Hi Bruno Marchal Yes, in Leibniz's metaphysics, the only active agent is the supreme monad (the One), who essentially does everything-- but performs actions needed or requested by its submonads. One might think of the supreme monad as creating all actions. As universal mind.
The actions themselves appear "as if" they would in Newton's physics. Hmmm. I've never considered that there might be comparable submonads in Plato's realm. Roger Clough, [email protected] 10/31/2012 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-10-30, 10:45:12 Subject: Re: Computationalism -- Leibniz's new paradigm for science On 30 Oct 2012, at 13:07, Roger Clough wrote: Computationalism and downward causation -- Leibniz's new paradigm for science The new, strictly logical, Leibnizian view of the universe is that the new paradigm- computationalism-- is thoroughly logically based, while conventional science is based on appearances, not that the appearances are wrong. In a previous email I explained how all of today's science is based on the logical error that mind and matter can directly interact, which is false, because they are two different substances, completely foreign to one another. The more strictly logical view, as Leibniz showed, is that the interaction only appears to happen. But the strictly logical Leibnizian view is that upward causation is only an appearance. All true causation is actually downward (Platonic). This new understanding not only allows today's scientific results to be apparently true, but opens the door to previously unexplainable phenomena such as gravity. Another way to say this is that, although they may appear to be a posteriori (in the world), all causes are actually theoretical (a priori). Numbers being a priori (given), this gives a completely new solidity to computationalism. This would make Leibniz closer to Plato and Plotinus. I can only be happy with this. There is a lot in Leibiz which announces comp, from the binary (taken in the Yi-King) to the universal language, and also by its general philosophy. I agree, but I know that some fan of Leibniz are not so happy with this, but I guess they have a materialist conception of comp (which is inconsistent). Bruno Roger Clough -- 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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.
