On 12 Jul 2014, at 21:17, meekerdb 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 <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 2 July 2014 17:06, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 7/1/2014 9:42 PM, LizR wrote:
On 2 July 2014 15:46, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> 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.
Not at all.
First, it is the physicalist, or metaphycaily naturalist which
speculate on a primary physical universe.
As much I agree that there are evidence for a physica reality, there
are no evidence for a primary physical reality.
Then, look at my preceding post to you. I don't know for Tegmark, but
computationalism excels in differentiating and relating the different
sort of existence: ontological, epistemological, observational,
communicable or not, theological, etc.
Lists like this that subscribe to everythingism Bruno's "comp" and
Tegmark's MUH completely erase the boundary between math and physics.
On the contrary, Comp introduces a clear distinction between the
physical, core of all universal being, and the geographical, which are
the contingencies of the normal universal numbers living above their
substitution level.
Physics is done today is just fuzzy about such distinction.
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.
UD* is full of many circles. If some circle win, that needs to be
explained.
, 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 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.
With mechanism, you have a nice simple ontology, and besides, physics
becomes "machine-independent". It does not depend which universal base
of phi_i you start with. You appreciate how Vic Stenger (and Emmy
Noether) derive some physical laws by postulating their invariance for
some transformation. Comp gives a very strong invariance principle:
indeed it redefines and explain physics in a new way which is
invariant for universal base ontology. Useless in practice, but
conceptually coherent with the canonical machine's sciences and
correct theologies.
But again, my point is not that comp gives a better theory. My point
is that you cannot have both comp and primitive matter, and that if
you keep comp, matter is refined as an computer-science-theoretical
observational modality. We can test it, refute it, and measure our
degree of non-computability, or improve it, etc.
No problem with physics. Only a problem with dogmatic Aristotelian
believer in a primitive "natural world". Comp justifies already why
If there is a world, it has to be described by non Boolean Observable,
and why it looks like a measure in some space, etc. Today comp is
agnostic on "a physical world", but it explains where and how the
materiality appears, (indeed quite like Plotinus explain matter by
translating in platonist realm the Aristotle definition of matter,
basically (by ~[]# or <>#) actually).
Bruno
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