> On 26 Jul 2019, at 17:26, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 7:01 AM Bruno Marchal <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > >> Does anybody know what "exists" means? > > > Perhaps we don’t, and that is why I ask people to formalise their idea in > > first order logic, so we can move forward without any metaphysical baggage. > > Bruno, you can't specify the referent in the numerous personal pronouns used > in your thought experiments,
That is wrong. You are just calling ambiguity the indeterminacy. Just take my rest in the form that physics is reduced to a ambiguity calculus, if you don’t like the “first person indeterminacy” term. > and you place great emphasis on phantom calculations that can't be detected > by anyone or anything. So don't talk to me about "metaphysical baggage”! There is no metaphysical baggage. To define properly “digital”, you need some amount of arithmetic. No need to add any metaphysics. If you believe in the notion of prime numbers, then you have no choice that to believe in the computations, just assuming arithmetic. You want to see metaphysical baggage, perhaps to hide that you are the one invoking an ontological commitment (a primary physical substance) in most of your “reasoning”. The only metaphysical or psychological hypothesis in mechanism is in the Church thesis and the yes doctor. > > >> everybody experiences a world > > > Everybody experiences consciousness, but "experiencing a world” is non > > sensical. > > Experiencing a world means experiencing the things in that world. Experiencing a dream means experiencing the things in the dream, too. You can’t experience the world itself. You can experience only the appearance of it, en intellectually decide the plausibility. > What else could it mean? Hammers exist in our world, if your hit your finger > with one you will experience pain. But we don’t know if there is a physical world. That is a very strong hypothesis in metaphysics. > > > You can experience the appearance of a world, and that does not prove its > > existence, > > How would the appearance of a world that existed differ from a world that did > not exist? If there is no difference then the word "existence" means > precisely nothing. Very simple. With mechanism, if a existing world exist, the probability we stay in that worlds is zero. That is why we can’t use that hypothesis. It is your hypothesis of the primary physical existence which is without purpose, because indeed, we cannot feel the difference. But we can test the plausibility: and the test have not yet shown any evidence of primary matter. > > > as the dreams illustrates. > > Dreams exist. Yes, already in arithmetic. But what appears in the dream does exist only phenomenologically, and should not be added in the ontology. > > >> so that world exists, that is if the word "exists" has any meaning. > > > That is why the theology [...] > > And that us my cue to stop reading the paragraph because nothing of interest > has ever come after you've used that word. > > >> And don't talk to me about illusion because illusions exist. > > > Illusions exists, but usually, the object of the illusion does not. > > That's because things would be different if the object of illusions did > exist, when you woke up from a nightmare the monster would still be around. > So the words "existence" and "nonexistence" have meaning in this context. And the UDA + AUDA shows that we can test the existence of primary matter, and thanks to QM we can already asserts that the test confirms the immaterialist consequences of the mechanist theory. That’s the point. > > >> And quarks and gluons may or may not be primitive matter nobody knows, but > >> for the purposes of our discussion it doesn't matter (pun intended) > >> because whatever else they may be we know one thing for sure, they can't > >> think, they display as much intelligent behavior as a sack full of > >> doorknobs. > > > No problem, but with mechanism, we can go further and say that the quarks > > and gluons are not primate matter, because they are invariant for the all > > universal numbers. > > And numbers are invariant for all quarks and gluons. So what? I don't care > what's fundamental I care what can calculate and numbers can’t That is ignorance on your part. > but matter can if it is organized in such a way that its logical operation > can be reduced to a Turing Machine. >> >>> Numbers and set of numbers. >> >> >> Rather like the relative literary relationship between a set of >> >> characters in a Harry Potter novel. > > If that was the case, we would not promise a million of dollars to solve > > the arithmetical Riemann hypothesis, or the twin conjectures. > > It's not easy to write a fictional book as popular as a Harry Potter novel, > if it was we'd have a lot more than a million dollars, we'd all be as rich as > JK Rowling. Sometimes it can be very difficult to write good mathematical > fiction too, the type that can entertain mathematicians. > > > There is no unreasonable applications of Harry Potter novel in physics, > > That's because a novel can be entertaining and consistent (have no plot > holes) and be fictional and written in the language of English, and this > would be of no use to Physics. The same thing would be true of fiction > written in the language of mathematics even if it had no plot holes. > > > It is the mark of the con man to asserts that they know what “really exist”. > > It is the mark of the con man to assert that something no person and no thing > can detect "really exists”, phantom calculations for example. I totally agree with you. 100% ! Prime numbers and calculations has been proved to exist in a theory which is a sub-theorry of all natural science theories. Primary matter has never been detected, nor even really well defined. It is what we call a myth. > > >>So I have to choose either Inductive reasoning or metaphysics. > > > That does not follow at all. You need only to do metaphysics with the > > inductive (and deceptive) > > Metaphysics with both inductive and deductive reasoning is just plain old > vanilla physics. That is Aristotle theology. That is not an argument, but a statement of faith. > Pure mathematics like number theory may be able to limp along with just > deductive reasoning (although even here they often would not know which of > the infinite number of mathematical statements they should even try to prove) > but with science you've got to have both types of reasoning or you end up > with junk science, for example metaphysics. > > > >> That's like saying the only implementation of a diesel engine is in an > >> engineering classroom teaching thermodynamics. A physical hurricane is > >> more profound than a computer model of one and a physical Turing Machine > >> is more profound than a mathematical description of one in a textbook. > > > But the *apparent* existence of a physical Turing machine is explained in > > pure arithmetic, > > Thermodynamic explanations of how a diesel engine operates is for our benefit > only, it doesn't help the engine. Explanations can't calculate, and neither > can definitions or assumptions or theories or numbers or textbooks. Only > Turing Machines can calculate. > > > “Printed in a textbook” is different from “emulated in the model of > > arithmetic”. > > Without a Physical Turing Machine nothing can emulate anything. That is not correct. I guess you meant: “Without a Physical Turing Machine nothing can physically emulate anything.” But that is again a statement of Aristotelian, materialist, faith. > Turing Machines can *do* arithmetic but arithmetic can't *do* emulations or > anything else. Arithmetic is a Turing universal system, even RA, or even just the diophantine polynomials. It emulates all universal systems. See Matiyasevic book on the 10th Hilbert problem to see an explicit emulation of all Turing machines by one diophantine polynomial equation. (Section 5.5, “Diophantine simulation of Turing machines, page 85-92). Bruno >> >>> but invoking “real” is not better than invoking God >> >> >> That would be true if God could make calculations but there is precisely >> >> zero evidence He can even add 2+2, > > Which God? > > God in which language, English or Brunospeak? > > John K Clark > > > -- > 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] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv1sYv2av22hxZcAx3qrv3z9r4M_tz6B8THhqUC%3DX_F1%3DA%40mail.gmail.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv1sYv2av22hxZcAx3qrv3z9r4M_tz6B8THhqUC%3DX_F1%3DA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2B6D1BCB-5497-42E9-B104-8D0020D50208%40ulb.ac.be.
