Re: Answers to David 4

[Bruce Kellett]

On 27/05/2017 11:46 am, David Nyman wrote:
On 27 May 2017 at 01:44, Bruce Kellett > wrote:



I think it is the interpretation of the data that is theory-dependent.


​Not at all. Data don't just sit there staring you in the face. What 
is data in terms of one theory is mere background noise in terms of 
another.


That is what it means for the *interpretation* to be theory-dependent.

This insight led Popper to reject the notion of induction. As he (I 
believe correctly) pointed out, the very notion of the data on which 
induction putatively relies is theory-dependent and hence primarily 
deductive. Conjecture and refutation is a better account of how 
science (or any consistent reasoning) actually proceeds.


I don't think that is an accurate account of Popper. It was the 
asymmetry between falsification and confirmation that lay at the heart 
of his rejection of induction. His account of scientific practice as 
"conjecture and refutation" was rather naive, and philosophy of science 
has long moved beyond this.



​

But then you have a hierarchy of theories -- what is a new
cutting-edge theory today is tomorrow's instrument for data
taking.


​


​ ​
And the reductive aspect of theory is itself an implicitly
ontological commitment.


Not for the pragmatic instrumentalist. Even committed scientific
realists would only claim that it is only for our best,
well-established, theories that there is any suggestion that the
suggested entities actually exist.


​But we're not interested in "reifying" the ontology. It merely 
represents the unexplained part of an explanatory hierarchy.


That is an unconventional definition of ontology. Perhaps one can say 
that ontology is theory-dependent in that any mature theory carries an 
implied ontology -- statistical mechanics implies an ontology in which 
atoms/molecules exist, the standard model of particle physics implies an 
ontology in which quarks and gluons exist -- but the theory itself does 
not rely on such an ontology. The elements of the theory may be nothing 
more than convenient fictions, as was for many years the status of 
quarks in the Gell-Mann quark model -- the predictive power of the 
theory would be in no way impaired.


That's the sense in which it exists. It's the part that's "independent 
of us" simply because, although the basis of any explanation that 
follows, it doesn't itself rely on our explaining it.


Quite. Atoms, quarks, and gluons, require no explanation in terms of the 
theory. They are just terms in the equations that the theory uses -- 
their existence or otherwise is not an issue for the success of the theory.


So if a hierarchy of laws were to imply mutually inconsistent 
ontological commitments it would be to that extent incomplete and 
unsatisfactory. Indeed the holy grail of (Aristotelian?) science is a 
hierarchical "Theory of Everything" that is, in precisely this sense, 
ontologically consistent "bottom up all the way down", if you'll 
permit me a slogan of my own.


The search for such a TOE has a chequered record in the history of 
science. Some still hope that such a theory is possible, but the 
negative induction from the past record would not lead one to be 
optimistic that any such theory exists or is possible.


For these reasons I can't accept that your distinction between 
Platonic and Aristotelian modes of explanation has much real force. 
In practice, *any* effective mode of explanation must inexorably be 
constrained by its fundamental ontological commitments,


That is the case only on your account of "explanation". If explanation 
does not rely on an underlying ontology, then it is not constrained by 
any such assumed ontology. Not all explanations need be reducible to 
your model of explanation.


That's true of course Bruce, but I would think then that any such 
heterogeneous account of explanation is in serious danger of falling 
into inconsistency.


Why?

And so I can't agree that "my account" of a mutually-consistent 
reductive hierarchy of explanation is substantially different from 
what would generally be accepted, if only implicitly, as the ultimate 
aim of mechanistic explanation tout court. Whatever you say, it must ​ 
be the case, in the final analysis, that the entire hierarchy of 
explanation must ultimately be reducible to a common set of 
ontological commitments or else risk frank inconsistency between its 
constituent elements.


Not at all. There is no inconsistency between explaining a reduction in 
infection in terms of an antibiotic injection, and an explanation in 
terms of the fundamental biochemistry of bacteria.


I should re-emphasise here that by ontology I mean merely those 
explanatory entities and relations that are in themselves not further 
explicated within the theory, but rather serve as the explanatory 
point of departure. Of course, you are perfectly 

Re: Answers to David 4

[David Nyman]

On 27 May 2017 at 01:44, Bruce Kellett  wrote:

> On 26/05/2017 8:44 pm, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 26 May 2017 2:26 a.m., "Bruce Kellett" < 
> bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> On 26/05/2017 9:11 am, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 25 May 2017 23:18, "Brent Meeker" < 
> meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> I have told you my theory of virtuous circular explanations.  "Invoke" is
> a pejorative attribution.  The physical universe is an *inference *to
> explain appearances (and a very successful one at that).
>
>
> Vocabulary. The point is, assuming mechanism (and please do tell me if
> you're reasoning in a different theory), that the inference is to a
> particular *selection* of computations from the computational plenitude.
> And why is that? Because they 'explain' the appearances. But do they
> really? Are those computations - in and of themselves - really capable of
> 'explaining' why or how they, and no others, come to be uniquely selected
> for our delectation? Are they really capable of 'explaining' why or how
> those selfsame appearances come to be present to us?
>
>
> I think you and Brent are using different notions of "explanation". As I
> understand your (David's) position, it is a notion of "explanation"
> originating with Plato: Plato's theory of Forms offered at the same time
> both a systematic explanation of things and also a connected epistemology
> of explanation. (Summaries from Jonathan Cohen in the Oxford Companion to
> Philosophy.) In other words, the Platonic ideal is that "Ontology precedes
> epistemology", to vary Brent's slogan. In the case of mechanism, the
> ontology is the natural numbers (plus arithmetic) and for an explanation to
> be acceptable, everything has to follow with the force of logical necessity
> from this ontology.
>
> As I understand Brent's position (and that is essentially the same as my
> position), his concept of "explanation" follows the tradition of British
> empirical philosophy, stemming from Bacon, through Hume, to Russell and
> others. In this tradition, to explain an observed characteristic is to show
> its relationship to a law in accordance with which the characteristic
> occurs or can be made to occur, and there is a hierarchy of such laws --
> the more comprehensive laws are deemed more probable. This leads to the
> dominant model for explanation in the natural sciences, which requires the
> citation of one or more laws which, when conjoined with the statement of
> relevant facts, entail the occurrence of the phenomenon or uniformity that
> is to be explained. This does not rely on any assumed ontology; hence,
> "Epistemology precedes ontology".
>
>
> Interesting analysis Bruce. However, I'm not sure if I can follow you on
> all points. I think you're right that in a strictly pragmatic sense
> epistemology does indeed precede ontology in that observation provides data
> on behalf of theory. But as Popper points out, what counts as data is
> already theory-dependent.
>
>
> I think it is the interpretation of the data that is theory-dependent.
>

