Dear John,
I too like Russell's idea and reasoning. I would only add that
Physical phenomena is not derivable from single the first person
accounts as there is no way to break the symmetry that this implies
(this is the problem of solipsism!). We have to consider a large number
of inter-communicating versions of first person accounts. This is so
that the mutual non-contradictions can act as a sieve to partition out
the commutative observables that the observers (plural!) that have those
first person accounts have.
On 7/25/2012 11:55 AM, John Mikes wrote:
Dear Russell,
your "urstuff" is a nice belief, like my "infinite complexity".
I feel your remark is not contradictory to my viewing. - YET:
I am still uncomfortable with 'ontology' what I imagine as the
description of the "AS IS" state in a constantly changing world. Being
vs. becoming, a snapshot.
/Physical/ IMO is our ever changing explanatory basis for the poorly
understandable phenomena we conceive time after time and apply math
(maybe more complex than Bruno's integer-based arithmetics?) for such
explanations.
So 'figment' for "matter" is weird, but maybe closer. And 'primitive'
is our ever changing view's past.
(I like the 'infinite hotel': you check in, pay your bill and check
out into the next one).
I think "urstuff" is more than primitive numbers. I never read
explanation on how 'numbers' arose in primitive(?) circumstances,
forming the "World".
I guess 'universal computation' means more to you than just
number-churning. Putative is mental activity, - any - covering more
domains of the 'infinite complexity' (pardon me for applying this
term) than we (may?) know of.
Remember: I do not intend to argue with you, you may disregard my
remarks, however I will appreciate your opinion.
John Mikes
On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 2:37 AM, Russell Standish
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 02:41:29PM -0400, Stephen P. King wrote:
> On 7/22/2012 7:13 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >
> >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).
(Sorry for replying to Stephen's post - I can't respond to Bruno's
directly because of his non-standard email client)
Actually, this is a useful clarification, as it is a point that has
confused me.
So paraphrasing in my words, what Bruno is saying is:
"primitive" = ontological basis of reality ("urstuff" as I put it)
"matter" = atoms, particles, strings that appear in physical theory
COMP entails matter is not primitive means that the physical
things we observe
(atoms, electrons etc) must be emergent phenomena from whatever the
urstuff really is. I have little problem with this statement, as it is
fairly clear that atoms are emergent constructs, and one suspects
things like electrons, or even strings might be too. Perhaps knots or
some other topological defects of space-time (which is itself an
emergent phenomenon of relationships between events).
Of course, COMP includes the arithmetic realism proposition. Bruno
claims this is just a statment of the truth of arithmetical statement
independent of what you or I think, ie that it is not an
ontological commitment.
But another way of saying it is that it _is_ an ontological
commitment. The urstuff is the natural numbers.
In fact I think COMP is saying something rather more important. It
doesn't matter what the urstuff is, so long as it supports universal
computation. Physical phenomena must be derivable from the first
person account, and it is useless to speculate on the nature of
urstuff beyond its capability to support universal computation.
Thinking about David Deutsch's point further, and the observation that
we don't see hypercomputation like the infinity hotel, we can say what
the urstuff is not - it is not a hypercomputer like the infinity
hotel, for instance, but we can't say which of the many equivalent
structures supporting universal computation it is.
--
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Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
<http://www.hpcoders.com.au/>
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--
Onward!
Stephen
"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
~ Francis Bacon
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