Re: Existence and Properties
On 03 Oct 2011, at 19:41, meekerdb wrote: On 10/3/2011 8:43 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: [SPK] Let me try to be sure that I understand this comment. When you write: they will all see the same laws are you referring to those invariant quantities and relations/functions with respect to transformations of reference frames/coordinate systems (which has become the de facto definition of physical laws) or are you referring to our collective human idea of physical laws? Why does it seem to me that you assume that the physical laws that we observe are the only possible ones? To badly echo Leibniz: How these and not some others? It seems to me that we observe exactly the physical laws that are consistent with our existence as observers within this universe, a universe where we can communicate representations of the contents of our 1p to each other. Communication requires a plurality of possible 1p for each and every separate observer in one universe to act as the template from which signal is distinguished from noise, plurality is insufficient to communications between observers. One needs something like the Hennessy-Milner property for a coherent notion of communication. There seems to be no a priori reason why we do not experience a universe that contains only a single conscious entity or a universe with completely different laws along with completely different physicality for the observers wherein. IMHO, There is something to the self-selection that Nick Bostrom tedand others have writen about that needs to be included in this discussion in addition to the contraints that communications between many separate entities generates. The conservation laws come from the requirement that we want our laws to be the same for everyone at every time and place. This is our idea of laws. I'm sure you're familiar with Noether's theorem and how she showed that conservation of moment comes from the requirement of invariance under spatial shifts, etc. That is beautiful and rather convincing. My friend Vic Stenger has written a book, The Comprehesible Cosmos, which shows how this idea extends to general relativity, the standard model, gauge theories, etc. and provides a unified view of physics. I recommend it. The part of physics is interesting, but if he would take more seriously the mind-body problem, I think he would appreciated the comp new form of invariance for the physical laws: that is, that the laws of physics do not depend on the initial universal theory. It does not depend on the choice of the computation-coordinates (the phi_i). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@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.
Re: Existence and Properties
On 10/4/2011 10:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Oct 2011, at 19:41, meekerdb wrote: On 10/3/2011 8:43 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: [SPK] Let me try to be sure that I understand this comment. When you write: they will all see the same laws are you referring to those invariant quantities and relations/functions with respect to transformations of reference frames/coordinate systems (which has become the de facto definition of physical laws) or are you referring to our collective human idea of physical laws? Why does it seem to me that you assume that the physical laws that we observe are the only possible ones? To badly echo Leibniz: How these and not some others? It seems to me that we observe exactly the physical laws that are consistent with our existence as observers within this universe, a universe where we can communicate representations of the contents of our 1p to each other. Communication requires a plurality of possible 1p for each and every separate observer in one universe to act as the template from which signal is distinguished from noise, plurality is insufficient to communications between observers. One needs something like the Hennessy-Milner property http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hennessy-milner+propertyhl=enas_sdt=0as_vis=1oi=scholart for a coherent notion of communication. There seems to be no a priori reason why we do not experience a universe that contains only a single conscious entity or a universe with completely different laws along with completely different physicality for the observers wherein. IMHO, There is something to the self-selection that Nick Bostrom tedand others have writen about that needs to be included in this discussion in addition to the contraints that communications between many separate entities generates. The conservation laws come from the requirement that we want our laws to be the same for everyone at every time and place. This is our idea of laws. I'm sure you're familiar with Noether's theorem and how she showed that conservation of moment comes from the requirement of invariance under spatial shifts, etc. That is beautiful and rather convincing. My friend Vic Stenger has written a book, The Comprehesible Cosmos, which shows how this idea extends to general relativity, the standard model, gauge theories, etc. and provides a unified view of physics. I recommend it. The part of physics is interesting, but if he would take more seriously the mind-body problem, I think he would appreciated the comp new form of invariance for the physical laws: that is, that the laws of physics do not depend on the initial universal theory. It does not depend on the choice of the computation-coordinates (the phi_i). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ -- Hi Brent, I am taking Noether's theorems into account. Furthermore, you might note that those theorems collapse if there does not exist spatial and/or temporal manifold. Hi Bruno, Did you happen to have any comment on the rest of my post? It seems that you are intentionally avoiding my argument. Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@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.
