subject:"Re\: the curse of materialism"



On 22 Jan 2013, at 18:06, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 1/22/2013 10:41 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 21 Jan 2013, at 20:05, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 1/21/2013 8:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
If you don't take arithmetic as primitive, I can prove that you  
cannot derive both addition and multiplication, nor the existence  
of computer. Then everything around me does not make sense. If  
you believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like  
a literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition  
and multiplication in the sense I would wait for.

Dear Bruno,

  Is this statement correctly written? How is it coherent that I  
need to derive from arithmetic that which is already in arithmetic?


Stephen, you are the one telling me that you don't assume the  
numbers, so it is normal that I ask you how you derive them form  
what you assume.


Dear Bruno,

   I will differ to David Chalmers work to demonstrate a thorough  
demolition of materialism. I see numbers are an aspect of mental  
content and not independently existing entities, so we have an  
irreconcilable difference in our thinking.


Then comp is meaningless. Even Church thesis is meaningless. Most  
papers you referred to becomes meaningless.










It seems to me that the physical activity of counting is the  
source of derivation of arithmetics!


But you have to derive the physical activity first, then.



   I no longer see the utility of trying to prove the existence of  
the content of 1p experience.


I was talking of deriving physics. We accept content of experience in  
comp, but then we can recover it from the numbers complex behavior  
when looking at themselves. Then physics is or should be explained  
from that, as UDA explains.




I experience it and can bet that you do as well. That is my theory  
of a physical world and its activity in a nutshell.


That's the part where we agree.

I explain experience from computer science, and it seems you disagree  
with this, but then I don't understand why you keep defending comp as  
it is clear it does not fit with your theory.









Of cource we cannot just consider the activity of a single entity  
but that of many entities, each counting in their own ways and  
developing communication methods between themselves.
  Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for  
material things to have representations of things, intensionality,  
such as numbers.


yes, even weak materialism. But your point is not valid, unless you  
prove it first.


   What benefit comes from this "proof"?


To get an explanation.

Bruno







Numbers fail, as a ground of ontology, as they can not transform  
themselves and remain the same. Matter is exactly that which can  
transform and remain the same!


? (looks like a prose to me).


   OK...


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



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Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-22 Thread Stephen P. King


On 1/22/2013 10:41 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 21 Jan 2013, at 20:05, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 1/21/2013 8:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
If you don't take arithmetic as primitive, I can prove that you 
cannot derive both addition and multiplication, nor the existence of 
computer. Then everything around me does not make sense. If you 
believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like a 
literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition and 
multiplication in the sense I would wait for.

Dear Bruno,

   Is this statement correctly written? How is it coherent that I 
need to derive from arithmetic that which is already in arithmetic?


Stephen, you are the one telling me that you don't assume the numbers, 
so it is normal that I ask you how you derive them form what you assume.


Dear Bruno,

I will differ to David Chalmers work to demonstrate a thorough 
demolition of materialism. I see numbers are an aspect of mental content 
and not independently existing entities, so we have an irreconcilable 
difference in our thinking.






It seems to me that the physical activity of counting is the source 
of derivation of arithmetics!


But you have to derive the physical activity first, then.



I no longer see the utility of trying to prove the existence of the 
content of 1p experience. I experience it and can bet that you do as 
well. That is my theory of a physical world and its activity in a nutshell.





Of cource we cannot just consider the activity of a single entity but 
that of many entities, each counting in their own ways and developing 
communication methods between themselves.
   Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for 
material things to have representations of things, intensionality, 
such as numbers.


yes, even weak materialism. But your point is not valid, unless you 
prove it first.


What benefit comes from this "proof"?




Numbers fail, as a ground of ontology, as they can not transform 
themselves and remain the same. Matter is exactly that which can 
transform and remain the same!


? (looks like a prose to me).


OK...



