Le 21-juil.-12, à 19:57, Stephen P. King a écrit :
On 7/21/2012 6:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Le 19-juil.-12, à 21:46, Stephen P. King a écrit :
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
facts that mutually communicating observers have in common. It is
those facts that cannot be denied without introducing
contradictions, thus such things as "hallucinations" and "mirages"
are excluded.
?
We can accept the physical facts, without accepting the idea that
physics is the fundamental science, or that primary aristotelian
matter makes sense (which is not the case in the comp theory).
Dear Bruno,
Could you explain what you mean by this in other words? What
exactly is meant by "primary aristotelian matter"? Are you thinking of
"substance" as philosophers use the term? There is a very nice article
on this idea here.
"There could be said to be two rather different ways of
characterizing the philosophical concept of substance. The first is
the more generic. The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to
the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the
Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds
things’. According to the generic sense, therefore, the substances in
a given philosophical system are those things which, according to that
system, are the foundational or fundamental entities of reality.
Thus, for an atomist, atoms are the substances, for they are the
basic things from which everything is constructed. In David Hume's
system, impressions and ideas are the substances, for the same reason.
In a slightly different way, Forms are Plato's substances, for
everything derives its existence from Forms. In this sense of
‘substance’ any realist philosophical system acknowledges the
existence of substances. Probably the only theories which do not would
be those forms of logical positivism or pragmatism which treat
ontology as a matter of convention. According to such theories, there
are no real facts about what is ontologically basic, and so nothing
is objectively substance.
The second use of the concept is more specific. According to this,
substances are a particular kind of basic entity, and some
philosophical theories acknowledge them and others do not. On this
use, Hume's impressions and ideas are not substances, even though
they are the building blocks of—what constitutes ‘being’ for—his
world. According to this usage, it is a live issue whether the
fundamental entities are substances or something else, such as events,
or properties located at space-times. This conception of substance
derives from the intuitive notion of individual thing or object, which
contrast mainly with properties and events. The issue is how we are
to understand the notion of an object, and whether, in the light of
the correct understanding, it remains a basic notion, or one that
must be characterized in more fundamental terms. Whether, for
example, an object can be thought of as nothing more than a bundle of
properties, or a series of events."
I use primitive for the basic term of the ontological theory.
With comp we can take a tiny formal arithmetic, defining just the laws
of addition and multiplication, so what exists primitively can be just
0, s(0), s(s(0)), etc.
Usually I restrict "substance" for physicalist primitive ontology, like
atoms, particles or strings, which does not exist primitively in the
comp theory, but should be derived (by the conclusion of the UDA).
One might notice that if one only considers a single observer
then the notion of the physical that would be associated with that
singular observer becomes degenerate. Maybe this explains how it is
that you come to the conclusion of UDA step 8, that, as you wrote in
SANE 04 "...not only physics has been epistemologically reduced to
machine psychology, but that “matter” has been ontologically reduced
to “mind” where mind is defined as the object study of fundamental
machine psychology." The idea that "matter" is ontologically reduced
to "mind" is true but but only for the singular mind.
Again, if you prove this you just refute comp (or you make comp into
solipsim, which is about the same for me).
It is well known that computer science's abstraction of
computation applies to closed systems only.
?
The contrary is well known. The fact that the computable functions from
N to N are closed for diagonalization makes it open. In topological
semantics, RE sets (mechanically definable sets) are open set, a
fortiori for the universal sets.
It therefore does not allow for any notion of interaction between
multiple but different computers.
This is no sense. I can program in arithmetic any form of interaction
between any machine. The interaction problem in physics is the one non
trivial, either in empiric physics or in the comp physics. Comp
naturally is close to the interaction approach of Girard and Abramsky.
This makes bisimilarity as an exact equivalence, etc. I am not even
trying to "refute comp". I am merely trying to explain that is cannot
do what you think it can.
But UDA does not give any choice in the matter, and so if you prove
that comp cannot done what he has to do, you refute comp (or UDA, but
then please show where is the flaw).
You are glossing over the need to explain interactions. Peter Wegner's
research is all about this problem and possible solutions. Please
read his papers for yourself.
You don't understand. If there is no flaw in UDA, no amount of
literature will ever change that fact. The paper you cite are written
by people having not yet realize the existence of the first person
indeterminacy, and who rely on some form of physical supervenience
thesis which are just incompatible with comp. It is simple stuff which
trouble only those who believes they can distinguish a dream from
"reality".
It was from reading his papers and having long conversations with him
that I came to my conclusions long ago. The books that you have
referenced offer only an abstract mathematical description that
completely ignores the problems that I am trying to get you to see.
One must reach outside of this singularity to escape the automatic
solipsism that is induced.
No worry, given that the preliminary results justify we will find
quantum physics including a first person plural view of physical
reality.
Cannot you see that this "plurality" is meaningless in the
convention that you are using?
No.
There is no such thing as multiple computers in the Sigma_1 model as
the bisimulation relation is exact equivalence.
Of course there is. Arithmetic emulates all possible interactions
between all possible computers. That is well known in computer science.
This is even explained in the wiki article on Turing completeness:
"Two computers P and Q are called Turing equivalent if P can
simulate Q and Q can simulate P. Thus, a Turing-complete system is one
that can simulate a Turing machine;
That is correct.
and, per the Church-Turing thesis, that any real-world computer can
be simulated by a Turing machine, it is Turing equivalent to a Turing
machine."
That is typical wiki bulshit. probably due to David Deutsch revisionist
"Church Turing" thesis, which is wrong in the comp theory. Comp entails
the existence of physical processes which are not Turing emulable (but
still UD first person recoverable).
Logically, solipism is still a possible drawback of comp, but this
has to be shown. You do not invalidate an argument by speculating on
future drawback of a theory.
If the computer is defined as a closed system then solipsism
automatically follows.
It is not define as a close system. that is even why it is natural (but
conceptually wrong) to put the infinite tape in the definition of the
universal machine. But the universal numbers are open in a lot of
sense. Now, even a closed computer, with a finite non extensible
memory, can emulate a plurality of observers, defeating solipsim
locally, if its memory is enough big.
This is already in the texts. It has just been overlooked because no
one, until you, has considered "machine psychology" in a formal way.
Andrew Soltau's work, IMHO, is an exploration of this escape.
What I have been proposing is that the illustration in your
SANE04 paper "Physical stuff" -> 1 map that you have is the dual of
a 1 -> "Physical Stuff" map as per the Stone Duality. The duals both
emerge simultaneously from a neutral primitive: "Nothingness" as per
Russell Standish's definition. The ambiguous statement of this
emergence is: Everything emerges from Nothing as Dual aspects.
This is too much vague and wordy. Some interpretations of those
words can fit very well the comp theory, and others might contradict
it/ You might elaborate on this. The term "nothing" is very ambiguous
on this. The duality you mention is already recovered in the
arithmetical points of view. You still avoid the argument per se,
also.
The word "Nothing" as I am using it is faithful to the definition
that Russell Standish gives in his book. I have been elaborating on it
for several years now. You seem to just not see the Gestalt of it.
You are too much vague. Sorry. I have no problem with words like
"everything" or "nothing" at some metalevel, to justify or motivate
more precise technical definitions, but not as explanation by itself,
and still less as invalidating a deductive reasoning. I have no clue on
the point you make, except that it seems that you accept a primitive
physics, in my sense of primitive. But then it is up to you to show
where you might think the flaw can be. But instead, you never mention
the reasoning and always start from the consequence like if I was
assuming it. I don't.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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