Re: Existence and Properties
On 10/4/2011 10:25 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: The conservation laws come from the requirement that we want our laws to be the same for everyone at every time and place. This is our idea of laws. I'm sure you're familiar with Noether's theorem and how she showed that conservation of moment comes from the requirement of invariance under spatial shifts, etc. That is beautiful and rather convincing. My friend Vic Stenger has written a book, The Comprehesible Cosmos, which shows how this idea extends to general relativity, the standard model, gauge theories, etc. and provides a unified view of physics. I recommend it. The part of physics is interesting, but if he would take more seriously the mind-body problem, I think he would appreciated the comp new form of invariance for the physical laws: that is, that the laws of physics do not depend on the initial universal theory. It does not depend on the choice of the computation-coordinates (the phi_i). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ -- Hi Brent, I am taking Noether's theorems into account. Furthermore, you might note that those theorems collapse if there does not exist spatial and/or temporal manifold. The manifold doesn't need to be spatial or temporal. Gauge theories are built on rotations in an abstract space. But my point was just that the answer to the question of where do the laws of physics come from is that We make them up. That answer isn't a surrender to solipism or mysticism because we make them up so that everybody will agree on them at every place and time. And as every time and place is expanded by our use of instruments to extend our range of perceptions it becomes a very strong constraint indeed. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@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.
Re: Existence and Properties
On 10/4/2011 4:20 PM, meekerdb wrote: On 10/4/2011 10:25 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: The conservation laws come from the requirement that we want our laws to be the same for everyone at every time and place. This is our idea of laws. I'm sure you're familiar with Noether's theorem and how she showed that conservation of moment comes from the requirement of invariance under spatial shifts, etc. That is beautiful and rather convincing. My friend Vic Stenger has written a book, The Comprehesible Cosmos, which shows how this idea extends to general relativity, the standard model, gauge theories, etc. and provides a unified view of physics. I recommend it. The part of physics is interesting, but if he would take more seriously the mind-body problem, I think he would appreciated the comp new form of invariance for the physical laws: that is, that the laws of physics do not depend on the initial universal theory. It does not depend on the choice of the computation-coordinates (the phi_i). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/ -- Hi Brent, I am taking Noether's theorems into account. Furthermore, you might note that those theorems collapse if there does not exist spatial and/or temporal manifold. The manifold doesn't need to be spatial or temporal. Gauge theories are built on rotations in an abstract space. But my point was just that the answer to the question of where do the laws of physics come from is that We make them up. That answer isn't a surrender to solipism or mysticism because we make them up so that everybody will agree on them at every place and time. And as every time and place is expanded by our use of instruments to extend our range of perceptions it becomes a very strong constraint indeed. -- Hi, Yes, gauge theories are built on transformations in an abstract space but if you examine those theories carefully you will find that not only is there some form of continuity and smoothness allowing the construction of analytical solutions, but also there exists a mapping between behaviors in those abstract spaces and observable phenomena. If this later mapping did not exist then the theories could not be claimed to be physics, at best they would merely be abstract math and might be considered to be just patterns of abstract games played by imaginative entities. It is mathematics that needs to be careful not to fall into solipsism, for if it has no relation at all with the physical then how does one even consider notions of knowledge of it! Idealism is a very seductive ontological model but it suffers from a very simple but fatal flaw: it reduces all aspects of physicality, such as space, time, solidity, etc. , to mere epiphenomenal descriptions and thus removes any possibility of a coherent notion of causality, time and location. Witness how mathematical entities are claimed to exist independent of physicality, is this not a claim that they have a completely separate existence. How then does one propose the ability to know of the properties of such mathematical entities? If you examine Platonism carefully you will find that it assumes a crude form of substance dualism. Study Plato's writings about noesis http://books.google.com/books?id=N9IMz_YP5IkCpg=PA37lpg=PA37dq=plato+noesissource=blots=kb9xdzTCwysig=g3mJl3BpVyn6t3irKwiNtPArn_ohl=enei=Gn6LTtiDDMO-twfjv8SgAwsa=Xoi=book_resultct=resultresnum=8sqi=2ved=0CFcQ6AEwBw#v=onepageq=plato%20noesisf=false and the allegory of the cave... I demand that our explanatory models be observationally falsifiable and self-consistent, thus avoiding the pitfalls of mystisism, but when one is looking into ontological models then one must be careful to have some form of continuance between the ontological aspects of the model and some connection to observability (by many independent observers). My interest in in ontology and cosmogony models, thus my membership to this List. :-) Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@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.