​Not at all. Data don't just sit there staring you in the face. What is
data in terms of one theory is mere background noise in terms of another.
This insight led Popper to reject the notion of induction. As he (I believe
correctly) pointed out, the very notion of the data on which induction
putatively relies is theory-dependent and hence primarily deductive.
Conjecture and refutation is a better account of how science (or any
consistent reasoning) actually proceeds.
​

> But then you have a hierarchy of theories -- what is a new cutting-edge
> theory today is tomorrow's instrument for data taking.
>

​

>
> ​ ​
> And the reductive aspect of theory is itself an implicitly ontological
> commitment.
>

Not for the pragmatic instrumentalist. Even committed scientific realists
> would only claim that it is only for our best, well-established, theories
> that there is any suggestion that the suggested entities actually exist.
>

​But we're not interested in "reifying" the ontology. It merely represents
the unexplained part of an explanatory hierarchy. That's the sense in which
it exists. It's the part that's "independent of us" simply because,
although the basis of any explanation that follows, it doesn't itself rely
on our explaining it.
​

>
>
> So if a hierarchy of laws were to imply mutually inconsistent ontological
> commitments it would be to that extent incomplete and unsatisfactory.
> Indeed the holy grail of (Aristotelian?) science is a hierarchical "Theory
> of Everything" that is, in precisely this sense, ontologically consistent
> "bottom up all the way down", if you'll permit me a slogan of my own.
>
>
> The search for such a TOE has a chequered record in the history of
> science. Some still hope that such a theory is possible, but the negative
> induction from the past record would not lead one to be optimistic 

Re: Answers to David 4

[Bruce Kellett]

On 26/05/2017 8:44 pm, David Nyman wrote:
On 26 May 2017 2:26 a.m., "Bruce Kellett" > wrote:


On 26/05/2017 9:11 am, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 May 2017 23:18, "Brent Meeker" > wrote:


I have told you my theory of virtuous circular explanations. 
"Invoke" is a pejorative attribution.  The physical universe

is an */inference /*to explain appearances (and a very
successful one at that).


Vocabulary. The point is, assuming mechanism (and please do tell
me if you're reasoning in a different theory), that the inference
is to a particular *selection* of computations from the
computational plenitude. And why is that? Because they 'explain'
the appearances. But do they really? Are those computations - in
and of themselves - really capable of 'explaining' why or how
they, and no others, come to be uniquely selected for our
delectation? Are they really capable of 'explaining' why or how
those selfsame appearances come to be present to us?


I think you and Brent are using different notions of
"explanation". As I understand your (David's) position, it is a
notion of "explanation" originating with Plato: Plato's theory of
Forms offered at the same time both a systematic explanation of
things and also a connected epistemology of explanation.
(Summaries from Jonathan Cohen in the Oxford Companion to
Philosophy.) In other words, the Platonic ideal is that "Ontology
precedes epistemology", to vary Brent's slogan. In the case of
mechanism, the ontology is the natural numbers (plus arithmetic)
and for an explanation to be acceptable, everything has to follow
with the force of logical necessity from this ontology.

As I understand Brent's position (and that is essentially the same
as my position), his concept of "explanation" follows the
tradition of British empirical philosophy, stemming from Bacon,
through Hume, to Russell and others. In this tradition, to explain
an observed characteristic is to show its relationship to a law in
accordance with which the characteristic occurs or can be made to
occur, and there is a hierarchy of such laws -- the more
comprehensive laws are deemed more probable. This leads to the
dominant model for explanation in the natural sciences, which
requires the citation of one or more laws which, when conjoined
with the statement of relevant facts, entail the occurrence of the
phenomenon or uniformity that is to be explained. This does not
rely on any assumed ontology; hence, "Epistemology precedes ontology".


Interesting analysis Bruce. However, I'm not sure if I can follow you 
on all points. I think you're right that in a strictly pragmatic sense 
epistemology does indeed precede ontology in that observation provides 
data on behalf of theory. But as Popper points out, what counts as 
data is already theory-dependent.


I think it is the interpretation of the data that is theory-dependent. 
But then you have a hierarchy of theories -- what is a new cutting-edge 
theory today is tomorrow's instrument for data taking.


And the reductive aspect of theory is itself an implicitly ontological 
commitment.


Not for the pragmatic instrumentalist. Even committed scientific 
realists would only claim that it is only for our best, 
well-established, theories that there is any suggestion that the 
suggested entities actually exist.


So if a hierarchy of laws were to imply mutually inconsistent 
ontological commitments it would be to that extent incomplete and 
unsatisfactory. Indeed the holy grail of (Aristotelian?) science is a 
hierarchical "Theory of Everything" that is, in precisely this sense, 
ontologically consistent "bottom up all the way down", if you'll 
permit me a slogan of my own.


The search for such a TOE has a chequered record in the history of 
science. Some still hope that such a theory is possible, but the 
negative induction from the past record would not lead one to be 
optimistic that any such theory exists or is possible.


For these reasons I can't accept that your distinction between 
Platonic and Aristotelian modes of explanation has much real force. In 
practice, *any* effective mode of explanation must inexorably be 
constrained by its fundamental ontological commitments,


That is the case only on your account of "explanation". If explanation 
does not rely on an underlying ontology, then it is not constrained by 
any such assumed ontology. Not all explanations need be reducible to 
your model of explanation.


Bruce

on pain of inconsistency. If these are unclear, then part of the 
explanation is to make them explicit, on pain of obscurantism. And 
finally of course to count as an explanation it must be susceptible of 
constraint by evidence, on pain of pusillanimity.


