On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 7:46 PM, 1Z <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Feb 12, 9:05 am, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote: > > 2011/2/12 1Z <[email protected]> > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Feb 11, 11:50 pm, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > 2011/2/11 1Z <[email protected]> > > > > > > > On Feb 10, 1:24 pm, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > On 09 Feb 2011, at 16:49, 1Z wrote: > > > > > > > > > On Feb 8, 6:17 pm, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > >> On 07 Feb 2011, at 23:58, 1Z wrote: > > > > > > > > >>> On Feb 7, 6:29 pm, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > >>>> Peter, > > > > > > > > >>>> Everything is fine. You should understand the reasoning by > using > > > > > > >>>> only > > > > > > >>>> the formal definition of "arithmetical realism", > > > > > > > > >>> You reasoning *cannot* be both valid and ontologically > > > > > > >>> neutral because it has ontological conclusions. > > > > > > > > >> Wrong. > > > > > > > > > Wrong about what? > > > > > > > > You were wrong on the idea that an argument cannot be valid and > > > > > > ontological. It is enough that the premises have ontological > clauses. > > > > > > > So which is the ontological premise? You don't say > > > > > that Platonism is an explicit premise. But it isn't > > > > > a corollary of CT either. > > > > > > The ontological premise is that *you* could be replaced by *a digital > > > brain* > > > > in other word a program and still be you. > > > > > That just repeats the same ambiguity. Is the programe supposed to be > > > physically > > > instantiated as patterns of electrical charge in circuitry, or > > > floating around in Plato's heaven. > > > > When I program, I don't care about circuitry, I care about what the > program > > does. > > It does nothing without circuitry. > > >The circuitry add nothing from this POV. > > Choosing to ignore things doesn't make them non-existent. > > I think the same when it comes to mathematical truths, mathematical objects and other possible universes.
Adhering to the idea that all we can observe is all that exists is to go against the trend science has established. As time goes on, humans have had to continually revise and extend their concept of reality. We've learned that the Earth is just one planet of many in this solar system, that the sun is just one of many stars. That the stars we can see with the naked eye are just 1/200,000,000 of the stars in this galaxy. That this galaxy is one of the hundreds of billions we can observe. That the true size of the universe compared to what we can observe is at least 10^23 times bigger (perhaps infinite). With Everett, that all this may be just one possible branch among a vast number of possible histories. Nature continues to surprise us, and tell us that much more is out there than we initially think, it has happened enough times that we should no longer be so surprised, rather, perhaps we should even expect it. Is a blind, deaf, mute justified in believing reality consists only of what can be felt in the immediate surroundings? How big would the universe be for a being with an intuitive crystal clear sense of the properties of mathematical objects, one who could feel the squareness of a number in the same way you can feel the squareness of a tile? Do you think one's sense capabilities dictate the extent of reality? Perhaps humans are merely severely disabled when it comes to seeing and feeling the mathematical reality and our deficit in seeing this reality is much the same as an ant's poor vision prevents it from making out a mountain vista. Nevertheless, a creature with such a capability is not inconceivable, and arguably some synesthetes have experienced this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Tammet#Synesthesia Jason -- 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.
