On 7/12/2014 7:51 PM, LizR wrote:
On 13 July 2014 07:17, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 7/12/2014 1:23 AM, LizR wrote:
Brent,
You left me hanging a week or so ago, and never got back to me about
something I'm
interested in finding out more about.
On 2 July 2014 23:14, LizR <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On 2 July 2014 17:06, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 7/1/2014 9:42 PM, LizR wrote:
On 2 July 2014 15:46, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
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 not a causal relationship, it's an explanatory "->".
Sorry I should have said "explains" although I thought it was
obvious I
was using causal in an explanatory sense, not a physical one.
Anyway,
please continue the explanation.
You don't understand what is meant by "physics -> biology" or "biology
->
evolution -> mathematics" or "mathematics -> physics"?
Yes I do.
And there you stopped. I'm still waiting for you to continue the
explanation.
To refresh your memory, you said:
OK, except I think the chain is:
arithmetic -> information -> matter -> consciousness -> arithmetic
To which I objected that I couldn't see how this makes sense globally, even
if each
local step makes sense. You appear to be claiming that there is no such
thing as a
fundamental explanatory level. Since this flies in the face of 3+ centuries
of
scientific progress (based on reductionism, which assumes there /is/ a
fundamental
explanatory level)
It's just that I noted that fundamental physics has become almost entirely
abstract
and mathematical, so that people like Tegmark and Wheeler started to
speculate that
the mathematics *is* the physics. Lists like this that subscribe to
everythingism
Bruno's "comp" and Tegmark's MUH completely erase the boundary between math
and
physics. The 3+ centuries of reductionist physics are also 3+ centuries of
explaining things through synthesis of simpler (and presumably better
understood)
things. At the same time I think mathematics is a human invention, a
certain way of
looking at the world made precise in language. Humans and their inventions
are
explicable by evolution, biology, physics,...and mathematics. So maybe the
circle
closes. The usual objection of a circular explanation is it leaves stuff
out,
especially if it leaves out all the stuff you understand and just explains
mystery X
in terms of enigma Y. But if the circle is big enough, if it encompasses
everything, then either there's some part you understand and that allows
you to
reach all the rest; or you don't understand anything and there's no hope
for you.
OK, thanks, I get all that, and I can see where you're coming from, up to the point
where "maybe the circle closes". However at that point you appear to have veered off
into fantasy (or at least you want to "have you cake and eat it too").
It may well be that the MUH and comp will turn out to be castles in the air, or whatever
is the appropriate metaphor. But I don't think a good way to show this is using
something that appears at least equally ridiculous (to me at least, but I suspect others
will have the same reaction). It's quite possible that physics is too abstract, but it's
certainly less abstract than an explanatory circle in which /nothing/ is considered
axiomatic.
If you can explain what "axiomatic" means, I think you'll find it on the circle. For
example, it might mean whatever seems necessarily true to human beings, which could be
explained in terms of physics, biology, and evolution (c.f. William S. Coopers "The Origin
of Reason").
That is equivalent to postmodernist arguments that since everything is part of a
linguistic web, we can't actually know or even surmise /anything/ about reality.
No it's not, because it's not just words. For example, the explanation of biology in
terms of physics depends on scientific propositions which are hypothesized and test in
laboratories.
I rejected that viewpoint a few decades ago (I was briefly an ardent postmodernist, at
least until I managed to engage my brain) and before I embrace it again I will need some
VERY convincing evidence.
This gives me, at least, the same problem I would have with a time travel story in which
a time traveller takes something back in time to the person who was supposed to have
originated it and lets them crib it. Hence no one created whatever it is ("Doctor Who"
did this with Shakespeare, with the Doctor quoting odd Shakespearisms and Will saying
"Mind if I use that?" It's fine as a humorous device in fantasy, but less so when
proposed as a serious basis for everything we know, or can know).
, not to mention what most people would regard as logic (or at least common
sense),
this looks like a fairly radical revision of our theories of knowledge.
So I'd be interested to know more, if you're prepared to continue
explaining.
As I said, I don't have my own TOE.
I didn't suggest you did. That isn't what I'm asking for.
I just put forward the virtuous circle of explanation based on a suggestion
of Bruno
(which he's disavowed) as a counter example to the idea that reductionism
must
either bottom out or be like infinite Russian dolls.
Sorry, as yet I don't see how it can work. It isn't a virtuous circle (which is
generally taken to mean something like compound interest working on something which was
generated, originally, by some other process) - it's a vicious circle, i.e. one that
pretends to explain something but in fact doesn't have any foundation. And it is, in
fact, like infinite Russian dolls, in that the explanatory chain doesn't begin or end
anywhere.
Unfortunately if you're serious about this, (or unless you can explain it sensibly, sans
handwaving and hyperbole)
If you're alleging handwaving and hypebole, please quote explicitly.
then for me at least it threatens to undermine everything else you've said, some of
which I thought at the time was quite sensible.
Apparently it can't undermine your confidence in judging what is sensible.
Brent
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