On Thursday, February 27, 2020 at 6:11:49 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> On 26 Feb 2020, at 21:36, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/26/2020 2:48 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>> Being sure of that sentence is true, "Dr Watson was a friend
of Sherlock Holmes." doesn't mean the things named in the sentence
exist.
>>
>> It certainly means that Watson and Homes exist, in some sense.
The question is “is that sense interesting with respect to our
goal of explaining "everything” (matter and consciousness) in a
coherent way?
>
> They exist in exactly the same way arithmetic and Turing
machines exist.
Really?
The difference is that arithmetic is used by all physicists,
mathematicians, economists, and that if you are mistaken about
their relations, your rocket might blow up, or miss the moon.
But if you are wrong about Watson or Holmes, you might just get a
bad note at your English literature course.
But not if you were studying how a detective should solve a crime. And
if you were mistaken about the methods you might fail to solve the crime.
Brent
Bruno
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