David


   

Re: Answers to David 4

[Bruce Kellett]

On 26/05/2017 6:53 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 26 May 2017, at 03:26, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On 26/05/2017 9:11 am, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 May 2017 23:18, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:


I have told you my theory of virtuous circular explanations. 
"Invoke" is a pejorative attribution.  The physical universe is

an */inference /*to explain appearances (and a very successful
one at that).


Vocabulary. The point is, assuming mechanism (and please do tell me 
if you're reasoning in a different theory), that the inference is to 
a particular *selection* of computations from the computational 
plenitude. And why is that? Because they 'explain' the appearances. 
But do they really? Are those computations - in and of themselves - 
really capable of 'explaining' why or how they, and no others, come 
to be uniquely selected for our delectation? Are they really capable 
of 'explaining' why or how those selfsame appearances come to be 
present to us?


I think you and Brent are using different notions of "explanation". 
As I understand your (David's) position, it is a notion of 
"explanation" originating with Plato: Plato's theory of Forms offered 
at the same time both a systematic explanation of things and also a 
connected epistemology of explanation. (Summaries from Jonathan Cohen 
in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy.) In other words, the Platonic 
ideal is that "Ontology precedes epistemology", to vary Brent's 
slogan. In the case of mechanism, the ontology is the natural numbers 
(plus arithmetic) and for an explanation to be acceptable, everything 
has to follow with the force of logical necessity from this ontology.


As I understand Brent's position (and that is essentially the same as 
my position), his concept of "explanation" follows the tradition of 
British empirical philosophy, stemming from Bacon, through Hume, to 
Russell and others. In this tradition, to explain an observed 
characteristic is to show its relationship to a law in accordance 
with which the characteristic occurs or can be made to occur, and 
there is a hierarchy of such laws -- the more comprehensive laws are 
deemed more probable. This leads to the dominant model for 
explanation in the natural sciences, which requires the citation of 
one or more laws which, when conjoined with the statement of relevant 
facts, entail the occurrence of the phenomenon or uniformity that is 
to be explained. This does not rely on any assumed ontology; hence, 
"Epistemology precedes ontology".


Wherever we want to derive a technology from scientific knowledge, we 
shall need to know what causes a desired effect. So we need to 
distinguish between different levels of explanation, in that while, 
for example, the disappearance of a patient's infection may be 
causally explained by his antibiotic injection, the operation of that 
causal process is in its turn to be explained by correlational laws 
of biochemistry. Hence, the understanding of consciousness in any 
effective way will be linked to the creation of effective AI.


This is the paradigm of current scientific practice. Sure, as Bruno 
says, this stems ultimately from an Aristotelian approach to science 
rather than the Platonic approach. But the history of Western thought 
has shown the scientific, or Aristotelian, approach to have been 
overwhelmingly more successful, both in developing technology and in 
reaching understanding of the nature of reality.


Aristotle's Matter was a good simplifying hypothesis. I agree that it 
has led to some success. But that does not make it true,


For the pragmatic instrumentalist, "truth" is not of primary concern. 
What is relevant is explanation in terms of predictive success. The 
scientific realist might reject instrumentalism, but suggestions about 
the underlying ontology have always been shown inadequate in the past -- 
this being the famous 'negative induction' against scientific realism.


and the price of it has been the burying of many interesting problem 
(given away to the clergy). Physicalism simply fail to explain the 
apparent existence of the physical reality,


Why should there be an explanation for this? It might, after all, be 
just a brute fact that reality is what it is, so the best we can do is 
explore and attempt to understand how it works.


and why it hurts. Computationalism does, but with the price that a lot 
of work remains for all details. We are at the beginning of the 
"reversal" only.


I think there is reason to think that the "reversal" cannot succeed. You 
have to get a lot more than you currently have for computationalism to 
rival conventional science.


Bruce

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Re: Answer to David 3

[David Nyman]

On 26 May 2017 at 18:32, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 26 May 2017, at 14:04, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 25 May 2017 at 16:23, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>> On 24 May 2017, at 13:56, David Nyman wrote:
>>
>> Let me know if anything is still unclear.
>>
>> -- Forwarded message --
>> From: David Nyman 
>> Date: 20 May 2017 at 01:30
>> Subject: Re: ​Movie argument
>> To: everything-list 
>>
>>
>> On 19 May 2017 at 21:00, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 5/19/2017 8:45 AM, John Clark wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 18, 2017 spudboy100 via Everything List <
>>> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> ​> ​
  So which is the Boss, John, Mathematics, somehow at the 'base; of the
 universe, or is physics the top dog from the 1st split second?
>>>
>>>
>>> ​
>>>  One of
>>> ​ ​
>>>  René
>>> ​Magritte's​
>>>   most famous paintings is called "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", in English
>>> that means "
>>> ​this is not a pipe".
>>>
>>> http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/022/133/the
>>> -treachery-of-images-this-is-not-a-pipe-1948(2).jpg
>>>
>>> ​This is how Magritte explained ​his painting:
>>>
>>> *​"​ The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could
>>> you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had
>>> written on my picture 'This is a pipe', I'd have been lying! ​"​*
>>>
>>> ​Mathematics is a representation of something it is not the thing
>>> itself. Physics is the thing itself.
>>>
>>>
>>> Bruno's a Platonist.
>>>
>>
>> I am open that Plato is right, in theology. In mathematics, I am not that
>> "platonist", I just keep calm when I see that we tell the kids that 2+2=4.
>>
>> The point is that "Mathematics is a representation of something it is
>> not the thing itself. Physics is the thing itself" is the Aristotelian
>> theological credo. It makes no sense with Mechanism.
>>
>> (I comment Brent, I think here, and you, David, below)
>>
>> That means that conscious thoughts are what we have immediate access to
>>> and the physical world is an inference from perceptions (which are
>>> thoughts).  We take the physical world to bereal insofar as our
>>> inference has point-of-view-invariance so that others agree with us about
>>> perceptions.   Bruno observes that consciousness is associated with and
>>> dependent on brains, which are part of the inferred physical world.  He
>>> supposes this is because brains realize certain computations and he
>>> hypothesizes that conscious thoughts correspond to certain computations.
>>> But computation is an abstraction; given Church-Turing it exists in the
>>> sense that arithmetic exists.  So among all possible computations, there
>>> must be the computations that constitute our conscious thoughts and the
>>> inferences of a physical world to which those thoughts seem to refer... but
>>> not really.   It's the "not really" where I part company with his
>>> speculations.
>>>
>>
>> I prefer t say that I assume. I don't speculate that Mechanism is true. I
>> assume Mechanism is true, for the sake of showing it testable.
>>
>>
>>
>> That inferred physical world is just as computed as Max Tegmark's
>>>
>>
>> If that was the case, there would be no white rabbit problem. The problem
>> of mechanism, is that our first person conscious thought are associate to a
>> statistics on infinitely many computations, and that is NOT computable per
>> se, and it is part of the job to explain why the physical laws seem so much
>> computable. To invoke one computation, like in "digital physics", is still
>> a manner of doing physics, and putting the mind-body problem (the mechanist
>> one, now) under the rug.
>> Brent forget the first person indeterminacy problem here.
>>
>>
>>
>> and is just as necessary for consciousness as brains and skulls and
>>> planets are.  So, for me, the question is whether something is gained by
>>> this reification of computation.  Bruno says it provides the relation
>>> between mind and body.  But that's more a promise than a fact.
>>>
>>
>> Not at all. I show that there is a problem. First, there is no
>> reification of computation. They are unavoidably executed by the
>> arithmetical reality. We can't brush that away, because Mechanism requires
>> that arithmetical reality to just define what a computation is. Then, below
>> our substitution level, we have infinities of computation at play, and we
>> *have to* justifies the laws of physics from that statistics (structured by
>> the points of view).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> It provides some classification of thoughts of an ideal thinker who
>>> doesn't even think about anything except arithmetic.
>>>
>>
>> Assuming mechanism, he thinks "Gosh, if mechanism is true, where does
>> this appeararance of material reality comes from?".
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ​I really think you continue to miss something crucial here.
>>
>>
>> Brent miss 