--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: the curse of materialism



On 22 Jan 2013, at 09:19, socra...@bezeqint.net wrote:


Book:  What is your dangerous idea?
/ Edited by John Brockman /
 Article:
Seeing Darwin in the light of Einstein;
Seeing Einstein in the light of Darwin.
 / by Lee Smolin.  /
===.
  /  Page 115  /
Seeing Einstein in the light of Darwin suggests that
natural selection could act not only on living things
but on the properties defining the various species
of elementary particles.
  /  Page 117  /
We physicists have now to understand Darwin’s lesson:
The only way to understand how one out of a vast number
of choices was made, which favors improbable structure,
is that is the result of evolution by natural selection.
  / Page 117 /
Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature,
and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of
evolution.
 / Page 118 /
And I believe that once this is achieved, Einstein and Darwin
will be understood as partners in the greatest revolution
yet in science, . . .
  / Lee Smolin.  /
http://www.leesmolin.com/
==.
Questions.
1
On which biological level is  possible to use phrase:
Darwinian natural selection, Darwin’s evolution ?


Difficult problem. Note that with comp, there is a sense to say that  
the physical laws appears through an "evolutionnary process", but the  
"evolution" is a consciousness selection starting from (infinities of)  
number relations. it is not in "space-time", as those ythings evloved  
first in the logico-arithmetical way.





2
On which biological level does consciousness appear ?.


Molecular level, probably. I would say in bacteria.
Self-consciousness appears much later, with more sophisticated  
unverterbrates, like the octopi and perhaps some spiders.


But it is hard to know for sure, of course. When I read some  
newspaper, I can sometimes doubt that human are conscious. I guess  
they are, but like all conscious being they can be quite sleepy too.


Bruno


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



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Re: the curse of materialism

On 21 Jan 2013, at 20:36, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Monday, January 21, 2013 12:01:50 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 Jan 2013, at 17:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:

You are saying that you can prove that the only way a computer can  
exist is if arithmetic is irreducible?

I did not say that. I was saying that you have to assume the numbers  
and plus+times (or equivalent) to define pattern recognition,  
computers, etc.

I don't see that pattern recognition requires numbers to be defined.  
To the contrary, numbers are clearly patterns recognized by  
different means.

If you take pattern recognition as primitive, you don't help me to  
understand anything you say.

I don't have any choice but to take pattern recognition as primitive  
- it is primitive.

Then I have no clue what you mean by "pattern recognition".

Okay, prove that.

Then everything around me does not make sense.

Why?

Because without computer in reality, I have one mystery more: how is  
it that I can send you a mail?

The presence of a computer or network of computers doesn't mean that  
everything else doesn't make sense. Computers have only been around  
for a few decades.

Not at all. Computers exists in arithmetic, out of time and space.  
Then they appear locally in many physical forms (in three bodies, in  
quantum vacuum, in biological cells, eventually they appear in an  
explicit hand-made form with Babbage machine, before Turing made the  
mathematical discovery and show, with others, to be the result of  
rather simple arithmetical relations.
You confuse the concept with some particular instantiation of them, I  
think.

If you
believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like a
literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition and
multiplication in the sense I would wait for.

I have done this many times already, but you aren't really hearing  
or understanding. Arithmetic primitives depend on more primitive  
sensory-motor experiences. Addition and multiplication are not  
literal phenomena, rather they are analytical descriptions and  
interpretations of phenomena which are either bodies in space,  
experiences through time, or combinations and continuations  
thereof. To get to addition, you need to have an experience of  
counting, of memory, of discernment and augmentation, of solitary  
coherence and multiplicity, of succession and sequence, of  
presentation and representation...so many things... I have repeated  
this several times, why do you act as if I have been silent on this  
point?

Sorry but you are confusing the numbers I assume, to explain just  
the working of a computer, with the human intuition of numbers, and  
the human senses, which needs the whole biological evolution to be  
explained. But you talk like if you start from human sense, which is  
non sensical for me. Sorry.

