Hi Bruno,
Well! Perhaps we are closer than I thought but that has implications of its own… From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-l...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2010 11:25 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Does the plants quantum computations? Hi Stephen, On 20 Feb 2010, at 19:52, Stephen P. King wrote: snip I like that it does not ignore consciousness as it puts logic in its core notions, but there still something missing. There is no necessity for there to be the phenomena of a physical world evolving in time in Comp. [BM] You worried me, but I see you just have not yet seen the point. It is OK. It is a very subtle point, where "Aristotelians" can have some difficulties. Actually, recently an expert on Aristotle confirmed my feeling (after my reading of Aristotle and Plotinus), that Aristotle got that "subtle point", and that Plotinus found indeed the most plausible correction of Aristotle theory of Matter coherent with the Plato type of "reality/truth/God". Matter is no more an epiphenomenon than consciousness. If you really insist to see an epiphenomenon in comp, you may say that it is the whole coupling matter/consciousness which is an epiphenomenon bearing on the number theoretical relations. [SPK] Wait, are you saying that both matter and Mind are epiphenomena?! This is where, again, I recall my post asking how mere existence of Forms is sufficient to allow for that with is, at least for 1-p, unassailable. As I see it a neutral monism is preferable, but this would require that mater and mind are aspects that only can obtain when the possibility of distinguishing them from each other obtains. *** Not only comp preserves and give a role to consciousness, but it preserves the interaction of mind and matter. And this in the usual two way directions. ** [SPK] Causality has an arrow pointing in one direction and logical precedent in the opposite. This is one of V. Pratt’s ideas with Chu Space construction. But note that his idea only works with a tacit assumption of an underlying process and it is “process” per say that I would like to understand how is allowed in any form of Platonism. AFAIK, Platonism assumes Being as a primitive and becoming is taken as an illusion, thus all things that are transitory are deemed to be lesser and even evil in Plato’s eyes. Maybe Plato and Cantor and You should have a chat. There is a relationship between Infinities and Finities that needs to be considered, a relationship that need not be taken as one supervening on the other. Within infinities one finds the notion of making distinctions to be very difficult, even impossible, thus the problem of the measure. ** You can define a cosmos, or a cosmic history, by a set of "events" and their closure for matter-matter interactions, and those are very solid, given that they sum up the whole (sigma_1) arithmetical truth "everywhere". You can define an accessible multiverse, by the the closure mind-matter interaction, this extend vastly any observable cosmos or branch of reality. It makes possible to share our dreams. It makes possible all couplings of Universal machines with themselves. ** [SPK] I am not sure that closure can be proven unless we are assuming some axioms of set/logic that might not be the case. I think that the foundation and choice axioms are troublesome, but that is a different conversation. BTW, are you familiar with Leibniz’ Monadology? ** The multiverse is just not the whole thing, eventually it is the border of the ignorance of 'God''. Matter is the highly indeterminate part of the arithmetical reality when trying to see itself. It forces the appearance of indeterminacies for each local entities trying to figure out what it is made of, when getting near its substitution level. ** [SPK] Umm, I believe that it is more than just arithmetical reality that is trying to see itself. I bet that there is far more to “Reality” than Arithmetic. This is where I have sympathies with people like Penrose that balk at the idea that we are merely computations. But I think that there is a point where we can be considered as computations and a point where we cannot. This is where I find the idea of the universe as a ‘frozen 4d hypercube” to be missing the point. We cannot just hand wave change away. I see “time” as a measure of change, change in itself does not have a measure associated to it so to not consider that Becoming is fundamental seems to be at least myopia. ** Now, if you want a "time" à-la Prigogine, i.e. if you want time fundamental and primitive, then neither comp nor general relativity nor Plato, nor Plotinus, nor any theory with a notion of block -ontological thing can satisfy you. But this is not related to the "epiphenomena" question. With comp, the simplest ontology is the block-(sigma_1) arithmetical truth, or the universal dovetailing trace (UD*), but from this emerges, as seen form inside (defined by the hypostases) a coupling consciousness/matter, but also a coupling <what is Its name>/consciousness, and other "hypostatic" couplings. ** [SPK] No, time as a notion only is meaningful when there can be a measure of a rate of change. All Clocks work by comparing some know rate to a measure or scale and thereby show a quantity of duration as a derivative idea not a primitive. Time is not a substance and should never be considered as such. Perhaps the problem is that we have not sufficiently thought about what Time is or could not be. I recommend this paper on that subject: <http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9408027> http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9408027 ** You may say that matter is an epiphenomenon when seen *directly* relatively to "God". "God" probably cannot act on matter, but "God" can act on consciousness, and consciousness can act on matter, and matter can act on consciousness which can act on God. Very roughly speaking; You may try to read the ennead "on the two matter" by Plotinus. Somehow matter is what the souls do, when they fall. And it is what they use, if only to come back. Sort of dynamical two ways road, perhaps the famous Chu transform (you talked to me about sometimes ago). ** [SPK] We need to be careful that we do not ascribe to God abilities that only we as finite entities have! How can an Infinite entity distinguish itself from a proper subset of itself? As I understand it, it cannot! Additionally, even God as an infinite Computational system must compute one step of an algorithm that would compare one 3,1 manifold to another, a computation that has been proven to be NP-Complete. I discovered this when I was considering Leibniz’ reasons for postulating a pre-ordained harmony for his monads… ** If you read Plotinus, you may be unpleased by the (common among Platonists) identification of matter with evil, but this is related to the fact that matter is mainly built on an absolute and infinite first person(plural) indeterminacy (cf "God" cannot tell you in advance if you will wake up in Washington or Moscow, and your next state, as an observer, is determined by an infinity of computations). ** [SPK] This indeterminacy might be the same as what I mentioned above… But again, why work so hard to keep up the notion of an a priori computation when we can consider the idea of an ongoing computation, where the sense of “being computable” is one that is discovered not just assumed to exist beforehand, one that does not need to “know it all ahead of time”. God’s Creativity need not be limited to a special place and time. ** Note that the Löbian machines explain both the intelligible matter (the necessity of the quanta and their laws), and the sensible matter (the necessity of private qualia, and their laws). And quanta appear to be qualia, albeit first person plural sharable. And, thanks to local brains and hands, minds can manipulate both of them. With comp, matter is no more primitive, but still fundamental. ** [SPK] I still do not fully understand Löbian machines but I will keep studying. Thank you so much for your patience and effort. Onward! Stephen P. King -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.