Re: Answer to David 3

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 May 2017, at 14:04, David Nyman wrote:


On 25 May 2017 at 16:23, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
On 24 May 2017, at 13:56, David Nyman wrote:


Let me know if anything is still unclear.

-- Forwarded message --
From: David Nyman 
Date: 20 May 2017 at 01:30
Subject: Re: ​Movie argument
To: everything-list 


On 19 May 2017 at 21:00, Brent Meeker  wrote:


On 5/19/2017 8:45 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, May 18, 2017 spudboy100 via Everything List  wrote:


​> ​ So which is the Boss, John, Mathematics, somehow at the  
'base; of the universe, or is physics the top dog from the 1st  
split second?


​ One of ​ ​ René ​Magritte's​  most famous paintings is  
called "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", in English that means " ​this  
is not a pipe".


http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/022/133/the-treachery-of-images-this-is-not-a-pipe-1948(2).jpg

​This is how Magritte explained ​his painting:

​"​ The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet,  
could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it  
not? So if I had written on my picture 'This is a pipe', I'd have  
been lying! ​"​


​Mathematics is a representation of something it is not the thing  
itself. Physics is the thing itself.




Bruno's a Platonist.


I am open that Plato is right, in theology. In mathematics, I am not  
that "platonist", I just keep calm when I see that we tell the kids  
that 2+2=4.


The point is that "Mathematics is a representation of something it  
is not the thing itself. Physics is the thing itself" is the  
Aristotelian theological credo. It makes no sense with Mechanism.


(I comment Brent, I think here, and you, David, below)

That means that conscious thoughts are what we have immediate  
access to and the physical world is an inference from perceptions  
(which are thoughts).  We take the physical world to bereal  
insofar as our inference has point-of-view-invariance so that  
others agree with us about perceptions.   Bruno observes that  
consciousness is associated with and dependent on brains, which are  
part of the inferred physical world.  He supposes this is because  
brains realize certain computations and he hypothesizes that  
conscious thoughts correspond to certain computations.  But  
computation is an abstraction; given Church-Turing it exists in the  
sense that arithmetic exists.  So among all possible computations,  
there must be the computations that constitute our conscious  
thoughts and the inferences of a physical world to which those  
thoughts seem to refer... but not really.   It's the "not really"  
where I part company with his speculations.


I prefer t say that I assume. I don't speculate that Mechanism is  
true. I assume Mechanism is true, for the sake of showing it testable.





That inferred physical world is just as computed as Max Tegmark's


If that was the case, there would be no white rabbit problem. The  
problem of mechanism, is that our first person conscious thought are  
associate to a statistics on infinitely many computations, and that  
is NOT computable per se, and it is part of the job to explain why  
the physical laws seem so much computable. To invoke one  
computation, like in "digital physics", is still a manner of doing  
physics, and putting the mind-body problem (the mechanist one, now)  
under the rug.

Brent forget the first person indeterminacy problem here.



and is just as necessary for consciousness as brains and skulls and  
planets are.  So, for me, the question is whether something is  
gained by this reification of computation.  Bruno says it provides  
the relation between mind and body.  But that's more a promise than  
a fact.


Not at all. I show that there is a problem. First, there is no  
reification of computation. They are unavoidably executed by the  
arithmetical reality. We can't brush that away, because Mechanism  
requires that arithmetical reality to just define what a computation  
is. Then, below our substitution level, we have infinities of  
computation at play, and we *have to* justifies the laws of physics  
from that statistics (structured by the points of view).





It provides some classification of thoughts of an ideal thinker who  
doesn't even think about anything except arithmetic.


Assuming mechanism, he thinks "Gosh, if mechanism is true, where  
does this appeararance of material reality comes from?".








​I really think you continue to miss something crucial here.


Brent miss the problem. he thinks I come up with some bizarre new  
theory, when I just show that an antic honorable theory, Mechanism,  
in the digital version, leads to a big problem: we *have to* explain  
the physical appearances from a statistics on first person (plural)  
views emulated infinitely often in arithmetic.


