Hi Roger Clough,
I have regrouped my comments because they are related.
On 30 Sep 2012, at 13:34, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Stephen P. King
With his relativity principle, Einstein showed us that
there is no such thing as space, because all distances
are relational, relative, not absolute.
With comp there is clear sense in which there is not space, are there
is only numbers (or lambda terms) and that they obey only two simple
laws: addition and multiplication (resp. application and abstraction).
Note that with Einstein, there is still an absolute space-time.
The Michelson朚orley experiment also proved that
there is no ether, there is absolutely nothing
there in what we call space.
I agree, but there are little loopholes, perhaps. A friend of mine
made his PhD on a plausible intepretation of Poincaré relativity
theory, and points on the fact that such a theory can explain some of
the non covariance of the Bohmian quantum mechanics (which is a many-
world theory + particles having a necessary unknown initial conditions
so that an added potential will guide the particle in one universe
among those described by the universal quantum wave.
I don't take this seriously, though.
Photons simply
jump across space, their so-called waves are
simply mathematical constructions.
In that case you will have to explain me how mathematical construction
can go through two slits and interfere.
Leibniz similarly said, in his own way, that
neither space nor time are substances.
They do not exist. They do exist, however,
when they join to become (extended) substances
appearing as spacetime.
OK. (and comp plausible).
other post:
Hi Stephen P. King
Leibniz would not go along with epiphenomena because
the matter that materialists base their beliefs in
is not real, so it can't emanate consciousness.
Comp true .
Leibniz did not believe in matter in the same way that
atheists today do not believe in God.
Comp true .
And with good reason. Leibniz contended that not only matter,
but spacetime itself (or any extended substance) could not
real because extended substances are infinitely divisible.
Space time itself is not real for a deeper reason.
Why would the physical not be infinitely divisible and extensible,
especially if not real?
Personally. I substitute Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
as the basis for this view because the fundamental particles
are supposedly divisible.
By definition an atom is not divisible, and the atoms today are the
elementary particles. Not sure you can divide an electron or a Higgs
boson.
With comp particles might get the sme explanation as the physicist, as
fixed points for some transformation in a universal group or universal
symmetrical system.
The simple groups, the exceptional groups, the Monster group can play
some role there (I speculate).
Or one might substitute
Einstein's principle of the relativity of spacetime.
The uncertainties left with us by Heisenberg on
the small scale and Einstein on the large scale
ought to cause materialists to base their beliefs on
something less elusive than matter.
I can't agree more. Matter is plausibly the last ether of physics.
Provably so if comp is true, and if there is no flaw in UDA.
OTHER POST
Hi Bruno Marchal
I'm still trying to figure out how numbers and ideas fit
into Leibniz's metaphysics. Little is written about this issue,
so I have to rely on what Leibniz says otherwise about monads.
OK. I will interpret your monad by intensional number.
let me be explicit on this. I fixe once and for all a universal
system: I chose the programming language LISP. Actually, a subset of
it: the programs LISP computing only (partial) functions from N to N,
with some list representation of the numbers like (0), (S 0), (S S
0), ...
I enumerate in lexicographic way all the programs LISP. P_1, P_2,
P_3, ...
The ith partial computable functions phi_i is the one computed by P_i.
I can place on N a new operation, written #, with a # b = phi_a(b),
that is the result of the application of the ath program LISP, P_a, in
the enumeration of all the program LISP above, on b.
Then I define a number as being intensional when it occurs at the left
of an expression like a # b.
The choice of a universal system transforms each number into a
(partial) function from N to N.
A number u is universal if phi_u(a, b) = phi_a(b). u interprets or
understands the program a and apply it to on b to give the result
phi_a(b). a is the program, b is the data, and u is the computer. (a,
b) here abbreviates some number coding the couple (a, b), to stay
withe function having one argument (so u is a P_i, there is a
universal program P_u).
Universal is an intensional notion, it concerns the number playing the
role of a name for the function. The left number in the (partial)
operation #.
Previously I noted that numbers could not be monads because
monads
