Re: dot dot dot
On 19 Aug 2014, at 02:18, meekerdb wrote: Are you aware of the research by the dating website OKCupid that showed that the best way to find out if your date believes in God, without asking directly, is to ask if they are persnickety about spelling and grammar. No indicates a likely believer. Yes means a likely atheist. Nice. Agnostic says it depends on what is written It's purely a statistical correlation, but one based on a large sample. It shows perhaps that believers believe that taking care of the sense, the sounds will take care of themselves. The atheists believe that by taking care of the sounds, the sense will take care of themselves. But that's mechanism, I think, the duality top down/bottom up, or syntax-semantics, theory-models, machine-realities, etc. Bruno Brent On 8/18/2014 5:10 PM, LizR wrote: I wish that often, but then I'm (a) pernickety* about grammar and spelling, and (b) generally in a hurry! *Or a word spelled something like that! On 18 August 2014 23:44, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2014, at 07:23, LizR wrote: PS You do know you can delete posts from the EL, don't you? But not from the mail boxes. Besides, I am against all post deletions, except on facebook when people use your wall for advertising, or when they repeat insults. What would be nice is an ability to edit mails, for the typo. Bruno On 17 August 2014 17:23, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Never mind, you stated your position nice and clearly, perhaps more clearly than you normally do on the EL. (...or is that why you're saying OOPS! ? :-) On 17 August 2014 16:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: OOPS! I didn't intend to post this to the everything-list; although it may serve as an introduction for James Lindsay if he decides to join the list. I wrote to him after reading his book dot dot do which is about infinity in mathematics and philosophy. Brent On 8/16/2014 9:28 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com . and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be theories of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously
Re: dot dot dot
On 17 Aug 2014, at 06:28, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. Hmm ... You should say instead: he claims having proved that if the brain works like a digital computer, then physics is given by a measure on all computations, making comp + some theory of knowledge testable, but I think there is a flaw. The existence of that measure is a consequence of taking comp seriously enough, without adding ad hoc selection principles. It might be wishful thinking, but then the point would be that computationalism would be itself wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com . Thanks Brent. and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be theories of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). But I disagree. There is no ur-stuff at all. There is an appearance of ur-stuff. Numbers or combinators are not stuff. Nothing is made-of numbers, but numbers relation can support hallucination, when we suppose comp, and the hard part of the mind-body problem consists in explaining the stability of some those hallucinations, as there is an inflation of dreams in the arithmetical reality (with dreams in the large sense of computation enough rich to support the activity in the brain of a conscious person at the right level or below). Despite with comp we can take (N, +, *) as the ultimate reality, science like physics or theology remains quite distinct from number theory per se. Arithmetic is the absolute reality, but only because we are willing to commit the religious act of faith of believing in some technological reincarnation. I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously circular. But mathematics, even arithmetic are not theories, they are realities or realms. The theory are PA, or, in a slightly larger sense, machine, bodies, finite piece of thing. With comp you can start from any Turing complete theory, without adding any extra ontology, which will reappear as appearance from the internal, first person view, of the enough rich self-observers whose existence is a consequence of the axioms defining the Turing complete theory we start with. That can lead to some virtuous circle, running in a non circular way. Bruno Brent What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine Regarding your note about my Chapter 2, that's an
Re: dot dot dot
On 17 Aug 2014, at 07:23, LizR wrote: PS You do know you can delete posts from the EL, don't you? But not from the mail boxes. Besides, I am against all post deletions, except on facebook when people use your wall for advertising, or when they repeat insults. What would be nice is an ability to edit mails, for the typo. Bruno On 17 August 2014 17:23, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Never mind, you stated your position nice and clearly, perhaps more clearly than you normally do on the EL. (...or is that why you're saying OOPS! ? :-) On 17 August 2014 16:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: OOPS! I didn't intend to post this to the everything-list; although it may serve as an introduction for James Lindsay if he decides to join the list. I wrote to him after reading his book dot dot do which is about infinity in mathematics and philosophy. Brent On 8/16/2014 9:28 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limitedscope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com . and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be theories of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously circular. Brent