I don't start from human sense at all. I start from the irreducible.  
Perceptual participation = experience. The reason a computer works  
is because a there is an experience in which a body participates in  
a perception of not being able to occupy the same space as another  
body, or of a body being able to modify its own sensory-motor  
disposition based upon the capacity to perceive some sensory-motory  
disposition of another body. This is why we can't build machines out  
of gas or empty space or drawings on paper.

Body and experience is what I search an explanation for.

Bruno

> which is the universal primitive upon which both ideal and material
> realism depends. Because arithmetic is a private representation of
> other private representations, it has no public existence which is
> independent of sense,

Assuming what?

Assuming that we have not detected 'numbers' appearing out of thin  
air?

?

> nor could any configuration of figures and functions give rise to
> any form of sense were they hypothetically able to exist
> independently of sense.
>
> Please don't hesitate to let me know what seems unclear about that.

In difficult interdisciplinary domain, actually even just in the
foundation of math, you can be clear only by working axiomatically or
semi-axiomatically, but this needs a kind of work that you have
already rejected in previous discussion, so I cannot insist on this.
It is just sad that your fuzzy theory makes you think that machine
cannot support thinking.

It's not sad if I'm right.

That is subjective. I think it is sad even if you are right, as it  
makes the zombies possible.

Zombies are only possible if you extend an expectation of sentience  
where it doesn't belong. Puppets and avatars are not only possible,  
but they are everywhere, and understanding how layers of sense are  
partitioned is essential to any theory of consciousness.

To me it's sad that we are seriously considering that machines  
could generate thinking based on nothing but superficial  
correspondences to behavior, especially when we kno

Re: the curse of materialism



On 21 Jan 2013, at 20:05, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 1/21/2013 8:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
If you don't take arithmetic as primitive, I can prove that you  
cannot derive both addition and multiplication, nor the existence  
of computer. Then everything around me does not make sense. If you  
believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like a  
literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition and  
multiplication in the sense I would wait for.

Dear Bruno,

   Is this statement correctly written? How is it coherent that I  
need to derive from arithmetic that which is already in arithmetic?


Stephen, you are the one telling me that you don't assume the numbers,  
so it is normal that I ask you how you derive them form what you assume.





It seems to me that the physical activity of counting is the source  
of derivation of arithmetics!


But you have to derive the physical activity first, then.




Of cource we cannot just consider the activity of a single entity  
but that of many entities, each counting in their own ways and  
developing communication methods between themselves.
   Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for  
material things to have representations of things, intensionality,  
such as numbers.


yes, even weak materialism. But your point is not valid, unless you  
prove it first.




Numbers fail, as a ground of ontology, as they can not transform  
themselves and remain the same. Matter is exactly that which can  
transform and remain the same!


? (looks like a prose to me).

Bruno


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



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Re: Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-22 Thread Roger Clough

Hi socra...@bezeqint.net 

CS Peirce  believed that scientific laws were "habits"
or "laws" developed by nature. So, according to CSP:

Firstness= random
Secondness = deterministic
Thirdness= habit or law

Rupert Sheldrake has similar ideas with his
morphic resonances. 

As for myself, I'm too conservative to
easily accept these views, but I am 
open to examining them.
- Receiving the following content - 
From: socra...@bezeqint.net 
Receiver: Everything List 
Time: 2013-01-22, 03:19:16
Subject: Re: the curse of materialism


 Book: What is your dangerous idea?
 / Edited by John Brockman /
  Article:
Seeing Darwin in the light of Einstein;
Seeing Einstein in the light of Darwin.
  / by Lee Smolin. /
===.
   / Page 115 /
Seeing Einstein in the light of Darwin suggests that
 natural selection could act not only on living things
 but on the properties defining the various species
 of elementary particles.
   / Page 117 /
We physicists have now to understand Darwin? lesson:
The only way to understand how one out of a vast number
 of choices was made, which favors improbable structure,
 is that is the result of evolution by natural selection.
   / Page 117 /
Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature,
and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of
evolution.
  / Page 118 /
And I believe that once this is achieved, Einstein and Darwin
 will be understood as partners in the greatest revolution
 yet in science, . . .
   / Lee Smolin. /
 http://www.leesmolin.com/
==.
Questions.
1
On which biological level is possible to use phrase:
 Darwinian natural selection, Darwin? evolution ?
2
On which biological level does consciousness appear ?.
===.

