On 2 July 2014 05:33, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 7/1/2014 1:01 AM, LizR wrote: > > On 1 July 2014 17:59, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 6/30/2014 9:35 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> ISTM... >> >> In primitive materialism, what exists are space / time and matter / >> energy. Information is an emergent property of the arrangements of those >> things, like entropy. Neither of these exist at the level of fundamental >> particles, or Planck cells, or strings, or whatever else may be the >> primitive mass-energy/space-time) involved. >> >> There are problems with this view if information has primitive status, >> which would indicate that the real picture is something like "it from bit" >> or what might be called "primitive informationism". Evidence for PI come >> from the entropy of black holes, the black hole information paradox, the >> Landauer limit, the Beckenstein bound, the holographic principle, and >> (unless I already covered that) the requirement that erasing a bit of >> information requires some irreducible amount of energy. (And maybe some >> other things I don't know about ... perish the thought). >> >> That's the Landauer limit, which isn't really relevant at a fundamental >> level. It's a thermodynamic law which is reducible to statistical >> mechanics. >> >> Interesting. How is the energy required to erase a single bit > reducible to statistical mechanics? > > I'd appreciate an answer to this question, if you have one. I can't see the connection and am genuinely interested, I wasn't being rhetorical.
> PI isn't equivalent to comp, but from what you said above PI might be >> a necessary consequence of comp, which would give the "ontological chain" >> arithmetic -> consciousness -> information -> matter (I think ... this is >> all "ISTM" of course). >> >> OK, except I think the chain is: >> >> arithmetic -> information -> matter -> consciousness -> arithmetic >> > > That doesn't make sense to me. I mean everything except the last term is > OK, but you're apparently claiming that arithmetic is fundamental AND an > invention of the human mind. Which at first glance looks suspiciously like > fence sitting and having and eating your cake... > > Unless you have a theory of circular ontology, of course, in which case > please fill in a few more details. > > Why? The details are no different than in the linear case. In the > details you look at each "->" separately. What's different about the > circular case is that you don't suppose that one of the levels is > "fundamental" or "primitive". > OK, so how does that work? Like I said, I don't understand it. Intuitively, saying that A causes B and B causes A doesn't appear to make sense, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation (though luckily evolution can answer that one). Some more information would be appreciated. > But I generally consider ontolgy to be derivative. You gather data, > create a model, test it. If it passes every test, makes good predictions, > fits with other theories, then you think it's a pretty good model and may > be telling you what the world is like. THEN you look at and ask what are > the essential parts of it, what does it require to exist. But that's more > of a philosophical than a scientific enterprise, because, as in QM, there > maybe radically different ways to ascribe an ontology to the same > mathematical system. Even Bruno's very abstract theory is ambiguous about > whether the ur-stuff is arithmetic or threads of computation. You can > probably show they are empirically equivalent - just like Hilbert space and > Feynman paths give the same answers but are ontologically quite different. > OK. How you get to it is, of course, via empiricism (how else?). But so far most physicists (that I've come across) have considered that a reductionist ontology is most likely to be correct. Of course the majority doesn't rule in physics, and it's fine that you prefer a circular ontology, I'd just like to know how it's actually supposed to work, (preferably sans waffle, if you can manage it). and I'm not so inclined to take it as more than another possible model > of the world. > We aren't in a position to do more than build models of the world. If you think it's a possible model then that's *all* you can ever claim for it, well, unless some evidence comes along that disproves it, when you can't even do that. > I think of it as a way to describe and predict and think about the > world; but without supposing that it's possible to prove or to know with > certainty the world must be that way. > Of course, we can't know for certain what the world is like. > As for A Garrett Lisi, I was under the impression that his particles > were something like a "point in a weight diagram" - or something - which > sounds to me at least like some form of information theoretic entity. But I > have to admit my understanding of how birds and flowers could emerge from > the E8 group or whatever it's called is, well, about like this... > > In a way, all of fundamental physics posits information theoretic > entities. "Particles" are nothing more than "what satisfies particle > equations". Bruno complains about Aristotle and "primitive matter", but I > don't know any physicists who go around saying,"I've discovered primitive > matter." or "Let's work on finding primitive matter." > Well, I think Bruno thinks it's more an unconscious assumption for most physicists, rather than something explicitly stated. For example your statement about your mother implicitly assumes her mind is "nothing but" what her brain does. That's a primitive materialist assumption But it's not an assumption. There's lots of evidence for it and > practically none against it. > So it *is* an assumption, made for the very reasonable reason that there's a lot of evidence in its favour. Or were you just disagreeing for the sake of it? > I don't think Bruno contests that. He just supposes that this mind/body > relation can be explained from a level he considers more basic (but I > don't). > Well quite clearly you don't, if you think the most likely ontology is circular. In that case nothing can be "more basic", by definition. (and one that may be right, of course) but my point is that no one stops to make it explicit, because nowadays it's deeply ingrained in the thought processes of anyone who isn't strongly religious, and "goes without saying". > They just want a theory that is a little more comprehensive, a little more > accurate, a little more predictive than the one they have now. And they > couldn't care less what stuff is needed in their theory - only that it > works. > So why the century-long kerfuffle about the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics? :-) There are two reasons for worrying about the interpretation of QM. One is > that an interpretation may really be, or lead to, a different theory, i.e. > something that is testable. Obviously GRW and Penrose collapse theories > are in principle testable. Deutsch thinks a quantum computer could test > Everett's interpretation. > However all the interpretations involve different "stuff" i.e. what is considered to be real. Physicists do appear to worry about the stuff in their theories, at least according to all the books I've read by physicists. They are not merely about theory + observations. There is talk about how the fire gets into the equations and suchlike. I think there's a name for the view that theory + observation are the only thing that should be cared about (apart from "shut up and calculate", I mean) but I can't remember what it is. (Maybe David can enlighten me...) -- 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. 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