On 05 Jul 2011, at 21:48, Pzomby wrote:
On Jul 5, 10:06 am, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:On 04 Jul 2011, at 21:55, meekerdb wrote:On 7/4/2011 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:The mathematical science is certainly not causally inert. Without math, no chips, no internet, no man on the moon, etc.But the form of argument, "Without X we wouldn't have Y, therefore X caused Y." is invalid.Agreed. But the notion of cause is not the notion of implication. I was just saying that the use of human mathematics was responsible forthe acceleration of progress. The mathematical discovery of logarithmshas multiplied the travel distances. The existence of mathematics change the world. And not just human mathematics. Any brain already exists by virtue of some mathematical, representational, machine to emulate other machine, leading to relative self-acceleration. I can understand that a materialist can still believe that the mathematical reality does not act physically on our reality, but mathematics acts, in that respect, by allowing the physical to obeys mathematical laws, and some of those laws, to make sense, assume primitive arithmetical law. The basic intuition of number is the idea that we can distinguish something from something else.If I understand you correctly, this would mean that all physical matter, forces and energies are actually encoded with the same mathematical rules that the brain/mind/consciousness distinguishes using mathematics.
Not at all. The rules of the brain are finite (that's why we can say "yes" to the doctor). But both the rules of mind (1-person) and the rules of matter (1-person plural) are not more finitely descriptible. You really have to do the UD thought exercise. Once you see the growing gap between the 3-description and the 1-description, you can understand (and the math confirms) that mechanism makes the arithmetical reality very big as seen from inside, and that matter is some kind of border of that inside, and both are far beyond what can be described by finite rules. Indeed, the problem becomes "how and why does physics look so much computable". At first sight, the UD makes too much white rabbits and white noise everywhere, but then by taking into account logical self-referential constraints, white rabbits are made much less obvious.
Then would not brain/mind/consciousness itself be subject to the same rules?
The 3-things obeys elementary arithmetic, but the 1-things depends on all what is unknown in arithmetic (that's big). They can be approximated and reflected, and indeed consciousness is probably a fixed point, like when a map is embedded in the territory. But they do not obeys the same laws. All the points of view (the 8 "hypostases") obeys to different, but related, laws.
Are you stating that the rules (laws) themselves have some kind of dispositional property (like a magnet with positive and negative attraction poles)?
I am not sure of what you mean. Finite sets of laws/axioms + inference rules/law defines machines, which have dispositional properties. But in the "block mindscape", which exists when assuming comp (it is a tiny part of arithmetic), you cannot see the disposition, they appears only relatively to some machines living or observing them.
Thanks
You are welcome. Bruno
PzombyConsider, without space we wouldn't have gone to the Moon, therefore space caused us to go to the Moon.The point is that space makes it possible, to start with.If you stretch causes to include everything that must have been the case for Y to happen then you end up with a meaningless plethora of causes: The universe caused Y.Addition and multiplication "causes" the belief in universes and universe. The 8 'hypostases' from God (Arithmetical truth) to Matter (what is sigma_1, provable, consistent, and true).And from inside the computationalist mindscape, the dynamics emerge as internal (arithmetical) indexicals. But this is the fate of any TOE, or better ROE (realm of everything, the theories themselves only scratches the surface).Yet it's existence is debatable and it's certainly interesting to discuss. And in any case, the elan vital was endlessly debate for centuries and was eventually discarded as nonexistent.Like mechanism justifies that the "material force" will be discarded as non existent, but explainable in term of number theoretical relations (coherent number's beliefs).Forces are explainable by many things. I'll be more impressed when you predict one.It will take time before we get something like F = ma or the Feynman integral, especially if people don't search. My point is only that it is the only way to explain force without making the qualia disappear, or without violating the comp principle, or without putting consciousness under the rug. The point is not to submit a "new" physics, just a translation of a problem into another problem, (complex, but purely mathematical). The understanding of the arithmetical origin of the physical laws might help to avoid senseless question. Physics is very mathematical by itself, and has already palpable relation with number theory. An application of the bosonic string theory = To prove the four squares theorem in number theory! The distribution of prime numbers might emulate a sort of quantum computer. Even without comp, I find rather natural that the physical laws expresses internally observable number symmetries. It might be that the theory of finite simple groups is at play. But justifyingthis by using the self-reference logics allows us to take into accountthe first person perspectives of the relative numbers, and it should explain the winning symmetries by a measure argument. Meanwhile it gives a different (non aristotelician picture of the "ontologicaleverything" (I will called that the realm, or the ROE, the ontology ofthe everything). Now we can like that, dislike that. Take time to swallow, I don'tknow. Comp might be false. We have to keep this in mind. Comp might betrue with a very low substitution level. The level could be so low that it is virtually very similar to materialism (and in practice it makes the digitalist doctor inexistant).What I do like in comp, and in the universal machine discourse, it thetheory of virtue (the type Dt). It is really a sort of vaccine about the argument by authority. It makes the universal machine a sort of universal dissident. *you* are your own best guru, if you look twice (inward). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text ---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 .
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