Re: Existence and Properties
On 10/1/2011 9:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 01 Oct 2011, at 02:18, David Nyman wrote: On 30 September 2011 16:55, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. I've been following this discussion, though not commenting (I don't understand all of it). However, your remark above caught my eye, because it reminded me of something that came up a while back, about whether reductive explanations logically entail elimination of non-primitive entities. I argued that this is their whole point; Peter Jones disputed it. Your comment (supporting my view, I think) was that reductionism was necessarily ontologically eliminative, though of course not epistemologically so. Yes. This makes sense. Certainly a wise attitude, given that UDA shows that if Mechanism is correct then both consciousness and matter are reduced to number relations. If reduction was elimination, we should conclude that consciousness does not exist (that would be nonsensical for any conscious creature) and that the physical reality does not exist, which does not make much sense either. A physicalist would also be obliged to say that molecules, living organism, etc. don't exist. Note that James Watson seemed to have defended such a strong reductive eliminativism. But I don't see any problem with reduction, once we agree that some form of existence can be reduced to other, without implying elimination. Mechanism makes it clear that machine are *correct* when they believe in material form. Indeed all LUMs can see by themselves the rise of matter, or the correct laws of matter by introspection, and they will all see the same laws. [SPK] Let me try to be sure that I understand this comment. When you write: they will all see the same laws are you referring to those invariant quantities and relations/functions with respect to transformations of reference frames/coordinate systems (which has become the de facto definition of physical laws) or are you referring to our collective human idea of physical laws? Why does it seem to me that you assume that the physical laws that we observe are the only possible ones? To badly echo Leibniz: How these and not some others? It seems to me that we observe exactly the physical laws that are consistent with our existence as observers within this universe, a universe where we can communicate representations of the contents of our 1p to each other. Communication requires a plurality of possible 1p for each and every separate observer in one universe to act as the template from which signal is distinguished from noise, plurality is insufficient to communications between observers. One needs something like the Hennessy-Milner property http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hennessy-milner+propertyhl=enas_sdt=0as_vis=1oi=scholart for a coherent notion of communication. There seems to be no a priori reason why we do not experience a universe that contains only a single conscious entity or a universe with completely different laws along with completely different physicality for the observers wherein. IMHO, There is something to the self-selection that Nick Bostrom tedand others have writen about that needs to be included in this discussion in addition to the contraints that communications between many separate entities generates. Indeed this seemed to me uncontroversial, in that the whole point of a reductionist program is to show how all references to compound entities can be replaced by more primitive ones. Your remark above seems now to be making a similar point about arithmetical reductionism in the sense that, presumably, computations can analogously (if loosely) be considered compounds of arithmetical primitives, a point that had indeed occurred to me at the time. If so, what interests me is the question that inspired the older controversy. If the primitives of a given ontology are postulated to be all that really exist, how are we supposed to account for the apparent existence of compound entities? We need two things. The primitive objects, and the basic laws to which the primitive objects obeys, and which will be responsible of making possible the higher level of organization of those primitive objects, or some higher level appearances of structures. [SPK] But why some particular type of primitive rather than some other? It seems to me, for symmetry reasons, that a truly ultimate primitive would have no particular properties associated with it at all! I think that there is a flaw in this reductionist idea, the idea that there exists a fundamental
Re: Existence and Properties
On 10/3/2011 8:43 AM, Stephen P. King wrote: [SPK] Let me try to be sure that I understand this comment. When you write: they will all see the same laws are you referring to those invariant quantities and relations/functions with respect to transformations of reference frames/coordinate systems (which has become the de facto definition of physical laws) or are you referring to our collective human idea of physical laws? Why does it seem to me that you assume that the physical laws that we observe are the only possible ones? To badly echo Leibniz: How these and not some others? It seems to me that we observe exactly the physical laws that are consistent with our existence as observers within this universe, a universe where we can communicate representations of the contents of our 1p to each other. Communication requires a plurality of possible 1p for each and every separate observer in one universe to act as the template from which signal is distinguished from noise, plurality is insufficient to communications between observers. One needs something like the Hennessy-Milner property http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=hennessy-milner+propertyhl=enas_sdt=0as_vis=1oi=scholart for a coherent notion of communication. There seems to be no a priori reason why we do not experience a universe that contains only a single conscious entity or a universe with completely different laws along with completely different physicality for the observers wherein. IMHO, There is something to the self-selection that Nick Bostrom tedand others have writen about that needs to be included in this discussion in addition to the contraints that communications between many separate entities generates. The conservation laws come from the requirement that we want our laws to be the same for everyone at every time and place. This is our idea of laws. I'm sure you're familiar with Noether's theorem and how she showed that conservation of moment comes from the requirement of invariance under spatial shifts, etc. My friend Vic Stenger has written a book, The Comprehesible Cosmos, which shows how this idea extends to general relativity, the standard model, gauge theories, etc. and provides a unified view of physics. I recommend it. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@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.