I show a problem, then I illustrate the beginning 

Re: Answer to David 3

[David Nyman]

On 25 May 2017 at 16:23, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> On 24 May 2017, at 13:56, David Nyman wrote:
>
> Let me know if anything is still unclear.
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: David Nyman 
> Date: 20 May 2017 at 01:30
> Subject: Re: ​Movie argument
> To: everything-list 
>
>
> On 19 May 2017 at 21:00, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 5/19/2017 8:45 AM, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, May 18, 2017 spudboy100 via Everything List <
>> everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>> ​> ​
>>>  So which is the Boss, John, Mathematics, somehow at the 'base; of the
>>> universe, or is physics the top dog from the 1st split second?
>>
>>
>> ​
>>  One of
>> ​ ​
>>  René
>> ​Magritte's​
>>   most famous paintings is called "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", in English
>> that means "
>> ​this is not a pipe".
>>
>> http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/022/133/the
>> -treachery-of-images-this-is-not-a-pipe-1948(2).jpg
>>
>> ​This is how Magritte explained ​his painting:
>>
>> *​"​ The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you
>> stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had
>> written on my picture 'This is a pipe', I'd have been lying! ​"​*
>>
>> ​Mathematics is a representation of something it is not the thing itself.
>> Physics is the thing itself.
>>
>>
>> Bruno's a Platonist.
>>
>
> I am open that Plato is right, in theology. In mathematics, I am not that
> "platonist", I just keep calm when I see that we tell the kids that 2+2=4.
>
> The point is that "Mathematics is a representation of something it is not
> the thing itself. Physics is the thing itself" is the Aristotelian
> theological credo. It makes no sense with Mechanism.
>
> (I comment Brent, I think here, and you, David, below)
>
> That means that conscious thoughts are what we have immediate access to
>> and the physical world is an inference from perceptions (which are
>> thoughts).  We take the physical world to bereal insofar as our
>> inference has point-of-view-invariance so that others agree with us about
>> perceptions.   Bruno observes that consciousness is associated with and
>> dependent on brains, which are part of the inferred physical world.  He
>> supposes this is because brains realize certain computations and he
>> hypothesizes that conscious thoughts correspond to certain computations.
>> But computation is an abstraction; given Church-Turing it exists in the
>> sense that arithmetic exists.  So among all possible computations, there
>> must be the computations that constitute our conscious thoughts and the
>> inferences of a physical world to which those thoughts seem to refer... but
>> not really.   It's the "not really" where I part company with his
>> speculations.
>>
>
> I prefer t say that I assume. I don't speculate that Mechanism is true. I
> assume Mechanism is true, for the sake of showing it testable.
>
>
>
> That inferred physical world is just as computed as Max Tegmark's
>>
>
> If that was the case, there would be no white rabbit problem. The problem
> of mechanism, is that our first person conscious thought are associate to a
> statistics on infinitely many computations, and that is NOT computable per
> se, and it is part of the job to explain why the physical laws seem so much
> computable. To invoke one computation, like in "digital physics", is still
> a manner of doing physics, and putting the mind-body problem (the mechanist
> one, now) under the rug.
> Brent forget the first person indeterminacy problem here.
>
>
>
> and is just as necessary for consciousness as brains and skulls and
>> planets are.  So, for me, the question is whether something is gained by
>> this reification of computation.  Bruno says it provides the relation
>> between mind and body.  But that's more a promise than a fact.
>>
>
> Not at all. I show that there is a problem. First, there is no reification
> of computation. They are unavoidably executed by the arithmetical reality.
> We can't brush that away, because Mechanism requires that arithmetical
> reality to just define what a computation is. Then, below our substitution
> level, we have infinities of computation at play, and we *have to*
> justifies the laws of physics from that statistics (structured by the
> points of view).
>
>
>
>
> It provides some classification of thoughts of an ideal thinker who
>> doesn't even think about anything except arithmetic.
>>
>
> Assuming mechanism, he thinks "Gosh, if mechanism is true, where does this
> appeararance of material reality comes from?".
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ​I really think you continue to miss something crucial here.
>
>
> Brent miss the problem. he thinks I come up with some bizarre new theory,
> when I just show that an antic honorable theory, Mechanism, in the digital
> version, leads to a big problem: we *have to* explain the physical
> appearances from a statistics on first 

Re: A thought on MWI and its alternative(s)

[David Nyman]

On 26 May 2017 at 07:03, Pierz  wrote:

