On 5/09/2017 12:49 am, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 Sep 2017 13:11, "Bruce Kellett" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary
physical reality for which there are no evidences at all.
You can't prove primary arithmetic either.
Indeed.
But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence
for primary matter. Not one.
"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make
it seem inaccessible. I don't need to prove the physical,
I observe it.
?
Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe
matter, and that is an evidence for matter, not for primary
matter.
Primary means "not deducible" from something else.
Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary, not the
matter. But then I assume matter and deduce that I will observe it
- so the matter becomes primary. You claim arithmetic is primary,
because 2+2=4 independent of you and me. But I can deduce
arithmetic from observation, making observation primary again, and
arithmetic merely derivative. But then I assume that matter is
primary - I can then deduce both observation and arithmetic.
It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic
primary, but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case. I
can assume that quarks and electrons, etc, are primary, and else
follows from this. Maybe I can't prove that either, but I have a
hell of a lot more evidence for the possibility of deriving
arithmetic from the existence of matter than you have of proving
the existence of quarks from pure arithmetic. The evidence is all
in my favour.
Honestly, Bruce, I think it's you who is playing with words here. The
sense in which Bruno is using primary here is perfectly clear - i.e.
the fundamental ontological assumption in a comprehensive theory of
origins.
That is not what Bruno says above. I quote: "Primary means 'not
deducible' from something else." Given that definition, then what I say
is perfectly logical. Primacy has nothing to do with ontology according
to Bruno's definition.
It doesn't aid comprehension to substitute a quite different meaning -
that of primary sense perception - in 'rebuttal'. As to choice of
primary ontological assumption, that is fixed by the prior choice of
mechanism as the theory of mind.
But I do not assume mechanism as the theory of mind. It seems to me
begging the question to assume the answer before you begin the
investigation. One's choice of "primary ontological assumption" is a
choice, and I am not constrained to assume your ontology in order to
discuss your theory. As has been said, "Epistemology precedes ontology",
so constraining one's ontology from the outset is not necessarily the
brightest strategy.
I think frankly that this is the sticking point for you. You want to
claim that computation can equally well be 'inferred' from the primary
ontological assumption of physics. But unfortunately this amounts to
egregious question begging, since the phenomenon of inference, and a
fortiori any perceptible phenomenon that depends on it, is itself
already part of the mental spectrum whose provenance we're seeking to
explain in the first place.
Consciousness is a necessary prerequisite for the understanding of
consciousness. This might be true, but it is an unhelpful observation.
Just as unhelpful as your observation that logic and inference are
necessary for the understanding of logic and inference. I am not begging
the question, I am doing the opposite, and not assuming the answer
before I begin the investigation. In science, one has to observe the
phenomenon before seeking to explain it -- it if is not observed, what
is there to explain? The Cartesian attempt at a solution to the
conundrum of explaining consciousness does not really work: I might not
be able to doubt that I doubt, but that doesn't explain anything.
Bruce
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