Re: Existence and Properties
On 3 October 2011 16:43, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: [SPK] But why some particular type of primitive rather than some other? It seems to me, for symmetry reasons, that a truly ultimate primitive would have no particular properties associated with it at all! I think that there is a flaw in this reductionist idea, the idea that there exists a fundamental primitive that both is irreducible (by definition!) and has some properties rather than some others. We have been considering some form of Number as our primitive and I have been raising objections to this because while numbers definitely do seem to be irreducible primitives, the very notion that they are numbers vanishes when we consider them at this primitive level because the structure of Arithmetic, which gives meaning and haecceity to them, was dissolved away by the Aqua Regia of Reduction. One cannot have properties and not the means that generates them, to claim otherwise is a contradiction Stephen, I don't know if the following will help (and I don't know either if Bruno will agree with it), but there are a few intuitions that have helped me to get intuitively closer to these topics (to the extent that I can). First, I try not to be too literal-minded about number, at least in any of its local instantiations. Obviously, if we try to picture ourselves as being in some way literally made out of numbers in any of their ordinary manifestations, it's very difficult to make any sense of AR. I'm not suggesting that you are being this literal-minded, by the way. But speaking for myself, I tend to intuit comp's starting position on ontology as something like: in order to make sense of CTM, assume some primitive analytical-combinatorial principle which is equivalent to arithmetic in *all relevant respects*. What remains (almost everything!) is then to discover whether and how, within precisely these limitations, we can recover what we're ultimately in pursuit of - mind and matter - also *in all relevant respects*. It turns out that, to have any hope of doing this, some key supplementary ideas are in fact required, and the easiest one to lose sight of, perhaps, is the critical additional assumption (if indeed it is correct to call it merely an assumption) of the knower - the inside view, or epistemological reality. Now, however one nuances terms like ontology and epistemology, we cannot but acknowledge the personal manifestation of the knower - the first person - as some intimate amalgam of knowing and being. This amalgam I take to be an irreducible fact, but nonetheless what comp seeks to show is how the logical ontology of AR can both underpin (i.e. form the structural basis of), and permit reference to, such epistemological facts. This last point - i.e. that of reference - actually seems to me to be the strongest motivation for a combinatorial approach to the mind-body conundrum. Try as I might, I have never succeeded in imagining another ontologically primitive assumption capable of capturing the fundamental aspects of reference (and particularly self-reference); and unless the basis of such reference is built into our foundational assumptions, it seems to me that the possibility of recovering it later (say, from the ramifications of a physicalist theory) is a stark impossibility. I hope this may help, or at least may lead to some helpful amplification. David On 10/1/2011 9:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 01 Oct 2011, at 02:18, David Nyman wrote: On 30 September 2011 16:55, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. I've been following this discussion, though not commenting (I don't understand all of it). However, your remark above caught my eye, because it reminded me of something that came up a while back, about whether reductive explanations logically entail elimination of non-primitive entities. I argued that this is their whole point; Peter Jones disputed it. Your comment (supporting my view, I think) was that reductionism was necessarily ontologically eliminative, though of course not epistemologically so. Yes. This makes sense. Certainly a wise attitude, given that UDA shows that if Mechanism is correct then both consciousness and matter are reduced to number relations. If reduction was elimination, we should conclude that consciousness does not exist (that would be nonsensical for any conscious creature) and that the physical reality does not exist, which does not make much sense either. A physicalist would also be obliged to say that molecules, living organism, etc. don't exist. Note that James
Re: Existence and Properties
On 10/3/2011 2:42 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 3 October 2011 16:43, Stephen P. Kingstephe...