What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine Regarding your note about my Chapter 2, that's an interesting point that he raises, and interestingly, I don't wholly disagree with him that it is an integral feature of arithmetic that it is axiomatically incomplete (though maybe I thought differently when I wrote the book). Particularly, I don't think of it as a bug, but I don't necessarily think of it as a feature either. I'm pretty neutral to it, and I feel like I was trying to express the idea in my book that it reveals mostly how theoretical, as opposed to real, mathematics is. I'm not sure about this more than amap thing yet, as by map I just mean abstract way to work with reality instead of reality itself and hadn't read more into my own statement than that. I would disagree with him, however, that it is related to the hard problem of consciousness, I think, or perhaps it's better to say that I'm very skeptical of such a claim. Brains are, however immensely complex, finite things, and as such, I do not think that the lack of a complete axiomatization of arithmetic is
Re: dot dot dot
I wish that often, but then I'm (a) pernickety* about grammar and spelling, and (b) generally in a hurry! *Or a word spelled something like that! On 18 August 2014 23:44, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2014, at 07:23, LizR wrote: PS You do know you can delete posts from the EL, don't you? But not from the mail boxes. Besides, I am against all post deletions, except on facebook when people use your wall for advertising, or when they repeat insults. What would be nice is an ability to edit mails, for the typo. Bruno On 17 August 2014 17:23, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Never mind, you stated your position nice and clearly, perhaps more clearly than you normally do on the EL. (...or is that why you're saying OOPS! ? :-) On 17 August 2014 16:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: OOPS! I didn't intend to post this to the everything-list; although it may serve as an introduction for James Lindsay if he decides to join the list. I wrote to him after reading his book dot dot do which is about infinity in mathematics and philosophy. Brent On 8/16/2014 9:28 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com. and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be *theories* of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously circular. Brent What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine Regarding your note about my Chapter 2, that's an interesting point that he raises, and interestingly, I don't wholly disagree with him that it is an integral feature of arithmetic that it is axiomatically incomplete (though maybe I thought differently when I wrote the book). Particularly, I don't think of it as a bug, but I don't necessarily think of it as a feature either. I'm pretty neutral to it, and I feel like I was trying to express the idea in my book that it reveals mostly how theoretical, as opposed to real, mathematics is. I'm not sure about this more than a map thing yet, as by map I just mean abstract way to work with reality instead of reality itself and hadn't read more into my own statement than that. I would disagree with him, however, that it is related to the hard problem of consciousness, I think, or perhaps it's better to say that I'm very skeptical of such a claim. Brains
Re: dot dot dot
Are you aware of the research by the dating website OKCupid that showed that the best way to find out if your date believes in God, without asking directly, is to ask if they are persnickety about spelling and grammar. No indicates a likely believer. Yes means a likely atheist. It's purely a statistical correlation, but one based on a large sample. Brent On 8/18/2014 5:10 PM, LizR wrote: I wish that often, but then I'm (a) pernickety* about grammar and spelling, and (b) generally in a hurry! *Or a word spelled something like that! On 18 August 2014 23:44, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 17 Aug 2014, at 07:23, LizR wrote: PS You do know you can delete posts from the EL, don't you? But not from the mail boxes. Besides, I am against all post deletions, except on facebook when people use your wall for advertising, or when they repeat insults. What would be nice is an ability to edit mails, for the typo. Bruno On 17 August 2014 17:23, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Never mind, you stated your position nice and clearly, perhaps more clearly than you normally do on the EL. (...or is that why you're saying OOPS! ? :-) On 17 August 2014 16:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: OOPS! I didn't intend to post this to the everything-list; although it may serve as an introduction for James Lindsay if he decides to join the list. I wrote to him after reading his book dot dot do which is about infinity in mathematics and philosophy. Brent On 8/16/2014 9:28 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be /theories/ of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this
Re: dot dot dot