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Re: Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-22 Thread Roger Clough

Hi socra...@bezeqint.net 

Shechtman also did work on quasicrystals at NIST,
as a visiting scientist in the same materials division
that I was in. I don't know why he got such a shoddy
treatment-- whether it was political or antisemitic or
professional jealousy.  There was one world- famous 
physicist-metallurgist in our group that worked closely 
with him and might have shared the glory, but it
would be unkind to that physicist to cast such aspersions.  
Actually, that can't be true, since, as you relate, Shechtman 
also had problems in Israel. 



- Receiving the following content - 
From: socra...@bezeqint.net 
Receiver: Everything List 
Time: 2013-01-22, 02:46:12
Subject: Re: the curse of materialism


  Lecture : Scientific heresy. Nov 1, 2011 in Edinburgh.
  / By Matt Ridley /
My topic today is scientific heresy.
When are scientific heretics right and when are they mad?
How do you tell the difference between science and pseudoscience?

#
Just this month Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize
 in chemistry for quasi crystals, having spent much of his career
 being vilified and exiled as a crank
? was thrown out of my research group.
They said I brought shame on them with what I was saying.?

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html

==.

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Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-22 Thread socra...@bezeqint.net

 Book:  What is your dangerous idea?
 / Edited by John Brockman /
  Article:
Seeing Darwin in the light of Einstein;
Seeing Einstein in the light of Darwin.
  / by Lee Smolin.  /
===.
   /  Page 115  /
Seeing Einstein in the light of Darwin suggests that
 natural selection could act not only on living things
 but on the properties defining the various species
 of elementary particles.
   /  Page 117  /
We physicists have now to understand Darwin’s lesson:
The only way to understand how one out of a vast number
 of choices was made, which favors improbable structure,
 is that is the result of evolution by natural selection.
   / Page 117 /
Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature,
and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of
evolution.
  / Page 118 /
And I believe that once this is achieved, Einstein and Darwin
 will be understood as partners in the greatest revolution
 yet in science, . . .
   / Lee Smolin.  /
 http://www.leesmolin.com/
==.
Questions.
1
On which biological level is  possible to use phrase:
 Darwinian natural selection, Darwin’s evolution ?
2
On which biological level does consciousness appear ?.
===.

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Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-21 Thread socra...@bezeqint.net

  Lecture : Scientific heresy.  Nov 1, 2011 in Edinburgh.
  / By Matt Ridley /
My topic today is scientific heresy.
When are scientific heretics right and when are they mad?
How do you tell the difference between science and pseudoscience?

#
Just this month Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize
 in chemistry for quasi crystals, having spent much of his career
 being vilified and exiled as a crank
“I was thrown out of my research group.
They said I brought shame on them with what I was saying.”

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html

==.

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Re: the curse of materialism


On 1/21/2013 5:10 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 1/21/2013 4:59 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/21/2013 11:05 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for material things to 
have representations of things, intensionality, such as numbers.


That's something evolution explains.

Brent


Hi Brent,

Could you elaborate on this comment?


I thought it was obvious. A (material) living thing can be more successful reproducing if 
it can internally manipulate representations of things in the world, i.e. think and plan, 
such as counting them, adding and subtracting.  See the book by William S. Cooper which I 
have cited before.


Brent

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Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-21 Thread Stephen P. King


On 1/21/2013 4:59 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/21/2013 11:05 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for 
material things to have representations of things, intensionality, 
such as numbers.


That's something evolution explains.

Brent


Hi Brent,

Could you elaborate on this comment?

