On Friday, March 14, 2014 5:21:05 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 14 Mar 2014, at 16:18, [email protected] <javascript:> wrote: > > > On Sunday, March 9, 2014 6:32:08 PM UTC, Brent wrote: > > On 3/9/2014 12:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 08 Mar 2014, at 06:16, meekerdb wrote: > > On 3/7/2014 8:26 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 8 March 2014 08:14, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 3/7/2014 1:24 AM, LizR wrote: > > On 7 March 2014 18:29, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 3/6/2014 9:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > A related question is, is there any such thing as true randomness at all? > Or is every case of true randomness an instance of FPI? > > > *Or is FPI just a convoluted way to pretend there isn't true randomness? * > > > > If one assumes QM and the MWI are correct then it isn't pretending, > > True; but I don't assume that. > > > Since your original statement above only makes sense in some context - > which you haven't revealed, as far as I can tell - perhaps you could tell > us what you *are* assuming? > > > I'm not assuming anything, I'm just pointing out that one could assume > something different than QM and MWI. For instance, start with MWI but then > suppose that at each "branching" only one instance of you continues. > Doesn't that accord with all experience? > > > Like Ptolemeaus epicycles. The point is to accord with the simplest > theories we have for most if not all experiences, like QM, or > computationalism. > > At each "branching" only one instance of you continue, you say, but that > does not accord well with the simplest explanation of the two slits > experience. You will have to explain why the superpositions act in the > micro and not the macro, and this needs big changes in QM (= SWE), or even > bigger to computationalism. > > > But you have to explain this anyway; except the question is transformed > into why do I only experience one reality. Presumably the answer is in > decoherence and the off-diagonal terms of the density matrix becoming very > small (or maybe even zero). Once you have this answer then you can look at > the density matrix, as Omnes does, and say, "QM is a probabilistic theory, > so it predicts probabilities. What did you expect?" > > My point is that these sharp questions are asked of QM because it is a > mature theory with lots of very accurate predictions, but "comp" as a new > speculative theory kind of gets a free ride > > > hear hear. And MWI. > > > Frankly, to me comp seems less speculative than any form of non-comp, > especially if it relies on the faith in primitive matter. > Then QM-without-collapse, which is just MWI as far as we agree to not play > with words, seems to me less speculative than QM-with-collapse. > > Comp is a theory of mind, it is a weak form of what most people take > granted in the cognitive sciences. It is a quasi assumption of "absence of > magic". Non comp is either non intelligible or invoke actual infinities. > > Then the TOE eventually postulates only non negative integers and + and *, > which is a subtheory of many other theories in used everyday. > > Comp might be false, and if Z1* departs from QM, I might really begin to > believe that comp is false (finding not plausible the simulation move, ... > nor do I find plausible that the classical definition of "knowledge" is > inaccurate (S4)). > Until then, I would say that asserting that comp is false or already > refuted, requires an extraordinary evidence. > > UDA should be perhaps understood as a (failed) refutation of comp, as it > seems to predict an inflation of "self-superposition" in infinitely many > histories. > > This fails, because > 1) our best actual very good (indeed) theory, QM, makes practically no > sense, without a similar inflation of self-superposition. > 2) taking into account self-correctness imposes a quantum like structure > on the way universal machines can view themselves in the picture, so we > have to do the math before concluding arithmetic inflates too much. > > Now, if you have a genuinely non-comp theory to offer, I am all ears. > > Bruno > I don't look at it like that. There's a lot we see things differently about. For example in our discussions about comp, you've persistently interpreted what I have said solely in terms of your own theory. Which is understandable because your view is that science, in context of one person relating a theory to another person, seeking take-up, operates by that other person accepting the terms of that theory as the starting point, as standard. The reason you probably think that is because your starting points enjoy a consensus in the field you work in, and among those proximate to you. Like most others here on this list. But that isn't the true starting point for the scientist, but instead a special case of the starting point defined by whatever the shared position is at the outset. The true starting point is to look at the field, or its components, at a high level and assess first whether the construction of the starting position of the theory, is properly supported in hard science. Or is it pregnant with unhandled, unsupported assumptions. It's not necessary to learn that much up front, if it is possible to simply ask what the assumptions are in simple terms, and whether and what extent they are supported. This, is not actually about the assumptions themselves, but the methodological approaches to their assembly. It's acceptable in science to have unsupported assumptions, but the way this is managed is by compensating for the knowledge gap, methodologically by hardening that end up. So to balance. That's the way it has always