On 5/09/2017 1:03 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 04 Sep 2017, at 14:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:
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,
What do you mean by "observation is primary"? I don't understand what
that could mean. Normally this assumes an observer and some reality.
You ignore a lot of 18th and 19th century philosophy. The British
empiricist school spent a lot of time discussing the primacy of
observation, leading eventually to positivism, which insisted that the
only meaningful statements were those that could be reduced to
elementary observational statements. This might not have been a treeibly
successful philosophy, but at least it is understandable.
not the matter. But then I assume matter and deduce that I will
observe it - so the matter becomes primary.
Well, that is not so easy. The whole point of the UDA consists in
showing that EVEN if we assume primary matter, it remains out of my
consciousness.
But that proof fails to convince.
Also, I talk on primary matter. To believe in primary matter you have,
by definition, the belief that the apperance of matter and its law are
not deducible from something else.
No, you only have to believe in the existence, for example, of the
particles of the Standard Model of particle physics and their
interactions -- the basic Lagrangian of the theory is all that is
required. Everything folloows from that, so that is primary.
You claim arithmetic is primary, because 2+2=4 independent of you and
me.
... and that we cannot derive it from something simpler. We can derive
it only from something Turing-equivalent.
You again ignore the thousands of years of human cultural history that
led from counting rocks to the Turing machine. That was a process of
deduction and refinement par excellence.
But I can deduce arithmetic from observation,
Observation of something which you infer to be Turing equivalent with
numbers.
making observation primary again,
?
and arithmetic merely derivative. But then I assume that matter is
primary - I can then deduce both observation and arithmetic.
No, by UDA you will miss "observation". It is the whole point.
Observation is a conscious experience, and with mechanism, you need to
put some non-Turing emulable magic in some stuff to select the
computations which exists in arithmetic.
I do not assume mechanism. Why should I prejudge the outcome by assuming
I already have all the answers?
It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary,
I study the consequence of the mechanist assumption. There is no way
to define what a digital machine is without assuming arithmetic (or
Turing-equivalent).
but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case.
yes, I can. I can prove that if you suppress any one axiom in RA:
0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1)) -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x
then I cannot retrieve it, and in all case, I lost Turing universality.
Where did these axioms of RA come from if not from millennia of
experience of the real world? Or were they handed down from on high,
inscribed on tablets of stone?
I can assume that quarks and electrons, etc, are primary,
Just show the theory.
The Langrangian of the standard model is the theory. It is well-understood.
I have not see one set of axioms capable of making electrons or quarks
primary.
It is not a matter of axioms. If 'primary' is what everything else is
derived from, then the 'primary' is not deducible from anything else,
axioms or not!
I have seen only an attempt to do so with strings (by Schmidhuber).
but it was a really "toy string theory" (nevertheless quite
interesting per se).
The axiomatization of physics is largely a failed enterprise. String
theory is a failed attempt at a fundamental theory -- I have nothing to
do with it. But why should everything conform to your standards of
axiomatized logic? There are more things in heaven and earth, [Bruno],
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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
I am not sure we have any evidence of how to derive number from
anything physical or Turing equivalent.
Only millennia of experience......
Provide the theory and the deduction. If you can derive arithmetic
from it, you will just prove it to be Turing equivalent, but with a
lot more assumptions, and with the digital mechanist mind-body problem
unsolved.
I don't want to solve the mechanist mind-body problem since I do not
accept mechanism.
than you have of proving the existence of quarks from pure
arithmetic. The evidence is all in my favour.
You have not provided any evidence. You have not provided any theory
actually. And you are refuted by UDA if you claim that by assuming
matter you can derive that you can observe it. For this you need a
theory of matter and a theory of mind and an explanation of the
relation in between.
Emergence and supervenience are all that is required.
But the theories of physics derived from arithmetic explains the
quantum, the symmetries, and is totally definite, so is completely
testable. If you succeed in showing it is violated by the quack
existence, then we can say that we have an evidence to doubt digital
mechanism, but that is premature.
Yes, if your theory works it will explain everything. But that is the
question.....
Bruce
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