--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-21 Thread Stephen P. King


On 1/21/2013 2:45 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
I mean if we wanted to get technical I would split the physics of 
counting into the private motive experience quantitative reasoning 
from the sensory experiences of figures or forms upon which we project 
our representations, but yeah numbers need a substrate. I call that 
substrate physical, but not material as it experiential/intentional 
rather than substantial/extended.


Hi Craig,

What is the difference between experiential/intentional and 
substantial/extended other than a vague and undefined reference to some 
imaginary 3p? What I experience is 'substantial to me', at least for a 
moment until what ever it was vanishes again as new data arrives. What 
is intensional to me, as in, X implies Y where X does not equal Y or X 
is not the same as Y, other than a difference in quantity; the same kind 
of difference that one end of a yardstick has from the other end, when 
we abstracted away the variances.
So the one associated with yardsticks is easily represented as a 
scalar value, but isn't every thing substantial quantifiable in some way 
too? We sometimes fall prey to misplaced categorization...


--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: the curse of materialism

On 1/21/2013 3:27 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Monday, January 21, 2013 5:38:32 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 1/21/2013 2:09 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Monday, January 21, 2013 4:59:55 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 1/21/2013 11:05 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for
material
things to have representations of things, intensionality, such as
numbers.

That's something evolution explains.

Evolution can be used to retrospectively judge that it would be convenient
if there
were such things as representations, but it offers no such thing as a
physical
ontology of it. Evolution can also 'explain' why we have teleportation, time
travel, and telepathy in the same way.

If you want a causal explanation then I recommend you study computer
science and
learn how a computer can have representations of cities and faces.

I have taught computer classes professionally actually. I'm certified MCSE and CCEA and
have been using computers on a daily basis since 1981. Computers have no
representations. It is us who use pixels to represent images or transistors to represent
bits of information,

...and images (in computers) represent objects.

not a computer. A computer wouldn't know the difference between a city and a face if it
scanned every image of a face and a city in existence.

Then how does one manage to negotiate the surface of Mars and another to drive through the
streets of Los Angeles.

Brent

I recommend you study semiotics and learn how symbols and subjects relate.

When it comes to semiotics, I'm a pragmatist. The meaning of a symbol is how it effects
the perceiver. I think it's amusing that what is taken as serious academic philosophy in
France is done in the U.S. as marketing research.

Brent

Craig

Brent

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Re: the curse of materialism



On Monday, January 21, 2013 5:38:32 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 1/21/2013 2:09 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Monday, January 21, 2013 4:59:55 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>  On 1/21/2013 11:05 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: 
>>
>> Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for material 
>> things to have representations of things, intensionality, such as numbers.
>>
>>
>> That's something evolution explains.
>>  
>
> Evolution can be used to retrospectively judge that it would be convenient 
> if there were such things as representations, but it offers no such thing 
> as a physical ontology of it. Evolution can also 'explain' why we have 
> teleportation, time travel, and telepathy in the same way.
>  
>
> If you want a causal explanation then I recommend you study computer 
> science and learn how a computer can have representations of cities and 
> faces.
>

I have taught computer classes professionally actually. I'm certified MCSE 
and CCEA and have been using computers on a daily basis since 1981. 
Computers have no representations. It is us who use pixels to represent 
images or transistors to represent bits of information, not a computer. A 
computer wouldn't know the difference between a city and a face if it 
scanned every image of a face and a city in existence.

I recommend you study semiotics and learn how symbols and subjects relate. 

Craig



> Brent
>  

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Re: the curse of materialism


On 1/21/2013 2:09 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Monday, January 21, 2013 4:59:55 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 1/21/2013 11:05 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for material 
things to
have representations of things, intensionality, such as numbers.


That's something evolution explains.


Evolution can be used to retrospectively judge that it would be convenient if there were 
such things as representations, but it offers no such thing as a physical ontology of 
it. Evolution can also 'explain' why we have teleportation, time travel, and telepathy 
in the same way.


