On 11 Sep 2017 9:22 a.m., "Bruno Marchal" <[email protected]> wrote:
On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote: > > On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the universal >> number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific belief", >> (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar >> Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent provability to be >> a notion of knowledge. >> > > This seems problematic to me. I understand why you do it; because you > want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief). But this > does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example). > Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933. It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert it > and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ?? > Ih he proves it (correctly or not). Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). We just cannot know an undecidable (by us) proposition, by definition, although we can bet on it, but then it is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt). That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did. Yes, I think the difficulty Brent may be having with this is that the notion of belief in play here is to be understood as ramifying in some limit (delineated by the FPI) to that of physical structure and action. Consequently it constitutes, in the first place, an idiosyncratic commitment to truths that may or may not correspond, in part or in whole, to what is more generally 'believed'. Nonetheless, commitments of this sort cannot be disentangled from their own proper, and equally undoubtable, truth values, however misleading these may ultimately turn out to be in a wider context. They are, as you say, more in the nature of bets on a reality, which in general of course is consistent with the unavoidable rigour of an evolutionary logic. This is the crucial distinction between primary or perceptual undoubtability and secondary reliability that I've previously remarked on. And as is indeed the case with any serious bet, they represent an inescapable commitment that puts the bettor permanently at hazard. It seems to me also that there are nested levels of such beliefs and their associated truths. Hence what is, at a certain level, an idiosyncratic commitment to what we would normally think of as something non veridical, as in a dream, may be nested within a more general or systemic commitment to a consistent and more generally shared physical reality (i.e. what will appear in phenomenal terms as a brain and its generalised environment). David Bruno > Brent > > -- > 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > 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 https://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. 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