@charter.net wrote: [SPK] But why some particular type of primitive rather than some other? It seems to me, for symmetry reasons, that a truly ultimate primitive would have no particular properties associated with it at all! I think that there is a flaw in this reductionist idea, the idea that there exists a fundamental primitive that both is irreducible (by definition!) and has some properties rather than some others. We have been considering some form of Number as our primitive and I have been raising objections to this because while numbers definitely do seem to be irreducible primitives, the very notion that they are numbers vanishes when we consider them at this primitive level because the structure of Arithmetic, which gives meaning and haecceity to them, was dissolved away by the Aqua Regia of Reduction. One cannot have properties and not the means that generates them, to claim otherwise is a contradiction Stephen, I don't know if the following will help (and I don't know either if Bruno will agree with it), but there are a few intuitions that have helped me to get intuitively closer to these topics (to the extent that I can). First, I try not to be too literal-minded about number, at least in any of its local instantiations. Obviously, if we try to picture ourselves as being in some way literally made out of numbers in any of their ordinary manifestations, it's very difficult to make any sense of AR. I'm not suggesting that you are being this literal-minded, by the way. But speaking for myself, I tend to intuit comp's starting position on ontology as something like: in order to make sense of CTM, assume some primitive analytical-combinatorial principle which is equivalent to arithmetic in *all relevant respects*. What remains (almost everything!) is then to discover whether and how, within precisely these limitations, we can recover what we're ultimately in pursuit of - mind and matter - also *in all relevant respects*. It turns out that, to have any hope of doing this, some key supplementary ideas are in fact required, and the easiest one to lose sight of, perhaps, is the critical additional assumption (if indeed it is correct to call it merely an assumption) of the knower - the inside view, or epistemological reality. Now, however one nuances terms like ontology and epistemology, we cannot but acknowledge the personal manifestation of the knower - the first person - as some intimate amalgam of knowing and being. This amalgam I take to be an irreducible fact, but nonetheless what comp seeks to show is how the logical ontology of AR can both underpin (i.e. form the structural basis of), and permit reference to, such epistemological facts. This last point - i.e. that of reference - actually seems to me to be the strongest motivation for a combinatorial approach to the mind-body conundrum. Try as I might, I have never succeeded in imagining another ontologically primitive assumption capable of capturing the fundamental aspects of reference (and particularly self-reference); and unless the basis of such reference is built into our foundational assumptions, it seems to me that the possibility of recovering it later (say, from the ramifications of a physicalist theory) is a stark impossibility. I hope this may help, or at least may lead to some helpful amplification. David Hi David, I do appreciate your attempts to clarify a possible misunderstanding on my part. I think I do understand Bruno's UDA result and its ontological implications and admire the ingenuity of the ideas involved, but it seems that my critique of it is something that I am inadequately explaining. I see several problems and unanswered questions. 1) The explanation of how multiple minds, how ever they are defined in Lobian or whatever terms, can occur such that an appearence of coherent and concurrent communications occurs is not explained. 2) How does the result explain the appearance of a single physical universe such that 1) can occur within it? 3) How does Bruno's result differ from Berkeley's idealist such that it avoids its epiphenomena problem. It is true that I am pursuing a different explanatory model and thus might be accused of nitpicking Bruno's idea simply to score points for my arguments, but this is not the case. From what I have studied so far, Bruno's result fits almost completely inside the Stone duality based model (on the abstract algebra side of the duality) that I am exploring such that if Bruno's result is falsified then so is my own idea. The only real difference between Bruno's work and my own (other than my educational status!) is that Bruno seems to reject the physical world as having a necessary existence while I do not. Onward! Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this
Re: Existence and Properties
On 1 October 2011 04:14, Stephen P. King stephe...@charter.net wrote: I have been attempting to ask a similar question, but my words were failing me. What is the necessity of the 1p? AFAIK, it seems that because it is possible. This is what I mean by existence = []. But does this line of reasoning, arithmetical reductionism, eventually fall into the abyss of infinite regress or loop back to the 1p for a means to define itself? How can we be sure that we are assuming a primitive that is only a artifact of the limits of our imagination? Why are we so sure that there is a primitive in the well founded sense? Well, the question I'm asking has, I think, the same implications regardless of whatsoever you take to be primitive. The reason for this has to do with the process of reduction itself: having followed the path of reducing any and all narratives about the world to those consisting solely of some maximally-reduced entities and their primitive relations, we hoped finally to get to grips with some definitive account of the real. But the following problem then presents itself: what is supposed to be the ontological status of the non-reduced narratives? They appear to have become ontologically redundant (i.e. in a strong sense, they don't exist, just as a house has no ontological status independent of the bricks that constitute it). But, contra this, they manifestly