> On 23 Feb 2020, at 00:52, Alan Grayson <agrayson2...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 10:40:12 AM UTC-7, PGC wrote: > > > On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 1:55:39 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> On 20 Feb 2020, at 01:20, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List >> <everyth...@googlegroups.com <>> wrote: >> >> >> >> On 2/19/2020 12:15 PM, Philip Thrift wrote: >>> >>> >>> Wittgenstein is at the core really of linguistic pragmatism >>> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopragmatism >>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopragmatism> >>> >>> Languages are tools. There is no truth "out there". >> >> My view is that "true" means different things in different contexts. > > And in different modes (of self-reference). The platonists dis understand > that the absolute truth requires faith in something beyond “my consciousness” > or “consciousness” (to take into account Terren Suydam’ remark). > > Wittgestein up to now still has the upper hand with those old arguments over > anybody proposing science based ontological packages metaphysically: language > will seduce people to overgeneralize, to confuse personal mysticism with > reality, to engage in false equivalencies between terms used in formal > contexts and everyday use of language, scientism etc. Slowly, yours truly is > coming around to the idea that folks agreeing on ontology/reality/religion, > which would guide research in some allegedly correct direction; spilling over > positive effects into the world... that Wittgenstein may prove correct in > that this is a confused product of muddled armchair thinking, not because of > his generally negative stance, but because there seem to be positive > developments out there that he couldn't have informed those arguments with. > > I see/predict metaphysics shifting from the naive armchair forms of identity, > reality, matter etc. practiced here on this list with profound erudition, > walking in circles for 20 years now (Wittgenstein says thousands of years) to > optimization and more efficient pursuit of value and benefit questions > instead, through say orchestration of highly sophisticated forms of > organization applied to education, governing, finance, technology, problem > solving, applied or theoretical etc. that are permissionless, universally > accessible, require no hierarchy of politics, charlatan experts, control > freaks, their sycophants, and bibles of some Messiah achieving miracles such > as eternal life, self-duplication etc. > > Metaphysical setups that place less emphasis on truth, trust, power, control, > or proof and more emphasis on "can entities such as ourselves be highly > organized, solve specific survival problems over short and long terms, > without trusting each other + instead assuming that folks will be > opportunistic and idealistic?" Example: we don't agree on what reality may > be, but we do agree on the need for habitable living space in the long term, > nutrition, water, health, limiting self-destruction, expensive wars, > standards of living etc. quite clearly. There ARE more appropriate politics > and economics on the horizon. Metaphysics here, shifting our old-school > conceptions of what first principles are, and you'd refute Wittgenstein > instead of running from him. Engineering incentive and not what the game is > but how the game of life on this planet could be. > > > About this, it is clear to me that in “I think thus I am”, Descartes use the > “first person” I. Indeed he start from the doubt. Dubito ergo cogito, cogito > ergo sum. Descartes did not prove the existence of Descartes, bit of his own > consciousness, hoping others can do the same reasoning for themselves. > Consciousness always refer to a first person experience implicitly: like God > (truth) it is not a thing. > > You concede to Terren that "true means different things in different > contexts" but everyday like clockwork you still barrage the list with your > use of "large truth, 3p, reality that cannot be named, mechanism is > incompatible with physicalism" and all the rest of it. I used to wonder why > you don't pursue contact with linguists, physicists, a wider audience, and > philosophers but this has ceased to surprise me. PNGC > > I think I finally got it -- what mechanism means for Bruno -- namely, that a > human being can be perfectly simulated by a computer.
OK (up to little ambiguities that it would be premature to bother you with for now). > But if that's what he means, how does it follow that mechanism is > incompatible with physicalism? What exactly does Bruno mean by physicalism? > Why the incompatibility? Bruno? TIA, AG Physicalism is the idea that there is some real, ontologically independent physical reality, which would not be explainable from something else. It is the idea that we have to assume a fundamental and ontological physical reality. The problem is that for just defining “Digital Mechanism", you need to believe in the elementary arithmetical statement, like 2+2 = 4, or like the fact that (3756801695685 * 2^666689 + 1) and (3756801695685 * 2^666689 - 1) are twin primes or are not twin primes, or like the determinacy of the distribution of primes. But then you have the implementation of all computations in arithmetic (that follows already from Gödel 1931 + the Church-Turing thesis), and it is up to a physicalist to explain what is a physical universe, and how it makes people conscious in it, and not in arithmetic. But then the problem is that you have to endow the physical reality with something NOT Turing emulable (computer simulable) and playing some relevant and necessary role in "my consciousness", but then I can no more say yes to a digital mechanist doctor, who build the artificial brain with any subset of physics available to him. You will have to ask him to use some special matter which should not be capable of being simulated by a computer,as if it is, that is done in the arithmetical reality, and mechanism is wrong in that case. A universal Turing machine (a computer, not necessarily implemented physically) cannot see the difference between emulated in some metaphysical reality (like with primary matter, or with physicalism, whatever it assumes) and being emulated just in virtue of the Turing complete arithmetical relations which all exist, in all models of arithmetic. Does this help? Don’t hesitate to ask if not, Bruno > > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9725ab5e-d50e-41aa-8932-0eafeecf6b4d%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9725ab5e-d50e-41aa-8932-0eafeecf6b4d%40googlegroups.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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/EA7353BC-41E6-4C5A-B1FA-224AB6A50F66%40ulb.ac.be.
