On 05 Jul 2011, at 21:48, Pzomby wrote:
On Jul 5, 10:06 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> 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 for
the acceleration of progress. The mathematical discovery of
logarithms
has 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
Pzomby
Consider, 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 justifying
this by using the self-reference logics allows us to take into
account
the 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 "ontological
everything" (I will called that the realm, or the ROE, the ontology
of
the everything).
Now we can like that, dislike that. Take time to swallow, I don't
know. Comp might be false. We have to keep this in mind. Comp might
be
true 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
the
theory 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
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