On 16 June 2014 08:16, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 6/14/2014 11:42 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 15 June 2014 01:54, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I have not attempted to correlate my theory with the thinking of Plato and >> Aristotle. I would be happy to discuss this with you (my cell phone >> number is 858-353-0997) or to consider your specific thoughts as to how >> my >> theory relates to the thinking of these fellows. >> >> "Aristotelianism" is philosophical shorthand (so to speak) for theories > which assume that matter/energy and space/time are "primitive", which means > they cannot be explained by anything simpler. Aristotle thought that all > that existed were "atoms and the void" > > > No, although that's what Bruno implies. Aristotle believed in substances > which had inherent properties including teleological propensities (air > rises, stone fall). He denied that a vacuum was possible. It was > Democritus and Epicurus that hypothesized atoms and void. >
Oh yes, you're quite right, it was too. But please bear in mind that the point of this post is to explain to Mr Ross the Aristotle / Plato distinction that gets bandied around on this forum. "Aristotelean" in this context is just shorthand for "primitive materialism", as far as I know. which is still roughly what "materialist" scientists think (Brent may disagree with this, but from what I've read this appears to be the tacit assumption of the majority of physicists). I'd say "working hypothesis" - but why not? They're doing physics. > > Exactly my point. I don't know why you made such a fuss about saying they didn't. The evidence for this view is mainly that it appears self-evidently true! I think that's a very limited view. It has only been "self-evident" for > few hundred years - and only among a small segment of the world's > population. Even on this list some argue that there must be some extra > magic in humans and they can't be *just* matter. > Yes, I meant specifically to physicists. Bear in mind this is supposed to be a short summary for J Ross' benefit. "Platonism" is shorthand for theories which assume that the universe is in some sense a reflection of some hidden underlying 'perfect forms" - the modern take on this, due to Max Tegmark and others, is that these perfect forms are mathematical structures. I don't pretend to know what this would mean in practice, although A. Garret Lisi <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Garrett_Lisi> attempted to produce a TOE <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory_of_Everything>based on this idea (however, this hasn't stood up to scrutiny). Tegmark has suggested that the evidence for this view is that over the last 500 or so years, maths has been the "royal road to physical explanations" - there is nothing in physics which isn't maths plus what he calls "surplus baggage" - an interpretation of some underlying maths. Whether this has ontological significance is still unknown. And it depends a lot on what you think about mathematics; whether it's > just a precise and and strictly logical subset of language or whether it's > really real ur-stuff. > > Yes, that's one way to rephrase what I just said. My only addition is that if you think the former, then you should explain why it works so well. I'm open to suggestions, of course, but so far Tegmark's MUH seems to be the only one I've heard that seems to have any philosophical teeth. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
