On 03 Nov 2012, at 12:43, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 11/3/2012 5:39 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
[BM] All this makes sense only because such truth does not depend
on us and on our theories.
[SPK] No, that is an incoherent statement as it pretends to be
meaningful in the absence of any means to evaluate its
meaningfulness.
That is arithmetical realism. A statement like Church thesis and
comp makes no sense at all without it.
I have never heard about someone not believing in arithmetical
realism. It is really basic. To pretend that arithmetical
realism is false already needs arithmetical realism.
Dear Bruno,
You have now heard of someone like that! Church's thesis and
comp make sense to me without AR, I don't pretend that I am the only
mind and that it is because my thoughts can agree with those of
other minds that there is something "real" to all of us. You still
do not see the crypto-solipsism of your philosophical stance! I am
not alone is noticing this! (See the linked passage here for a
discussion) David Deutsch has a long discussion of this problem in
his book The Fabric of Reality.
At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AThe_Fabric_of_Reality , I
found the following:
"Philosophers keep getting tangled up trying to prove scientific
theories using pure logic alone, without any basis of facts. Viewing
them as explanations instead brings many advantages, such as the
ability to choose the simplest theory that fits the evidence.
As an example, he demolishes Solipsism. Solipsism is generally
supposed to be irrefutable, on the grounds that if everything is a
dream, then so are the results of any test one could do.
Deutsch refutes that by taking the theory seriously (as he says) and
thinking out the ramifications. How is it that everything
(specifically all fields of science) forms a consistent whole, even
things one does not yet know? How do other, imaginary people know
things that you do not? How can they have skills that you cannot
equal?
The end result is that you have a theory which includes all the
complexity of the apparent world, plus an additional notion that it
is the dream of a single entity. Thus it is actually a more
complicated theory, not a simpler one."
Sound familiar?
I don't see anything relevant for our (unclear) issue.
Realism is not a single theory, there are many forms of realism.
You seem to have a "naive realist" view of numbers, in that we can
apprehend them directly or at least that the properties of numbers
are innate and yet are apprehended directly.
I said innate for numbers, with the logic and their laws. I don't say
innate for humans in the usual psychological sense. You are digressing.
I see this theory as nonsensical
Mee too, but this is not related to arithmetical realism.
as it offers no explanation as to how properties of numbers match up
with those of our thoughts about numbers.
Comp makes that clear, as the reality is arithmetical, or equivalent.
Umm, maybe you think that by equating the dreams of numbers to our
inner thoughts, you can avoid this problem.
This follows from comp. I have not chosen this.
OK. Nice Move! But we are left empty handed when it comes time to
explain thoughts of change and the problem of arithmetic bodies.
I am just formulating the problem, and solve a part of it.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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