>
>
> On Friday, May 26, 2017 at 2:21:37 PM UTC+10, Brent wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/25/2017 8:36 PM, Pierz Newton-John wrote:
>>
>> Is something up with Everything List - your reply is not on the site and I’m 
>> seeing this business with “reply to David 4” etc…?
>>
>>
>> On 26 May 2017, at 12:29 pm, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/25/2017 6:30 PM, Pierz wrote:
>>
>> Recently I've been studying a lot of history, and I've often thought about 
>> how, according to special relativity, you can translate time into space and 
>> vice versa, and therefore how from a different perspective we can think of 
>> the past as distant in space rather than time: my childhood being 40 light 
>> years away, rather than 40 years for instance. I can visualise my own body 
>> as a sort of long, four dimensional tendril through spacetime, of which I 
>> only ever see a three-dimensional cross-section. This is the block universe 
>> idea of course. What occurred to me recently was that the past, in any 
>> physical theory I know of, is "locked down". There is only a single history 
>> consistent with the present (ignoring the microscopic ambiguities of quantum 
>> interference effects
>>
>> I think that is assuming a lot.  Consider the biverse model of cosmogony - 
>> then the past "forks" just like the future.
>>
>> When I’ve asked physicists this question, I’ve been told that a single past 
>> is the general assumption. IIRC, there may be ambiguous histories very close 
>> to the Big Bang (Hawking?), but that’s not really relevant. Maybe that’s the 
>> biverse cosmology you refer to (googling it didn’t help).
>>
>>
>> In the biverse model the universe inflates into the past as well as the
>> future (as defined by us), thus maintaining time symmetry.   Here's a
>> another, more worked out version of the idea:
>>
>> Spontaneous Inflation and the Origin of the Arrow of Time
>> Sean M. Carroll
>> , Jennifer
>> Chen 
>> (Submitted on 27 Oct 2004)
>>
>> We suggest that spontaneous eternal inflation can provide a natural
>> explanation for the thermodynamic arrow of time, and discuss the underlying
>> assumptions and consequences of this view. In the absence of inflation, we
>> argue that systems coupled to gravity usually evolve asymptotically to the
>> vacuum, which is the only natural state in a thermodynamic sense. In the
>> presence of a small positive vacuum energy and an appropriate inflaton
>> field, the de Sitter vacuum is unstable to the spontaneous onset of
>> inflation at a higher energy scale. Starting from de Sitter, inflation can
>> increase the total entropy of the universe without bound, creating
>> universes similar to ours in the process.* An important consequence of
>> this picture is that inflation occurs asymptotically both forwards and
>> backwards in time, implying a universe that is (statistically)
>> time-symmetric on ultra-large scales.*
>>
>> Comments: 36 pages
>> Subjects: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Astrophysics
>> (astro-ph); General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
>> Report number: EFI-2004-33
>> Cite as: arXiv:hep-th/0410270 
>>   (or arXiv:hep-th/0410270v1  for
>> this version)
>>
>>
>> ), but the present is consistent with multiple futures. However, we know 
>> that "now" - and therefore the division into past and future - is an 
>> artifact of mind with no physical reality, a "quale". So therefore, if the 
>> past is singular, so is the future, and seen from "outside", every quantum 
>> event, whether "future" or "past" from any particular fame of reference, is 
>> in fact completely determined in its outcome, even though it is also random 
>> in the sense there is no way of explaining why it is the way it is, beyond 
>> the description provided by Born rule probabilities. Is that not weird, if 
>> not downright absurd? What is this "necessity" that dictates that this 
>> particular subset of all the possible quantum events was selected as the way 
>> things are?
>>
>> If there were such a "necessity" that would be a deterministic theory and 
>> inconsistent with the Born rule...and observation.
>>
>> Well it’s not inconsistent with observation because if such a thing were 
>> true, there’d still be no way an observer inside the system would know what 
>> the predetermined outcome was going to be. Doesn’t mean I like the idea 
>> though, obviously.
>>
>> Somehow the idea of the future being indeterminate but the past fixed seems 
>> palatable because it accords with our subjective experience, but really it 
>> is incoherent as soon as we acknowledge that the past-future distinction is 
>> not physically meaningful.
>>
>> But it is meaningful.  Entropy increases in the future direction. We 
>> remember 

Re: Answers to David 4

[David Nyman]

On 26 May 2017 2:26 a.m., "Bruce Kellett"  wrote:

On 26/05/2017 9:11 am, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 May 2017 23:18, "Brent Meeker" < 
meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:


I have told you my theory of virtuous circular explanations.  "Invoke" is a
pejorative attribution.  The physical universe is an *inference *to explain
appearances (and a very successful one at that).


Vocabulary. The point is, assuming mechanism (and please do tell me if
you're reasoning in a different theory), that the inference is to a
particular *selection* of computations from the computational plenitude.
And why is that? Because they 'explain' the appearances. But do they
really? Are those computations - in and of themselves - really capable of
'explaining' why or how they, and no others, come to be uniquely selected
for our delectation? Are they really capable of 'explaining' why or how
those selfsame appearances come to be present to us?


I think you and Brent are using different notions of "explanation". As I
understand your (David's) position, it is a notion of "explanation"
originating with Plato: Plato's theory of Forms offered at the same time
both a systematic explanation of things and also a connected epistemology
of explanation. (Summaries from Jonathan Cohen in the Oxford Companion to
Philosophy.) In other words, the Platonic ideal is that "Ontology precedes
epistemology", to vary Brent's slogan. In the case of mechanism, the
ontology is the natural numbers (plus arithmetic) and for an explanation to
be acceptable, everything has to follow with the force of logical necessity
from this ontology.

As I understand Brent's position (and that is essentially the same as my
position), his concept of "explanation" follows the tradition of British
empirical philosophy, stemming from Bacon, through Hume, to Russell and
others. In this tradition, to explain an observed characteristic is to show
its relationship to a law in accordance with which the characteristic
occurs or can be made to occur, and there is a hierarchy of such laws --
the more comprehensive laws are deemed more probable. This leads to the
dominant model for explanation in the natural sciences, which requires the
citation of one or more laws which, when conjoined with the statement of
relevant facts, entail the occurrence of the phenomenon or uniformity that
is to be explained. This does not rely on any assumed ontology; hence,
"Epistemology precedes ontology".


Interesting analysis Bruce. However, I'm not sure if I can follow you on
all points. I think you're right that in a strictly pragmatic sense
epistemology does indeed precede ontology in that observation provides data
on behalf of theory. But as Popper points out, what counts as data is
already theory-dependent. And the reductive aspect of theory is itself an
implicitly ontological commitment. So if a hierarchy of laws were to imply
mutually inconsistent ontological commitments it would be to that extent
incomplete and unsatisfactory. Indeed the holy grail of (Aristotelian?)
science is a hierarchical "Theory of Everything" that is, in precisely this
sense, ontologically consistent "bottom up all the way down", if you'll
permit me a slogan of my own.

For these reasons I can't accept that your distinction between Platonic and
Aristotelian modes of explanation has much real force. In practice, *any*
effective mode of explanation must inexorably be constrained by its
fundamental ontological commitments, on pain of inconsistency. If these are
unclear, then part of the explanation is to make them explicit, on pain of
obscurantism. And finally of course to count as an explanation it must be
susceptible of constraint by evidence, on pain of pusillanimity.

David


Wherever we want to derive a technology from scientific knowledge, we shall
need to know what causes a desired effect. So we need to distinguish
between different levels of explanation, in that while, for example, the
disappearance of a patient's infection may be causally explained by his
antibiotic injection, the operation of that causal process is in its turn
to be explained by correlational laws of biochemistry. Hence, the
understanding of consciousness in any effective way will be linked to the
creation of effective AI.

This is the paradigm of current scientific practice. Sure, as Bruno says,
this stems ultimately from an Aristotelian approach to science rather than
the Platonic approach. But the history of Western thought has shown the
scientific, or Aristotelian, approach to have been overwhelmingly more
successful, both in developing technology and in reaching understanding of
the nature of reality.