On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com. and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be /theories/ of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously circular. Brent What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine Regarding your note about my Chapter 2, that's an interesting point that he raises, and interestingly, I don't wholly disagree with him that it is an integral feature of arithmetic that it is axiomatically incomplete (though maybe I thought differently when I wrote the book). Particularly, I don't think of it as a bug, but I don't necessarily think of it as a feature either. I'm pretty neutral to it, and I feel like I was trying to express the idea in my book that it reveals mostly how theoretical, as opposed to real, mathematics is. I'm not sure about this more than a map thing yet, as by map I just mean abstract way to work with reality instead of reality itself and hadn't read more into my own statement than that. I would disagree with him, however, that it is related to the hard problem of consciousness, I think, or perhaps it's better to say that I'm very skeptical of such a claim. Brains are, however immensely complex, finite things, and as such, I do not think that the lack of a complete axiomatization of arithmetic is likely to be integrally related to the hard problem of consciousness. Maybe I just don't understand what he's getting at, though. Who knows? I also tend to agree with you--in some senses--about the ultrafinitists probably being right. My distinction is that I'm fine with infinity as a kind of fiction that we play with or use to make calculus/analysis more accessible. I certainly agree with you that infinity probably shouldn't be taken too seriously, particularly once they start getting weird and (relatively) huge. There's something interesting to think about, though, when it comes to the ideas of some infinities being larger than others. I was thinking a bit about it the other day, in fact. That seems to be a necessary consequence of little more than certain definitions on certain kinds of sets (with infinite perhaps not even necessary here, using the finitists' indefinite instead) and one-to-one correspondences. Anyway, thanks again for the note. Kindly, James On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 1:14 AM, meekerdb
Re: dot dot dot
OOPS! I didn't intend to post this to the everything-list; although it may serve as an introduction for James Lindsay if he decides to join the list. I wrote to him after reading his book dot dot do which is about infinity in mathematics and philosophy. Brent On 8/16/2014 9:28 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com. and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be /theories/ of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously circular. Brent What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine Regarding your note about my Chapter 2, that's an interesting point that he raises, and interestingly, I don't wholly disagree with him that it is an integral feature of arithmetic that it is axiomatically incomplete (though maybe I thought differently when I wrote the book). Particularly, I don't think of it as a bug, but I don't necessarily think of it as a feature either. I'm pretty neutral to it, and I feel like I was trying to express the idea in my book that it reveals mostly how theoretical, as opposed to real, mathematics is. I'm not sure about this more than a map thing yet, as by map I just mean abstract way to work with reality instead of reality itself and hadn't read more into my own statement than that. I would disagree with him, however, that it is related to the hard problem of consciousness, I think, or perhaps it's better to say that I'm very skeptical of such a claim. Brains are, however immensely complex, finite things, and as such, I do not think that the lack of a complete axiomatization of arithmetic is likely to be integrally related to the hard problem of consciousness. Maybe I just don't understand what he's getting at, though. Who knows? I also tend to agree with you--in some senses--about the ultrafinitists probably being right. My distinction is that I'm fine with infinity as a kind of fiction that we play with or use to make calculus/analysis more accessible. I certainly agree with you that infinity probably shouldn't be taken too seriously, particularly once they start getting weird and (relatively) huge. There's something interesting to think about, though, when it comes to the ideas of some infinities being larger than others. I was thinking a bit about it the other day, in fact. That seems to be a
Re: dot dot dot
Never mind, you stated your position nice and clearly, perhaps more clearly than you normally do on the EL. (...or is that why you're saying OOPS! ? :-) On 17 August 2014 16:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: OOPS! I didn't intend to post this to the everything-list; although it may serve as an introduction for James Lindsay if he decides to join the list. I wrote to him after reading his book dot dot do which is about infinity in mathematics and philosophy. Brent On 8/16/2014 9:28 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com. and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be *theories* of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously circular. Brent What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine Regarding your note about my Chapter 2, that's an interesting point that he raises, and interestingly, I don't wholly disagree with him that it is an integral feature of arithmetic that it is axiomatically incomplete (though maybe I thought differently when I wrote the book). Particularly, I don't think of it as a bug, but I don't necessarily think of it as a feature either. I'm pretty neutral to it, and I feel like I was trying to express the idea in my book that it reveals mostly how theoretical, as opposed to real, mathematics is. I'm not sure about this more than a map thing yet, as by map I just mean abstract way to work with reality instead of reality itself and hadn't read more into my own statement than that. I would disagree with him, however, that it is related to the hard problem of consciousness, I think, or perhaps it's better to say that I'm very skeptical of such a claim. Brains are, however immensely complex, finite things, and as such, I do not think that the lack of a complete axiomatization of arithmetic is likely to be integrally related to the hard problem of consciousness. Maybe I just don't understand what he's getting at, though. Who knows? I also tend to agree with you--in some senses--about the ultrafinitists probably being right. My distinction is that I'm fine with infinity as a kind of fiction that we play with or use to make calculus/analysis more accessible. I certainly agree with you that infinity probably shouldn't be taken too seriously, particularly once they
