On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 9:46 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 9/15/2012 7:36 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > > On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 2:50 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 9/15/2012 8:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> >> On 14 Sep 2012, at 18:36, Jason Resch wrote: >> >> >> >> On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Stephen P. King >> <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> I contend that universality is the independence of computations to >>> any particular machine but there must be at least one physical system that >>> can implement a given computation for that computation to be knowable. This >>> is just a accessibility question, in the Kripke sense of accessible >>> worlds <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility_relation>. >>> >>> >> Stephen, >> >> Could you provide a definition of what you mean by 'physical system'? >> >> Do you think it is possible, even in theory, for entities to >> distinguish whether they are in a physical system or a mathematical one? >> If so, what difference would they test to make that distinction? >> >> >> I am "philosophically" pretty well convinced by this argument. >> >> But there is still a logical problem, pointed by Peter Jones (1Z) on >> this list. >> >> Peter believes that comp makes sense only for primitively material >> machine, period. >> >> So he would answer to you that the mathematical machine is just not >> conscious, and that the distinction you ask is the difference between being >> conscious (and material) and being non conscious at all (and immaterial). >> >> I don't see any way to reply to this which does not bring the movie >> graph, the 323 principles, and that kind of stuff into account. >> >> But of course I can understand that the idea that arithmetic is full of >> immaterial philosophical zombies is rather weird, notably because they have >> also endless discussion on zombie, and that arithmetic contains P. Jones >> counterpart defending in exactly his way, that *he* is material, but Peter >> does not care as they are zombie and are not conscious, in his theory. >> >> >> In Peter's ontology, with which I have considerable empathy, they simply >> don't exist. "Exist" is what distinguishes material things from Platonia's >> abstractions - of course that doesn't play so well on something called the >> *EVERYTHING-LIST*. :-) >> >> > Brent, > > Under what theory do you (or Peter) operate under to decide whether or > not an abstraction in platonia "exists"? > > > It's not arbitrary. None of them exist. That's what 'abstract' means. > > Your assertion that they exist only abstractly (not concretely from anyone's perspective) is arbitrary. Jason -- 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.