If you want a causal explanation then I recommend you study computer science and learn how 
a computer can have representations of cities and faces.


Brent

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Re: the curse of materialism



On Monday, January 21, 2013 4:59:55 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 1/21/2013 11:05 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: 
>
> Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for material 
> things to have representations of things, intensionality, such as numbers.
>
>
> That's something evolution explains.
>

Evolution can be used to retrospectively judge that it would be convenient 
if there were such things as representations, but it offers no such thing 
as a physical ontology of it. Evolution can also 'explain' why we have 
teleportation, time travel, and telepathy in the same way.

Craig
 

>
> Brent
>
>  

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Re: the curse of materialism


On 1/21/2013 11:05 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for material things to have 
representations of things, intensionality, such as numbers.


That's something evolution explains.

Brent

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Re: the curse of materialism



On Monday, January 21, 2013 2:45:00 PM UTC-5, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
> I call that substrate physical, but not material as it 
> experiential/intentional rather than substantial/extended.
>
>
> Of course, the experiential looks like material from the pov of another 
experience, if they are sufficiently alienated from each other's sense 
capacities.
 

>
> -- 
>> Onward! 
>>
>> Stephen 
>>
>>
>>

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Re: the curse of materialism



On Monday, January 21, 2013 2:05:08 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote:
>
> On 1/21/2013 8:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
> > If you don't take arithmetic as primitive, I can prove that you cannot 
> > derive both addition and multiplication, nor the existence of 
> > computer. Then everything around me does not make sense. If you 
> > believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like a 
> > literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition and 
> > multiplication in the sense I would wait for. 
>   Dear Bruno, 
>
>  Is this statement correctly written? How is it coherent that I need 
> to derive from arithmetic that which is already in arithmetic? It seems 
> to me that the physical activity of counting is the source of derivation 
> of arithmetics! Of cource we cannot just consider the activity of a 
> single entity but that of many entities, each counting in their own ways 
> and developing communication methods between themselves. 
>  Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for 
> material things to have representations of things, intensionality, such 
> as numbers. Numbers fail, as a ground of ontology, as they can not 
> transform themselves and remain the same. Matter is exactly that which 
> can transform and remain the same! 
>

Right on. I can agree with all of that. I mean if we wanted to get 
technical I would split the physics of counting into the private motive 
experience quantitative reasoning from the sensory experiences of figures 
or forms upon which we project our representations, but yeah numbers need a 
substrate. I call that substrate physical, but not material as it 
experiential/intentional rather than substantial/extended.

Craig

-- 
> Onward! 
>
> Stephen 
>
>
>

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Re: the curse of materialism



On Monday, January 21, 2013 12:01:50 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 21 Jan 2013, at 17:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
> You are saying that you can prove that the only way a computer can exist 
> is if arithmetic is irreducible? 
>
>
> I did not say that. I was saying that you have to assume the numbers and 
> plus+times (or equivalent) to define pattern recognition, computers, etc. 
>

I don't see that pattern recognition requires numbers to be defined. To the 
contrary, numbers are clearly patterns recognized by different means.

If you take pattern recognition as primitive, you don't help me to 
> understand anything you say. 
>

I don't have any choice but to take pattern recognition as primitive - it 
is primitive.
 

>
>
>
>
> Okay, prove that.
>  
>
>> Then everything around me does not make sense.
>
>
> Why?
>
>
> Because without computer in reality, I have one mystery more: how is it 
> that I can send you a mail?
>

The presence of a computer or network of computers doesn't mean that 
everything else doesn't make sense. Computers have only been around for a 
few decades.
 

