Bruno wrote: *The problem is that there are few people serious in logic, in QM and in "philosophy of mind". **And defamation does not help especially in interdisciplinary field.*
Which logic? (you mentioned the math-one) but I prefer common sense as we can understand it (IFFF!) these days. Then philosophy? what kind of? from what age? (Not to mention "MIND"??) Then again: QM - an n-th derivation of (abstract?) math-phys thinking? Defamation is ugly, no matter what it targets, or in what field it raises its ugly head. John M PS a Hungarian humorist (F.Karinthy) whom we may count among the best in world literature so far said: "In jokes I do not tolerate humor" (maybe a different translation may be: " I take humor very seriously" even: "in humor I do not condone funniness". (None of them reverberating his concise Hungarian sentence: Humorban nem ertem a trefat). JM On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 1:30 PM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 23 Mar 2015, at 04:55, Kim Jones wrote: > > > > On 23 Mar 2015, at 10:19 am, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 3/22/2015 2:45 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 23 March 2015 at 07:37, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> I don't think step 3 is at all essential to the argument. It's nothing >> but setting up an analogy to Everett's MWI to show how uncertainty and >> determinism are compatible - all of which JKC already accepts. >> > > I have put this point to him, but he says something like "because we can > never see the consequences of the MWI split, but we *could* see the > result of a teleporter duplication, therefore it's different" (that seems > like the gist of the argument, at least). Bruno's point of course is just > that if we had the teleporter, it would lead to indeterminacy, just as MWI > splits do (indeed, if we take Everett literally, ISTM the MWI is an > instance of Bruno's teleporter) - whether or not we can talk to our > duplicate later is irrelevant to the point of the argument. > > ISTM that the flaws in comp, if they exist, are either (a) at the start > - the premises are flawed (e.g. assumptions about the ontological status of > Peano arithmetic), or (b) at the end - the MGA / "reversal" stage. The > intermediate steps follow fairly straightforwardly from the premises (if > they are assumed correct). > > > Those are my reservations too: Not only the ontological status of > arithmetic (or other computational systems) but also of the UDA. Some of > the inferences, like Godel incompleteness, depend on infinities, which I > think is just a convenience. Some of the modal inferences appear to depend > on ex falso quodlibet, which again is just a convenient simplification of > valid inference. On the other, MGA end, I suspect that it's necessary to > emulate a whole "world", in which case the conclusion is close to trivial. > I also wonder about some of modal axioms; aren't there equally intuitive > alternatives? > > > So we're still at the point where John claims to have spotted a flaw, > but he can't satisfactorily explain it to anyone else. > > > I think I understand the "flaw". When the thought experiment is posed > with the pronoun you: "You are in Helsinki. You are duplicated so your > duplicates appear in Moscow and Washington. Then you will be uncertain as > to which city you will find yourself in." then it appears unanswerable and > ill posed because "you" is ill defined in the presence of duplicating > machines. There is no theory of personal identity in the premises, it just > tries to rely on the intuitions built into language, which assume persons > aren't duplicated. If the thought experiment started with, "Suppose *you* > are a unique, unreproducible immaterial soul..." then it might have an > answer. > > On the other hand if pronouns are avoided, so that referents are clear: > "John is in Helsinki. John is duplicated so duplicate Johns appear in > Moscow and Washington. Then John will be uncertain as to which city John > will find himself in." then the ambiguity is clear in that the second > occurrence of 'John' could refer to Moscow-John or Washington-John and if > you make it explicit it's no longer true, e.g. "Then Helsinki-John will be > uncertain as to which city Moscow-John will find himself in." > > But Bruno is only explicating how there can be an objectively > determinsitic process that *necessarily* produces a subjectively uncertain > outcome. > > > > Yes. Clark has to accept the necessary nature of FPI to be in aosition to > go on. Understanding step 3 entails understanding that the FPI is purest > indeterminacy at the heart of a deterministic universe. He never will. > That's where he's scared. It's too much for him to suppose that some things > are truly random. > > > Are you sure? Clark seems to defend the existence of events without cause. > He uses also the "truly random" notion to argue (correctly) against a > certain type of strong notion of free-will. > (of course I don't follow him in inferring that all notion of free-will is > uninteresting) > > I am not sure he has any problem other than with himself. > > > > > > > No amount of additional information will remove the subjective uncertainty > of Helsinki-John about his future. JKC says this is trivial since > subjective uncertainty about the future is commonplace. But it's not > trivial, anymore than Everett's MWI is trivial, because without the > duplication of subjects, subjective uncertainty about a deterministic > process could always be eliminated by gaining more information. > > JKC is just picking on the fact that Moscow-John could meet > Washington-John to say that this is different that Everett's MWI. But when > an argument uses a thought experiment it is always the case that the > thought experiment is different from reality in some respect. In this case > that difference is irrelevant to the inference from the thought experiment, > so there's no reason to object to it. That's why it is a mistake to reject > and argument as soon as you find a "flaw" in one step. It is necessary to > see that the "flaw" is used in later steps before you can reject the > argument. > > Brent > > > Very well explained, indeed. > > > Agreed. > > > Now, wouldn't it be wonderful if JKC were to read and accept the situation > as you have outlined so he could then move on (presumably to find some > "flaw" in step 4...) > > I predict he won't. The whole thing has been a linguistic/semantic > side-issue. > > Those who understand the math will see the argument clearly. Bruno beavers > away regularly at that because he knows that words are highly limited and > fallible tools. As I will never tire of saying, verbal language is not > designed to cope with notions of a plural reality. This is new knowledge > which actually sits between many fields so it has this surprising feature > of Language freezes meanings into words and phrases at a relative state of > ignorance and lugs those meanings around forever. > > > OK, but people are also unaware that logicians have made tremendous > progress in metamathematics-alias "mathematical logic", so we can talk on > things non provable by this or that machine, and that some notion are not > definable by the machine (like a notion of truth encompassing them), etc. > > The problem is that there are few people serious in logic, in QM and in > "philosophy of mind". > And defamation does not help especially in interdisciplinary field. > > > > Bruno > > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > 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. > 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. 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