On Sat, Dec 06, 2008 at 03:32:53PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > I would be pleased if you can give me a version of MAT or MEC to which > the argument does not apply. For example, the argument applies to most > transfinite variant of MEC. It does not apply when some "magic" is > introduced in MAT, and MAT is hard to define in a way to exclude that > magic. If you can help, I thank you in advance. > > Bruno >
Michael Lockwood distinguishes between materialism (consciousness supervenes on the physical world) and physicalism (the physical world suffices to explain everything). The difference between the two is that in physicalism, consciousness (indeed any emergent phenomenon) is mere epiphenomena, a computational convenience, but not necessary for explanation, whereas in non-physicalist materialism, there are emergent phenomena that are not explainable in terms of the underlying physics, even though supervenience holds. This has been argued in the famous paper by Philip Anderson. One very obvious distinction between the two positions is that strong emergence is possible in materialism, but strictly forbidden by physicalism. An example I give of strong emergence in my book is the strong anthropic principle. So - I'm convinced your argument works to show the contradiction between COMP and physicalism, but not so the more general materialism. I think you have confirmed this in some of your previous responses to me in this thread. Which is just as well. AFAICT, supervenience is the only thing preventing the Occam catastrophe. We don't live in a magical world, because such a world (assuming COMP) would have so many contradictory statements that we'd disappear in a puff of destructive logic! (reference to my previous posting about destructive phenomena). -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