>
>
>
>  
>
>> If you   
>> believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like a   
>> literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition and   
>> multiplication in the sense I would wait for. 
>>
>
> I have done this many times already, but you aren't really hearing or 
> understanding. Arithmetic primitives depend on more primitive sensory-motor 
> experiences. Addition and multiplication are not literal phenomena, rather 
> they are analytical descriptions and interpretations of phenomena which are 
> either bodies in space, experiences through time, or combinations and 
> continuations thereof. To get to addition, you need to have an experience 
> of counting, of memory, of discernment and augmentation, of solitary 
> coherence and multiplicity, of succession and sequence, of presentation and 
> representation...so many things... I have repeated this several times, why 
> do you act as if I have been silent on this point?
>
>
> Sorry but you are confusing the numbers I assume, to explain just the 
> working of a computer, with the human intuition of numbers, and the human 
> senses, which needs the whole biological evolution to be explained. But you 
> talk like if you start from human sense, which is non sensical for me. 
> Sorry.
>

I don't start from human sense at all. I start from the irreducible. 
Perceptual participation = experience. The reason a computer works is 
because a there is an experience in which a body participates in a 
perception of not being able to occupy the same space as another body, or 
of a body being able to modify its own sensory-motor disposition based upon 
the capacity to perceive some sensory-motory disposition of another body. 
This is why we can't build machines out of gas or empty space or drawings 
on paper.

 

>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> > which is the universal primitive upon which both ideal and material   
>> > realism depends. Because arithmetic is a private representation of   
>> > other private representations, it has no public existence which is   
>> > independent of sense, 
>>
>> Assuming what? 
>>
>>
> Assuming that we have not detected 'numbers' appearing out of thin air? 
>
>
>
> ?
>
>
>
>
>>
>> > nor could any configuration of figures and functions give rise to   
>> > any form of sense were they hypothetically able to exist   
>> > independently of sense. 
>> > 
>> > Please don't hesitate to let me know what seems unclear about that. 
>>
>> In difficult interdisciplinary domain, actually even just in the   
>> foundation of math, you can be clear only by working axiomatically or   
>> semi-axiomatically, but this needs a kind of work that you have   
>> already rejected in previous discussion, so I cannot insist on this.   
>> It is just sad that your fuzzy theory makes you think that machine   
>> cannot support thinking. 
>>
>
> It's not sad if I'm right. 
>
>
> That is subjective. I think it is sad even if you are right, as it makes 
> the zombies possible.
>

Zombies are only possible if you extend an expectation of sentience where 
it doesn't belong. Puppets and avatars are not only possible, but they are 
everywhere, and understanding how layers of sense are partitioned is 
essential to any theory of consciousness.


>
>
> To me it's sad that we are seriously considering that machines could 
> generate thinking based on nothing but superficial correspondences to 
> behavior, especially when we know specifically that behavior and 
> consciousness are not directly correlated. 
>
>
> You are deadly wrong on this. The fact that machine could possibly think 
> is, for me, more related in the fact that they are mute on the deep 
> question than by any kind of behavior they can have. 
>

To me the fact that they are mute on the deep questions is an obvious 
tautology. If you ask something which can't think a question which requires 
thinking,

Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-21 Thread Stephen P. King


On 1/21/2013 8:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
If you don't take arithmetic as primitive, I can prove that you cannot 
derive both addition and multiplication, nor the existence of 
computer. Then everything around me does not make sense. If you 
believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like a 
literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition and 
multiplication in the sense I would wait for.

 Dear Bruno,

Is this statement correctly written? How is it coherent that I need 
to derive from arithmetic that which is already in arithmetic? It seems 
to me that the physical activity of counting is the source of derivation 
of arithmetics! Of cource we cannot just consider the activity of a 
single entity but that of many entities, each counting in their own ways 
and developing communication methods between themselves.
Materialism fails since it cannot explain how it is possible for 
material things to have representations of things, intensionality, such 
as numbers. Numbers fail, as a ground of ontology, as they can not 
transform themselves and remain the same. Matter is exactly that which 
can transform and remain the same!


