On 8/28/2017 3:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 28 August 2017 at 01:49, Brent Meeker <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/27/2017 9:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I think it is more pleasing when you can build the virtuous
circle of explanations out of simple ideas that we hardly
doubt at the start, like 2 * 12 = 24. And then, the point is
that we have to do that, when we take Mechanism seriously
enough. We are back to Pythagoras, but with the discovery of
the universal machine and its quantum echo, and a
mathematically precise theology, containing physics, making it
testable.
But you're still trying to make arithmetic the really really
primary; whereas from the virtuous circle perspective it is the
product of sapient thought.
But that explanation wouldn't really be virtuous in the relevant
sense, would it? Arithmetic, seen merely as the product of thought,
could hardly at the same time be asserted as the ontological basis of
that very thought, could it? Unless your notion of the virtuous circle
is something like Escher's hands drawing each other. Well, in a
metaphorical sense I guess it could be seen like that.
Exactly.
The arithmetic that is the product of thought is certainly related to
the arithmetic which ultimately may be assumed to give rise to it.
That's an idea worth taking seriously, but perhaps not too literally.
Let's remember that 'primary' here means only what must be assumed,
for the purpose of explanation, rather than derived. That's all. So
physics, in this mode of explanation, isn't primary because it is to
be derived or inferred, not asserted; arithmetic, on the other hand,
is assumed without further justification.
But if the physics is/*necessary*/ for the thought that see units and
counting and arithmetic, then the physics can be taken as primary. The
idea of the virtuous circle is that there is no 'primary'. One may
start at any point.
Physics is not a problem. Physicalist metaphysics is a
problem, when we assume Mechanism. But apparently, Mechanism
explains it by showing that if true, the physical reality is
in the head of all universal machine or number, and that can
be tested.
But the universal machine can only have a "head" in a certain kind
of physical world...on which will via evolution inevitably produce
mind.
Yes indeed and no problem with this. I suspect that the three of us
may be quite near closing this argumentative circle (heaven
forfend!). Let's remember that the thing starts with the rather
widespread (though often only implicit) assumption that our mental
processes ultimately depend on no more than some species of classical
computation. The practicable feasibility of replacing biological
brains and/or bodies wholly or in part with particular alternative
prostheses is not really germane to the argument, but rather stands as
a proxy for the essential claim of the theory. This primary assumption
then entails that computation, or rather its irreducible basis in some
tractable form, stands as our sole ontological assumption and that the
appearance of a concrete reality will then depend on the development
of a theory of knowledge based on the generic or universal machine as
sole agent or subject. This further necessitates that the observable
or phenomenological aspect of physics falls into the epistemological
compartment of the theory, and that its unobservable or inferred
component is treated as an observationally self-selected (and hence
canonical) subset of the deeper computational ontology. That's it, I
guess, in a nutshell. The rest is...well, it's interesting to discuss,
apparently.
David
Brent
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