been done, in the threads of science that went on to be most influential and transformative. The Popperian view is not all wrong, but it has a blind spot for this sort of translation between hard knowledge and methodology. For example, a central claim - of Popper or the Deutsch led neo-Popperian view, is that everything starts with an explicit, well detailed explanation. This is what you ask for above. A competing explanation. The Popper view has to require this, because it's only with a non-vague, explicit set of claims, that the Popper conception of criticism can fire into action. Whether it takes place internally in our minds, or as a collaboration. And of course the Popper explanation of objective knowledge is the outcome of sequences of conjecture refutation events, that via rational memes acquire a version of natural selection which drives evolution of knowledge. Within this, there's the principle of fallibalism, that objectively true statements must be assumed impossible, for the simple reason we don't know for sure which parts are objective and which aren't. It's possible to stumble on an objectively true statement, but how would we know? It's the process of C&R that resolves the matter. And for that we need explicit claims about the world that can be criticized. All which is fine. But implicitly or otherwise, the assumption becomes that objectively true statements are impossible to make. And that isn't true. Popperianism sits at one end of a spectrum of possibilities, that is traversable methodologically via exchanges between certainty and usefulness. To the Popperian, suggestion of this is irrelevant because how can something that isn't useable - like something vague - have value. it can't be criticized, so knowledge cannot be evolved. But in fact, the other end of the spectrum, where objectively true statements are possible, can be made useful by methodological translation. The starting principle is that we can make an objectively true statement just so long as we *deliberately* make sure it contains no useful information, in and of itself. We make this worthwhile by translating all the same principles to their equivalent form at that end of the spectrum. For example, instead of overt content-rich claims, we now have constraints. A vague, objectively true but useless, statement......paired to another vague, objectively true but useless statement, may in some cases have implications when taken together. That don't tell us anything about the world in terms of its properties. But do constrain the possible range of properties that can be true. I'm talking about the tautology. The truism. The trivially true. I'm talking about what is historically, overwhelming, the starting point of what goes on to be successful science. Or one part of the successful formula. It's a part Popperianism excludes from itself. The reality of this - just the fact it is incontrovertibly true as a historical fact - leads to worse implications for Popperianism. For their response would be "so what, there is no static Popperian view, but only the conjectural. Criticism will sort it out". But the question of whether there has been criticism of this shortcoming is not philosophical, but historical. It never happened. Despite the fact Science - its actual history which we can look at retrospectively in terms of what work came to define the scientific view and knowledge it contained - is unequivocal the starting points were always the way I mention. Despite that, the criticism and correction never arrived. Why? I think its because they lost the conceptual distinctions that would be necessary upfront to think coherently about the issue. Done right, objective statements can be made, or maximized in their objectivity, by ensuring by design, no useful information can be taken away from them. Two of them together, properly paired (i.e. not just any two) can have useful information when considered together, and that useful information will inherit the quantity of being maximally objectively true. That's the construction of, say, Darwin's natural selection. Individually useless, but objectively maximal statements are made, and properly paired up. Taken together they have implications, that lead on to an insight of natural selection. Such insights have a special property that we intuitively recognize. The property is that they seem to prove themselves by their very definition. In fact the natural selection example, piles on further problems for Popper, because seen this way, poppers own interpretation of natural selection - that is fundamental to his whole theory, is drawn into question. Very serious questions. But that's another story and I already digress too far. So back to the matter of comp, now in terms of the importance of method, method now hopefully tentatively established as a powerfully important component, that goes way beyond the boilerplate formulas for what is 'science' currently in play. I've asked questions about method. You have not answered them. You say you have been trying to understand me. I believe you have been trying. But what you haven't been doing, is trying to understand me at all. Evidence? Well, is there a single instance in all our discussion where you say "ok, so is this what you mean? I can see what you are thinking. OK, I don't agree, but let's work this through on your terms, and I believe we can do that , because I believe the science is robust. Let's do that, and through doing that, let us take that slightly scenic view together, off the beaten track; walk with me and I'll escort you back to where I am already. Because there are many paths, but only one landscape." Or words to that effect.
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