--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: the curse of materialism

2013-01-21 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 21 Jan 2013, at 17:45, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Monday, January 21, 2013 8:30:39 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 20 Jan 2013, at 19:19, Craig Weinberg wrote:

>
>
> On Friday, January 18, 2013 1:15:09 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 17 Jan 2013, at 18:50, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 7:06:03 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King
>> wrote:
>> On 1/16/2013 5:32 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
>> > That is the most clear demosnstration that what we perceive is in
>> the
>> > mind ,and the rest out of the mind is only mathematics (or some
>> kind
>> > of underlying conputation)
>>
>> Mathematics is even further in the mind than geometry (which is why
>> 3D geometry is intuitive to any toddler, while learning basic
>> arithmetic takes some work).
>>
>> Mathematics does not exist on its own. It does not haunt the vacuum
>> of distance.
>
> In your theory. But it has not yet been developed, and it is a bit
> exhausting that you talk systematically like knowing a truth.  You
> are unclear on your idea, and unclear why they should be a problem
> for comp, or even for arithmetical realism. I am not sure
> "mathematics exists" make any sense to me.
>
> I am only unclear in why you would think that I am unclear.

Of course.

> My understanding is that arithmetic truth is one facet of pattern
> recognition,

Can you define "pattern recognition" without arithmetic or equivalent?
I doubt.

Pattern recognition is the private presentation of experience. It  
has no further definition because it is an ontological primitive.  
Arithmetic adds an expectation of reliability and precision to that  
fundamental nature, but reliability and precision are also private  
presentations of experience as well. Certainly the capacity to  
experience the pattern of wetness or dizzyness need not supervene on  
any arithmetic basis.

We have a different methodology. I start from what people agree on,
like simple arithmetic, and computationalism, then i derive from this.
But you start from your intuition.

I start from the recognition that what people agree on, or think  
they agree on, is also intuition. You start by overlooking the  
intuition behind the initial agreements on what are actually complex  
intellectual products of human civilization. Your intuition is that  
these products, because of their seeming universality and circular  
validation of themselves, are a potential replacement for the  
conscious reasoning which has invented/discovered/refined them. I  
see that as clearly a confirmation bias amplified by selective  
disqualification.

If you don't take arithmetic as primitive, I can prove that you cannot
derive both addition and multiplication, nor the existence of
computer.

You are saying that you can prove that the only way a computer can  
exist is if arithmetic is irreducible?

I did not say that. I was saying that you have to assume the numbers  
and plus+times (or equivalent) to define pattern recognition,  
computers, etc. If you take pattern recognition as primitive, you  
don't help me to understand anything you say.

Okay, prove that.

Then everything around me does not make sense.

Why?

Because without computer in reality, I have one mystery more: how is  
it that I can send you a mail?

If you
believe you can derive them, then do it. But you proceed like a
literary philosophers, so I have doubt you can derive addition and
multiplication in the sense I would wait for.

I have done this many times already, but you aren't really hearing  
or understanding. Arithmetic primitives depend on more primitive  
sensory-motor experiences. Addition and multiplication are not  
literal phenomena, rather they are analytical descriptions and  
interpretations of phenomena which are either bodies in space,  
experiences through time, or combinations and continuations thereof.  
To get to addition, you need to have an experience of counting, of  
memory, of discernment and augmentation, of solitary coherence and  
multiplicity, of succession and sequence, of presentation and  
representation...so many things... I have repeated this several  
times, why do you act as if I have been silent on this point?

Sorry but you are confusing the numbers I assume, to explain just the  
working of a computer, with the human intuition of numbers, and the  
human senses, which needs the whole biological evolution to be  
explained. But you talk like if you start from human sense, which is  
non sensical for me. Sorry.

> which is the universal primitive upon which both ideal and material
> realism depends. Because arithmetic is a private representation of
> other private representations, it has no public existence which is
> independent of sense,

Assuming what?

Assuming that we have not detected 'numbers' appearing out of thin  
air?

?

> nor could any configuration of figures and functions give rise to
> any form of sense were they hypothetically able to exist

Re: the curse of materialism