Bruce





Or is this really just the latest case of "If I can't see it, it doesn't
exist?" Perhaps you will be content to say that whatever those computations
are capable of explaining sets the absolute limit of what we can ask in
explanation. But if that's the way it is, I can't help being put in mind of

Re: Answers to David 4

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 May 2017, at 03:26, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 26/05/2017 9:11 am, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 May 2017 23:18, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:

I have told you my theory of virtuous circular explanations.   
"Invoke" is a pejorative attribution.  The physical universe is an  
inference to explain appearances (and a very successful one at that).


Vocabulary. The point is, assuming mechanism (and please do tell me  
if you're reasoning in a different theory), that the inference is  
to a particular *selection* of computations from the computational  
plenitude. And why is that? Because they 'explain' the appearances.  
But do they really? Are those computations - in and of themselves -  
really capable of 'explaining' why or how they, and no others, come  
to be uniquely selected for our delectation? Are they really  
capable of 'explaining' why or how those selfsame appearances come  
to be present to us?


I think you and Brent are using different notions of "explanation".  
As I understand your (David's) position, it is a notion of  
"explanation" originating with Plato: Plato's theory of Forms  
offered at the same time both a systematic explanation of things and  
also a connected epistemology of explanation. (Summaries from 
Jonathan Cohen in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy.) In other  
words, the Platonic ideal is that "Ontology precedes epistemology",  
to vary Brent's slogan. In the case of mechanism, the ontology is  
the natural numbers (plus arithmetic) and for an explanation to be  
acceptable, everything has to follow with the force of logical  
necessity from this ontology.


As I understand Brent's position (and that is essentially the same  
as my position), his concept of "explanation" follows the tradition  
of British empirical philosophy, stemming from Bacon, through Hume,  
to Russell and others. In this tradition, to explain an observed  
characteristic is to show its relationship to a law in accordance  
with which the characteristic occurs or can be made to occur, and  
there is a hierarchy of such laws -- the more comprehensive laws are  
deemed more probable. This leads to the dominant model for  
explanation in the natural sciences, which requires the citation of  
one or more laws which, when conjoined with the statement of  
relevant facts, entail the occurrence of the phenomenon or  
uniformity that is to be explained. This does not rely on any  
assumed ontology; hence, "Epistemology precedes ontology".


Wherever we want to derive a technology from scientific knowledge,  
we shall need to know what causes a desired effect. So we need to  
distinguish between different levels of explanation, in that while,  
for example, the disappearance of a patient's infection may be  
causally explained by his antibiotic injection, the operation of  
that causal process is in its turn to be explained by correlational  
laws of biochemistry. Hence, the understanding of consciousness in  
any effective way will be linked to the creation of effective AI.


This is the paradigm of current scientific practice. Sure, as Bruno  
says, this stems ultimately from an Aristotelian approach to science  
rather than the Platonic approach. But the history of Western  
thought has shown the scientific, or Aristotelian, approach to have  
been overwhelmingly more successful, both in developing technology  
and in reaching understanding of the nature of reality.


Aristotle's Matter was a good simplifying hypothesis. I agree that it  
has led to some success. But that does not make it true, and the price  
of it has been the burying of many interesting problem (given away to  
the clergy). Physicalism simply fail to explain the apparent existence  
of the physical reality, and why it hurts. Computationalism does, but  
with the price that a lot of work remains for all details. We are at  
the beginning of the "reversal" only.


Bruno






Bruce





Or is this really just the latest case of "If I can't see it, it  
doesn't exist?" Perhaps you will be content to say that whatever  
those computations are capable of explaining sets the absolute  
limit of what we can ask in explanation. But if that's the way it  
is, I can't help being put in mind of that old huntsman John Peel,  
who would assert, with a remarkable satisfaction in the virtue of  
invincible ignorance, "What I don't know ain't knowledge."


David



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Re: Answers to David 4

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 May 2017, at 03:16, David Nyman wrote:



-- Forwarded message --
From: David Nyman 
Date: 26 May 2017 at 01:53
Subject: Re: Answers to David 4
To: Brent Meeker 


On 26 May 2017 at 01:24, Brent Meeker  wrote:


On 5/25/2017 4:11 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 25 May 2017 23:18, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:


On 5/25/2017 8:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Also, "my" theory is believed by almost all scientists. Diderot  
call it simply "rationalism". If Brent does not believe in  
mechanism, he should tell us what is his explanation for  
consciousness. But here, he clearly dismiss the problem when  
saying that once machine will be intelligent, the "hard" problem  
will dissolve. But he never explained why and how.


Because it will be recognized that consciousness is not one thing,  
but something that can be implemented in different ways having  
different relations to memory and emotions.


Sure, but you betray your implicit conclusion. Consciousness is  
just a 'thing' in this view - a neurological thing supervening on a  
physical thing. Parse it how you will, the 'explanation' will  
always be in terms one thing or another.


Exactly my point - leading to a virtuous circle of explanation.

​That's your point? Well I guess that works if things are your  
(only) thing. That, in case you missed it, was *my* point. By the  
way, you're still PM-ing me.


Which explain why I did not get the message.

Brent, an explanation can be circular only if you can embed the circle  
in some clean ontology. Adding "virtuous" will not help. I can  
appreciate you virtous circles, but this is because arithmetic  
implements many (virtuous) circles.


Bruno





I think Brent just do not see the problem raised by mechanism,  
which is that we cannot invoke the physical universe to explain  
the appearance of the physical universe.


I have told you my theory of virtuous circular explanations.   
"Invoke" is a pejorative attribution.  The physical universe is an  
inference to explain appearances (and a very successful one at that).


Vocabulary.


??  Your point is that you should be allowed a pejorative  
characterization of what Newton, Einstein, et al have done?


Hardly. Of course I meant only *your* quibble about vocabulary​. I  
don't see ​anything pejorative in invoke. Invoke and infer are  
doing the same work here, AFAICS.


Would it have been better to invoke arithmetic?  What would that  
explain?




The point is, assuming mechanism (and please do tell me if you're  
reasoning in a different theory), that the inference is to a  
particular *selection* of computations from the computational  
plenitude. And why is that? Because they 'explain' the appearances.  
But do they really? Are those computations - in and of themselves -  
really capable of 'explaining' why or how they, and no others, come  
to be uniquely selected for our delectation? Are they really  
capable of 'explaining' why or how those selfsame appearances come  
to be present to us?


