Re: A profound lack of profundity (and soon "the starting point")

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 9, 2017 at 5:40 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

I hope you are fine.
>

​Thank you Bruno, I'm OK.​



> ​> ​
> Mr. His was sure that his first person experience will be of being in one
> city, then he pushed on the button, and both the copies claim, "yes that
> prediction was correct: when opening the door I made the experience of
> seeing only once city.
>

​And if two copies claims were "I saw one and only one city so the
prediction that I,  would see one and only one city was correct"  then a
logical contradiction would result because there are two of them. So the
claims can not be correct even if they sincerely believe they are. All this
assumes the personal pronoun "I" means anybody who remembers being asked
the question yesterday in Helsinki, and if "I" doesn't mean that then what
"I" mean?.

​>> ​
>> If Mr. His had been correct then after the duplication all the people who
>> remember being Mr. His
>
>
> ​> ​
> Sorry, but that is the third person description of Mister His.
>

​That's what I don't get, If today Mr. His isn't anybody who remembers
being asked the question yesterday then who is Mr. Hid today? ​


> ​> ​
> The question was about what he expected to live.
>

​Then the question is of no scientific of philosophic significance and I
don't understand why we keep talking about something so trivial. Most
people expect Jesus Christ will return in a few years but that doesn't mean
he will.
 A far far more profound question than "Where do you expect he will live?"
is "Where will he live?" or even better "Today where are the people who
remember being in Helsinki yesterday?".  ​


​>
>  comp predicts "the guy will feel to be in one city, that he could not
> have predicted before"


​
So there is something called "comp" that can predict it but nothing can
predict it. Nobody knows the answer because nobody knows the question. What
exactly is "it"? Yes yes I know," it" is about the first person view, but
that is all predictable, tomorrow the the first person view
​
of the Moscow man will be Moscow and tomorrow the the first person view
​
of the Washington man will be Washington and
tomorrow there will be no first person view
​
of Helsinki at all. The only reason more can't be predicted is because you
can't say exactly what it is you want predicted.

​> ​
> You play dumb or what.
>

​I don't think I'm significantly dumber than average so it must be or what.​



> ​> ​
> The prediction is made before,
> ​
> but the verification is the one made by each first person obtained.
>

​Nothing can be verified if its not know who the prediction was supposed to
be about, and that is as clear as mud.​

​You say it's not about the people who remember being asked the question so
I have no idea who the prediction is about and thus have no way of knowing
if any prediction was right or wrong. ​


> ​
>> ​>> ​
>> And AFTER the button is pushed there are 2 people who go by the name "he"
>> which causes endless confusion,
>
>
> ​> ​
> Here, you give credits to those who think you lie and try to deliberately
> be confusing.
>

​Bruno just think about that for a minute, why on earth would I do that?​
Why would I pretend not understand something when I really do, and why
would I keep up such a silly charade for years? Maybe just maybe you should
entertain the possibility that some people sincerely think you're dead
wrong. And speaking of sincerity, do you really believe personal pronouns
can be used just as they always have been even after people duplicating
machines have become common without creating any confusion?


> ​> ​
> We have agreed since long that both are equal in being continuators of the
> H-guy.
>

​I thought we agreed about that too, and I thought we we also agreed that
1+1=2
but apparently not because if both those things are true then the H-guy
will see 2 cities
​but​
 you insist the H-guy will see only one.
​ And yeah yeah I know, I confuse...​

But I think you're the one who is confused, you're confused by the fact
that there are two the first person views, one in Washington and one in
Moscow and both of them are the H-guy.


>
>> ​>> ​
>> If it's one did it turn out to be Moscow or Washington?​
>
>
> ​> ​
> You asked this before.
>

​I know I've asked that before and I received no answer before, and I don't
expect to receive an answer this time either.  ​



> ​> ​
> Please read what follow very carefully,
>

​If it's​

​a real question then there is a one word answer, and I don't need to read
one word carefully. ​


> ​> ​
> Now you tell me that this means only the tautological "the M-man finds M",
> and the "W-man finds W",
>

​Yep.​ Very dull and of no scientific philosophic or mathematical interest
whatsoever but nevertheless 100% true.


