On 21 Aug 2014, at 18:33, meekerdb wrote:
On 8/21/2014 12:49 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
They could be the ur-stuff of a TOE. Bruno says they're not stuff
- but then I don't think "stuff" is any better defined that
"primitive physical".
Primitive means "assumed necessarily in the TOE. With comp we don't
assume particles, or space, or time, usually assumed in physical
theories.
I know what "primitive" means. The point of the question was what
does "physical" mean. I think it just means stuff we agree on the
3p sense - the dominant invariant measure across 1p experience. But
by that definition numbers and arithmetic are "physical".
The physical is concerned with the empirically observable. "primitive
physical" means that we assume primitive observable on object that we
can detect empirically, like particles, forces, waves, space, time,
temperature, etc.
Theories about numbers do not assume any physical objects. They might
assume 0, and its successor, but you don't need a laboratory, nor any
*observation* to believe in them, a priori.
Of course, you can extend the sense of physical, so that it includes
arithmetical, but that would makes more confusing the comp necessity
to derive physics from arithmetic, that is, derive the observable from
what we can justify from any Turing complete theory (with comp in the
background).
Bruno
Brent
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