On 29 Aug 2017, at 03:36, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 8/28/2017 3:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 28 August 2017 at 01:49, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>
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.
If physics is made necessary in a simpler theory, then physics is no
more primary.
The idea of the virtuous circle is that there is no 'primary'. One
may start at any point.
If we can start at any point, then the point using the less assumption
is the best starting point.
Now, when we take the physicalist starting point, history illustrates
that we usually hide the mind-body problem, and the spiritual
questions, etc. Mechanism provides a testable theory of mind,
physicalist theory of mind assume an identity thesis which is
inconsistent with mechanism, and not so easy to make consistent with
reasonable non-mechanist theories.
I might miss your point, but your attitude is a bit like saying to
Darwin that we can start from the humans, and define dinosaurs by
human myths. I am sure that you would like that, but then why you
dislike the idea that the physical reality is reduce to something far
simpler, conceptually, (the many universal numbers and their
relations) that we can prove the existence to anyone not to shocked
by the "revelation" than 2+2=4.
No doubt is put on any work done by physicists, and I remain an
empiricist. (Even if the theory predicts that the physical reality is
in "our head" we have still to test the theory in our head with what
is observed by us and peers).
But physicalism is an hypothesis in theology, or metaphysics. Not in
physics. And I am not sure there is any evidences for it, and I would
say there are strong evidence against it, like its constant dismiss of
the mind-body problem, but also the difficulties to define "primary
matter", and to relate it to the consciousness and the first person
verification of an inferred laws of physics. Yet, physics progress
toward the solution (from Galilee, Einstein, Everett), and the theory
of mind also, and we might one day close the bridge. Yet to keep the
qualia of the theory of mind, at some point, the physicalness becomes
a machine or number phenomenological construction, and I don't see how
we could evade that objective ("Diophantine") idealism, with
mechanism, or even without.
Bruno
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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