RITSIAR' (I hope > you recall what this means) are in abeyance. I don't recall what RITSIAR means. Nor BU. > Nevertheless, some aspect > of this approach may ultimately be ascribed a status as 'foundational > existent' analogous to that of 'primary matter' in materialism. I don't think so. This would lead to a reification of numbers, which I think is just a little bit less meaningless than reifying matter. But still fundamentally wrong. > Alternatively, such a hypothesis may be shown to be redundant or > incoherent. Not really. It is SWE which should be made redundant. > > Peter, as we've agreed, materialism is also metaphysics, and as a route > to 'ultimate reality' via a physics of observables, is vulnerable to > 'reification'. Might it not be premature to finalise precisely what it > is that physical theory decribes that might actually be RITSIAR? You > may be tempted to respond, Johnsonianly, that it is precisely the world > that kicks back that is RITSIAR, but theoretical physics and COMP are > both in the business of modelling what is not so directly accessible. OK. > This notwithstanding that we may believe one or other theory to be > further developed, more widely accepted, or better supported > empirically. Or is there some irreducible sense in which 'primary > matter' could be deemed to exist in a way that nothing else can? Note that "consciousness" can be deemed to exist in a way that nothing else can. In particular "consciousness of numbers". But "Primary Matter", Ether, Phlogiston, Vital Principle, .... I doubt it. 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