Re: dot dot dot
PS You do know you can delete posts from the EL, don't you? On 17 August 2014 17:23, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Never mind, you stated your position nice and clearly, perhaps more clearly than you normally do on the EL. (...or is that why you're saying OOPS! ? :-) On 17 August 2014 16:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: OOPS! I didn't intend to post this to the everything-list; although it may serve as an introduction for James Lindsay if he decides to join the list. I wrote to him after reading his book dot dot do which is about infinity in mathematics and philosophy. Brent On 8/16/2014 9:28 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 8/16/2014 4:57 PM, James Lindsay wrote: Hi Brent, Thanks for the note. I like the thought about mathematics as a refinement of language. I also think of it as a specialization of philosophy, or even a highly distilled variant upon it with limited scope. Indeed, I frequently conceive of mathematics as a branch of philosophy where we (mostly) agree upon the axioms and (mostly) know we're talking about abstract ideas, to be distinguished from what I feel like I get from many philosophers. I am not familiar with Bruno Marchal, Here's his paper that describes his TOE. It rests on two points for which he gives arguments: (1) If consciousness is instantiated by certain computational processes which could be realized in different media (so there's nothing magici about them being done in brains) then they can exist the way arithmetic exist (i.e. in platonia). And in platonia there is a universal dovetailer, UD, that computes everything computable (and more), so it instantiates all possible conscious thoughts including those that cause us to infer the existence of an external physical world. The problem with his theory, which he recognizes, is that this apparently instantiates too much. But as physicist like Max Tegmark, Vilenkin, and Krause talk about eternal inflation and infinitely many universes in which all possible physics is realized, maybe the UD doesn't produce too much. He thinks he can show that what it produces is like quantum mechanics except for a measure zero. But I'm not convinced his measure is more than wishful thinking. He's a nice fellow though and not a crank. So if you'd like to engage him on any of this you can join the discussion list everything-list@googlegroups.com. and I am not expert in theories of anything, much less everything, based upon computation or even computation theories. I remain a bit skeptical of them, and overall, I would suggest that such things are likely to be *theories* of everything, which is to say still on the map side of the map/terrain divide. I agree. But some people assume that there must be some ultimate ontology of ur-stuff that exists necessarily - and mathematical objects are their favorite candidates (if they're not religious). I don't think this is a compelling argument since I regard numbers as inventions (not necessarily human - likely evolution invented them). I think of ontologies as the stuff that is in our theories. Since theories are invented to explain things they may ultimately be circular, sort of like: mathematics- physics- chemistry-biology- intelligence- mathematics. So you can start with whatever you think you understand. If this circle of explanation is big enough to include everything, then I claim it's virtuously circular. Brent What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine Regarding your note about my Chapter 2, that's an interesting point that he raises, and interestingly, I don't wholly disagree with him that it is an integral feature of arithmetic that it is axiomatically incomplete (though maybe I thought differently when I wrote the book). Particularly, I don't think of it as a bug, but I don't necessarily think of it as a feature either. I'm pretty neutral to it, and I feel like I was trying to express the idea in my book that it reveals mostly how theoretical, as opposed to real, mathematics is. I'm not sure about this more than a map thing yet, as by map I just mean abstract way to work with reality instead of reality itself and hadn't read more into my own statement than that. I would disagree with him, however, that it is related to the hard problem of consciousness, I think, or perhaps it's better to say that I'm very skeptical of such a claim. Brains are, however immensely complex, finite things, and as such, I do not think that the lack of a complete axiomatization of arithmetic is likely to be integrally related to the hard problem of consciousness. Maybe I just don't understand what he's getting at, though. Who knows? I also tend to agree with you--in some senses--about the ultrafinitists probably being right. My distinction is that I'm fine with infinity as a kind of fiction that we play with or use to make calculus/analysis more
