On 26 June 2014 04:33, Kim Jones <kimjo...@ozemail.com.au> wrote: *All political and sociological phenomena whatsoever CAN be reduced without loss to the behaviour and relations of individual human beings.*
Yes of course, but that was my point. I offered the analogy as a toy model of 3p reductionism per se. It's pretty clear that when we talking about, say, a country having opinions or character, that this is merely a manner of speaking. If we cared to, this manner of speaking could be reduced without loss to the behaviour and relations of the individual human beings who play the role of the "fundamental entities" in this reduction. However it seems, for some reason, to be less obvious to most people in the case of *physical* reductionism. Actually the reason is perhaps not so mysterious after all, as it is difficult not to take for granted what is constantly staring us in the face - hence the frequent confusion between what should be considered ontologically, as opposed to epistemologically, basic. But on reflection, can we really countenance an appeal to one convenient fiction (computation) to explain another (consciousness) given a prior commitment to the exhaustive hierarchical reducibility of both to the ontological "basement level" of explanation? And in relying on "epistemological fictions" in general to account for *epistemology itself* are we not thereby in serious peril of merely arguing in a circle? *If Bruno is right the only thing that is real are persons who are essentially minds or computational relations anyway. Bruno is not saying there is no sunstrate or 'hypothese'. He's dropping continual heavy hints as to what it is. But, we just can't really describe that with a mind. The hammer cannot hit itself. Blame Gödel or someone...* Well, I've said before that I originally had misgivings that Bruno's schema was vulnerable to a similar analysis as I have given above - i.e. that it was in the end an exhaustive reductionism, in this case with number relations as the "basement level". But actually, on reflection, this cannot be the case as it turns out to be impossible to reduce comp to number relations tout court *without loss*. In fact, not less than everything would be lost in such a reduction (assuming comp to be correct, of course): the whole of physics, the entire possibility of observation, the whole kit and caboodle. The emulation of computation and the universal machine in arithmetic - with the concomitant umbilical connection to arithmetical truth - make any straightforward hierarchical 3p reduction, along the lines of physicalism, impossible in principle. The totality of computation implies both the FPI (the "indeterminism" at the heart of determinism) and a fundamental "asymmetry of measure". Taken together, these motivate a principled explanation of a consistent set of observable (indexical) physical appearances, abstracted, as it were, from the dross of the totality, by the unequal attention of a generalised universal observer. Indeed the systemic inter-dependence of its explanatory entities make a schema of this sort, as Bruno is wont to say, a veritable "vaccine" against reductionism. But is it correct? That's another question. David > > On 26 Jun 2014, at 8:07 am, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote: > > The principal assumption then is that all phenomena whatsoever can be > reduced without loss to some "primitive" (i.e. assumptively irreducible) > basis, in which process the higher levels are effectively eliminated. > Equivalently, one might say it's bottom-up all the way down. As an analogy, > in the human sphere, this would be the contention that all political or > sociological phenomena whatsoever can be reduced without loss to the > behaviour and relations of individual human beings (i.e. what Margaret > Thatcher presumably intended by "there's no such thing as society"). > > David > > > All political and sociological phenomena whatsoever CAN be reduced without > loss to the behaviour and relations of individual human beings. In > addition, when was Margaret Thatcher ever wrong about something? ;-) > > So you lose a few 'isms' in this view...sounds like a good idea to me. > > If Bruno is right the only thing that is real are persons who are > essentially minds or computational relations anyway. Bruno is not saying > there is no sunstrate or 'hypothese'. He's dropping continual heavy hints > as to what it is. But, we just can't really describe that with a mind. The > hammer cannot hit itself. Blame Gödel or someone... > > Kim > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
