On 7/19/2012 7:09 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 4:20 PM, Stephen P. King
<stephe...@charter.net <mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:
To fix a typo
On 7/19/2012 3:46 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
Dear Bruno,
I need to slow down and just address this question of your as
it seems to be the point where we disconnect from understanding
each other.
On 7/19/2012 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
At this stage I will ask you to define "physical".
The physical is the represented as the sum of
incontrovertible
<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/incontrovertible> facts that
mutually communicating observers have in common.
So 2 is prime is physical?
Hi Jason,
Any physical implementation that communicates "2 is prime" is, yes.
The symbols that you are re3ading here, that are communicating to you
are physical, no? Is this somehow being overlooked?
What about uncertainties, like string theory, or many worlds? Would
those be nonphysical?
Indeed! If they can neither be experienced nor communicated then
they are by this definition unphysical. This is not unusual. There are
many solutions to accepted physics equations that are similarly
considered "unphysical" without any controversy.
It is those facts that cannot be denied without introducing
contradictions, thus such things as "hallucinations" and
"mirages" are excluded. I guess that this definition might seem
tautological, but it seems to me to be the explanation that has
the longest reach in its power to explain what is meant by the
word. Additionally, physical refers to "objects of the world"
What do you mean by "the world"?
Earth, This Hubble Volume, Everything beyond it in all dimensions
forever, all branches of the wavefunction, all possible string
theories, all self-consistent structures?
Any and all of those that satisfy the definition that I gave above.
It seems that people like axiomatic definitions, so have some. ;-P The
point is that without observers that act as the "to whom meaning
obtains" there is no such thing as meaningfulness. This is my thumbnail
argument against Platonism and any other idealist ontology. Abstracting
away the entity to whom meaning exists is just inverted semantic
externalization
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6405/is_3_68/ai_n58511111/> and
is equally fallacious. We can communicate all day about things,
including ourselves, as if they don't exist, but this does not change
any facts.
--
Onward!
Stephen
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
~ Francis Bacon
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