On Feb 5, 2:09 am, Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote: > Stephen is objecting that such abstract systems are, well, too > abstract. He'd prefer something more concrete - whatever "concrete" > might actually be.
Here is another way to look at that sentence: "Stephen is objecting that such non-concrete systems are, well, not concrete. He'd prefer something more actual - whatever "actual" might concretely be. It's hard for me to take seriously the idea of failing to grasp the meaning of 'concrete' in the same breath that uses the word actual and abstract. Talking about a mountain is not a mountain. The menu does not taste like the meal. All of the quant descriptions in the universe do not add up to a single experienced quality. Quantites are only quantities. They don't scale up into anything else without something that is capable of experiencing the low level granular quantities as a completely novel level of continuous qualities. Digital computing cannot do that. Any kind of semantic scaling in a digital computation can only wind up as being more or less a-signifying generic digits. > It is true, I understand, that the UDA (and AUDA) does > not eliminate the possibility of a "concrete physical > underpinning". It is just that such a concrete physical underpinning has > no measurable, or detectable effect on our phenomonology other than > that due to its capability of universal computation. It's circular reasoning to say that physical underpinnings have no effect on our phenomenology when you are working from a theory which presupposes that phenomenology is detectable only by quantitative measurement in the first place. In our actual experience, we know that in fact all phenomenological systems without exception exist as a function of physical systems - virtual servers do not fly off into the data center on their own virtual power grid - they are still only a complicated event of electrified semiconductors. Unplug the hardware node and all of the operating systems, be they first order software or second order virtual hardware or still only software, 100% dependent on the physical resources. It is generators burning diesel fuel fifty miles away that literally pushes the entire computation - not arithmetic. Arithmetic has 0% independence of physical systems *as a whole* even though computations can be understood *figuratively* as being independent of any particular physical structure. All computation can be impacted by changes to it's physical underpinning. Devices which are damaged or have low power supply, or brains which have physiological irregularities produce changes to their phenomenology independent of program logic. The physical topology, the materials and events that effect them can drive phenomenology as well. > > Which is why I'd like to remind people of Witgenstein's comment: Whereof > one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. A great quote, but I do not think Wittgenstein intended it to be used to silence speculation. Unfortunately I have only ever seen it used to serve that function. What he refers to is the limitation of language to express the sense that language makes to the listener (http:// www.teleologie.org/OT/deboard/2117.html). That meaning is reversed when used as an admonition, so that the meaning becomes something like "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt". Craig -- 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.
