On Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 3:30:46 PM UTC-6, [email protected] wrote: > > > > On Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 6:57:33 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote: >> >> >> >> On Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 10:07:13 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 11 Dec 2018, at 20:53, [email protected] wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 7:30:32 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 1:02:52 PM UTC-6, [email protected] >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 6:44:34 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 12:32:51 PM UTC-6, >>>>>> [email protected] wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> * As for physicists being materialists in the sense of believing >>>>>>> there is nothing underlying matter as its cause, I have never heard >>>>>>> that >>>>>>> position articulated by any physicist, in person or on the Internet. AG >>>>>>> * >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Victor Stenger >>>>>> *Materialism Deconstructed?* >>>>>> >>>>>> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/materialism-deconstructed_b_2228362.html >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> *I was once a member of Vic's discussion group. Vic believed in the >>>>> reality of matter, in the sense that if you kick it, it kicks back. But >>>>> he >>>>> didn't deny the possibility that there could be something more >>>>> fundamental >>>>> underlying matter. This denial is what Bruno claims is the materialist >>>>> position, but it surely wasn't Vic's position. You know this, of course, >>>>> being a member of that group. Right? AG* >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> - pt >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> I hosted Vic in Dallas in 2014 for a talk. I got to know him fairly >>>> personally . >>>> >>>> Homages to philosophical materialism ("matter is the fundamental >>>> substance in nature") is in his books. *Timeless Reality* in >>>> particular. >>>> >>>> One can be open-minded, or *ironist *in Rorty's definition [ >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironism ], and he was that. >>>> >>>> But despite all the "models" talk, I would confidently say he was >>>> always a hardcore materialist. >>>> >>>> - pt >>>> >>> >>> Show me one instance, just one, where Vic denied something causal and >>> unknown underlying the existence of matter? This is Bruno's model of >>> materialism among physicists but it clearly doesn't apply to Vic. AG >>> >>> >>> >>> You might read my favorite book by Vic, which is “The comprehensible >>> cosmos”. There, it shows something very platonist-like: he shows that >>> physics can be derived from few principles. Unfortunately, he seems to >>> ignore the mind-body problem, and so he does not explain how that physical >>> reality can select our consciousness in way corresponding to what we >>> observe. So there is still a bit of magic in his explanation, or of lack of >>> rigour (by not seeing that he uses some non-mechanist theory to allow a >>> physical reality to do that selection, instead of deducing his first >>> physical principle from arithmetic and machine’s psychology, as we have to >>> do with mechanism. That is even more apparent in his less interesting books >>> like “God the paling hypothesis, (where I agree with the content, but find >>> it bad because he identifies theology with the current theology which >>> assumes a creator but also a creation). >>> >>> So Vic approach is still materialist or at least physicalist. But he was >>> on the right track, and would have understood that his attempt to >>> comprehend the cosmos was only a beginning: to work well, he would need to >>> derive the cosmos from machine statistical experience in arithmetic. >>> >>> Bruno >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> It is interesting that you raise the part of Stenger's writings that have >> to do with things like symmetry, point-of-view invariance (POVI) in the >> foundations of physics. That is the part I didn't get at all at the time >> (now some years ago) and I don't get it (I reject it) even more now. It was >> like *So you are a Platonist now?* :) >> > > *I brought up POVI, not Bruno who IS a Platonist. POVI is simple; there > can no "laws of physics" to discover if they depend on which direction one > is looking. AG* > >> >> >> >> >> - pt >> >
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry) ? - pt -- 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.