> ​> ​
> both are still the same H-guy,
>

​Yep.​


> ​> ​
> and that the H-guy was unable to predict which precise city he will feel
> to survive through in that experience.
>

​That's because there isn't one precise city that is ​correct 

Re: math and the treal world

[Bruno Marchal]

On 15 Sep 2017, at 20:03, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/15/2017 5:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 14 Sep 2017, at 14:39, ronaldheld wrote:



On Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 8:01:16 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal  
wrote:


On 14 Sep 2017, at 13:22, ronaldheld wrote:

This should cause some discussion. Maybe belongs in the "is math  
real" thread, but that one is large??

   Ronald


What is your opinion?

The author believes that PI does not existed 100,000 years ago.

It looks like he believes that 100,000 existed 100,000 years ago,  
making hard for me to understand why PI would not exist, and in  
which sense, as PI is not a function of time.


Then the author seems to believe in a primary physical universe,  
and does not seem aware that this is an assumption too, and indeed  
arguably much stronger than assuming arithmetic.


The main problem is that the author does not put its assumption on  
the table, and take for granted that existence is physical  
existence. That does not make sense with mechanism (probably), but  
to be franc, I am not sure this makes sense even without  
mechanism. He confuses also mathematical theory and mathematical  
reality, it seems.


What do *you* think? What would be your primary assumption?

My feeling is that it is a waste of time to guess what exists or  
not before saying what we are willing to assume as primitively  
true, or what is the metaphysical background accepted.


Bruno




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<1709.03087.pdf>


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

Well, his use of 10 years does not fit with some little things  
he states.  I am not the best person to comment, one because we  
should get more opinions.  AFAIK his view is that mathematics  
(applied) does not fit the "real world" as well as others have  
claimed. he also assumes that lesser animals cannot do any math  
besides counting low integers.



He seem to believe that mathematical object does not exist  
physically, and in that sense, I can agree. The platonists usually  
think something very close, like the idea that there is no physical  
circle, and thus no PI, "on earth". In the terrestrial plane,  
appearance of circles and PI are mere approximation of the "divine  
PI in the sky, or in the mind of God, or in the mind of  
mathematicians". The question is then about the terrestrial plane:  
is it fundamentally real, or is it a delusion due to the infinitely  
many "video-games" executed in arithmetic? The question is never is  
this real or not, but is this fundamentally or primarily real of not.


Now, I can understand an intuitionist doubting about discontinuous  
function, or about non computable real number, but to say that PI  
does not exist, without saying precisely what exists, does not make  
much sense to me. Pure primary  matter has never been  
observed, nor even defined, nor even really used in physics or even  
in metaphysics (except to stop thinking on the mind-body problem).


In fact I never see the term anywhere except on this list - where  
you use it as a strawman.


That is because most people confuse the notion of matter (which is  
neutral a priori on its primitive character) and the notion of  
primitive matter, which has lead to Aristotle "Naturalism", or its  
slightly more general physicalism. In the theologies today, it is  
often an "unconscious" assumption, and a sort of default hypothesis.  
But when doing metaphysics seriously, it is of the upmost importance  
to be clear on those matters.






So, most conception of primary matter is already mathematicalist:  
primitive matter is just what is denoted by the elementary terms of  
the theory (string, particles, fields, ...), but all those notion  
presumes the natural numbers, intuitionistically or classically.  
The paper here seems to assume a physical reality, but never try to  
make that precise, and so is poorly convincing, and a bit naive on  
the fundamental issue, I would say.


That is because scientists don't start from assumptions but from  
observations,


That is not clear-cut. Observation involves a dialog between many  
brain cells which reflect some theorization.


And it is just assuming Aristotle metaphysics to claim scientists or  
inquirer have to start from observation. In all case we need some back  
and forth between observation (do you see what I see) and  
introspection (do you believe what I suspect?).





which are necessarily less precise than axiomatic systems


Indeed. Less precise than brains,, machines or numbers.

An axiomatic system is just a manner to finitely