Good questions.

​Thanks.
​
Or is this really just the latest case of "If I can't see it, it  
doesn't exist?" Perhaps you will be content to say that whatever  
those computations are capable of explaining sets the absolute limit  
of what we can ask in explanation.​


Well, you didn't answer this. But to be fair, it was somewhat of a  
rhetorical question, since you've told me time and again that this  
is indeed what you think.


​But if that's the way it is, I can't help being put in mind of  
that old huntsman John Peel, who would assert, with a remarkable  
satisfaction in the virtue of invincible ignorance, "What I don't  
know ain't knowledge."​



It ain't so much what you don't know that gets you into trouble, as  
what you know that ain't so.

  --- Josh Billings

​A double-edge sword, if ever I felt one.

David​


Brent



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Re: Answers to David 4

[Bruno Marchal]

On 26 May 2017, at 00:18, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 5/25/2017 8:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Also, "my" theory is believed by almost all scientists. Diderot  
call it simply "rationalism". If Brent does not believe in  
mechanism, he should tell us what is his explanation for  
consciousness. But here, he clearly dismiss the problem when saying  
that once machine will be intelligent, the "hard" problem will  
dissolve. But he never explained why and how.


Because it will be recognized that consciousness is not one thing,  
but something that can be implemented in different ways having  
different relations to memory and emotions.


OK with this. But that does not solve the mind-body problem.








I think Brent just do not see the problem raised by mechanism,  
which is that we cannot invoke the physical universe to explain the  
appearance of the physical universe.


I have told you my theory of virtuous circular explanations.   
"Invoke" is a pejorative attribution.  The physical universe is an  
inference to explain appearances (and a very successful one at that).



I was alluding to the use of the metaphysical assumption of a primary  
physical universe, which does not work when we assume mechanism.


Bruno

PS very busy days. I might not been able to answer all comments before  
sunday. I let you know. I might answer during pause.






Brent

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Re: A thought on MWI and its alternative(s)

[Pierz]

On Friday, May 26, 2017 at 2:21:37 PM UTC+10, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/25/2017 8:36 PM, Pierz Newton-John wrote:
>
> Is something up with Everything List - your reply is not on the site and I’m 
> seeing this business with “reply to David 4” etc…?
>
>
> On 26 May 2017, at 12:29 pm, Brent Meeker   
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5/25/2017 6:30 PM, Pierz wrote:
>
> Recently I've been studying a lot of history, and I've often thought about 
> how, according to special relativity, you can translate time into space and 
> vice versa, and therefore how from a different perspective we can think of 
> the past as distant in space rather than time: my childhood being 40 light 
> years away, rather than 40 years for instance. I can visualise my own body as 
> a sort of long, four dimensional tendril through spacetime, of which I only 
> ever see a three-dimensional cross-section. This is the block universe idea 
> of course. What occurred to me recently was that the past, in any physical 
> theory I know of, is "locked down". There is only a single history consistent 
> with the present (ignoring the microscopic ambiguities of quantum 
> interference effects
>
> I think that is assuming a lot.  Consider the biverse model of cosmogony - 
> then the past "forks" just like the future.
>
> When I’ve asked physicists this question, I’ve been told that a single past 
> is the general assumption. IIRC, there may be ambiguous histories very close 
> to the Big Bang (Hawking?), but that’s not really relevant. Maybe that’s the 
> biverse cosmology you refer to (googling it didn’t help).
>
>
> In the biverse model the universe inflates into the past as well as the 
> future (as defined by us), thus maintaining time symmetry.   Here's a 
> another, more worked out version of the idea:
>
> Spontaneous Inflation and the Origin of the Arrow of Time 
> Sean M. Carroll 
> , Jennifer 
> Chen 
> (Submitted on 27 Oct 2004)
>
> We suggest that spontaneous eternal inflation can provide a natural 
> explanation for the thermodynamic arrow of time, and discuss the underlying 
> assumptions and consequences of this view. In the absence of inflation, we 
> argue that systems coupled to gravity usually evolve asymptotically to the 
> vacuum, which is the only natural state in a thermodynamic sense. In the 
> presence of a small positive vacuum energy and an appropriate inflaton 
> field, the de Sitter vacuum is unstable to the spontaneous onset of 
> inflation at a higher energy scale. Starting from de Sitter, inflation can 
> increase the total entropy of the universe without bound, creating 
> universes similar to ours in the process.* An important consequence of 
> this picture is that inflation occurs asymptotically both forwards and 
> backwards in time, implying a universe that is (statistically) 
> time-symmetric on ultra-large scales.*
>
> Comments: 36 pages 
> Subjects: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Astrophysics (astro-ph); 
> General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) 
> Report number: EFI-2004-33 
> Cite as: arXiv:hep-th/0410270  
>   (or arXiv:hep-th/0410270v1  for 
> this version) 
>
>
> ), but the present is consistent with multiple futures. However, we know that 
> "now" - and therefore the division into past and future - is an artifact of 
> mind with no physical reality, a "quale". So therefore, if the past is 
> singular, so is the future, and seen from "outside", every quantum event, 
> whether "future" or "past" from any particular fame of reference, is in fact 
> completely determined in its outcome, even though it is also random in the 
> sense there is no way of explaining why it is the way it is, beyond the 
> description provided by Born rule probabilities. Is that not weird, if not 
> downright absurd? What is this "necessity" that dictates that this particular 
> subset of all the possible quantum events was selected as the way things are?
>
> If there were such a "necessity" that would be a deterministic theory and 
> inconsistent with the Born rule...and observation.
>
> Well it’s not inconsistent with observation because if such a thing were 
> true, there’d still be no way an observer inside the system would know what 
> the predetermined outcome was going to be. Doesn’t mean I like the idea 
> though, obviously.
>
> Somehow the idea of the future being indeterminate but the past fixed seems 
> palatable because it accords with our subjective experience, but really it is 
> incoherent as soon as we acknowledge that the past-future distinction is not 
> physically meaningful.
>
> But it is meaningful.  Entropy increases in the future direction. We remember 
> and record the past but not the future.
>
> The arrow of time is physically meaningful, not the idea of “now”, which is 
> the