DO still exist, as we would say, epistemologically. Well, one way of dealing with inconvenient truths of this sort is by ignoring them. And so we can try to sustain the view, where it suits our purposes, that non-primitive phenomena of certain kinds (qualia for example) really don't exist, however much they may seem to. The problem is that this is insufficiently radical: reductive analysis is an irresistible ontological acid, and more than the merely illusory must succumb to its dissolving power. Once it has done its work, what lies revealed to our horrified gaze is - not a world of still somewhat familiar primary macroscopic entities and events, merely shorn of their illusory secondary properties - but only the starkest landscape of the most primitive entities in their most fundamental relations. Or rather, this is what CANNOT now be revealed, because any possible subject of such revelation must disappear in the same ontological catastrophe as its possible objects of knowledge. Hence, eliminativism of this sort turns out to be more than simply and egregiously question-begging. In effect it is a most perverse species of attempted metaphysical grand larceny: it tries to grab with both hands everything it has just pilfered from reality. The only route out of this impasse seems to be to accept that the aspects of reality that we label epistemological must be considered as real (i.e. as relevant to any account of what exists) as those we are pleased to call primitively ontological. Bruno indeed has sometimes referred to this aspect as the ontological first-person. For myself, I have remarked on the need to consider equally two counter-poles of the real: the analytic and the integrative, neither of which can intelligibly be dispensed with. In any case, failure to take considerations of this sort into account, leads, I think, to much of the confusion that arises in these discussions about what really exists. David On 9/30/2011 8:18 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 30 September 2011 16:55, Bruno Marchalmarc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. I've been following this discussion, though not commenting (I don't understand all of it). However, your remark above caught my eye, because it reminded me of something that came up a while back, about whether reductive explanations logically entail elimination of non-primitive entities. I argued that this is their whole point; Peter Jones disputed it. Your comment (supporting my view, I think) was that reductionism was necessarily ontologically eliminative, though of course not epistemologically so. Indeed this seemed to me uncontroversial, in that the whole point of a reductionist program is to show how all references to compound entities can be replaced by more primitive ones. Your remark above seems now to be making a similar point about arithmetical reductionism in the sense that, presumably, computations can analogously (if loosely) be considered compounds of arithmetical primitives, a point that had indeed occurred to me at the time. If so, what interests me is the question that inspired the older controversy. If the primitives of a given ontology are postulated to be all that really exist, how are we
Re: Existence and Properties
On 01 Oct 2011, at 02:18, David Nyman wrote: On 30 September 2011 16:55, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. I've been following this discussion, though not commenting (I don't understand all of it). However, your remark above caught my eye, because it reminded me of something that came up a while back, about whether reductive explanations logically entail elimination of non-primitive entities. I argued that this is their whole point; Peter Jones disputed it. Your comment (supporting my view, I think) was that reductionism was necessarily ontologically eliminative, though of course not epistemologically so. Yes. This makes sense. Certainly a wise attitude, given that UDA shows that if Mechanism is correct then both consciousness and matter are reduced to number relations. If reduction was elimination, we should conclude that consciousness does not exist (that would be nonsensical for any conscious creature) and that the physical reality does not exist, which does not make much sense either. A physicalist would also be obliged to say that molecules, living organism, etc. don't exist. Note that James Watson seemed to have defended such a strong reductive eliminativism. But I don't see any problem with reduction, once we agree that some form of existence can be reduced to other, without implying elimination. Mechanism makes it clear that machine are *correct* when they believe in material form. Indeed all LUMs can see by themselves the rise of matter, or the correct laws of matter by introspection, and they will all see the same laws. Indeed this seemed to me uncontroversial, in that the whole point of a reductionist program is to show how all references to compound entities can be replaced by more primitive ones. Your remark above seems now to be making a similar point about arithmetical reductionism in the sense that, presumably, computations can analogously (if loosely) be considered compounds of arithmetical primitives, a point that had indeed occurred to me at the time. If so, what interests me is the question that inspired the older controversy. If the primitives of a given ontology are postulated to be all that really exist, how are we supposed to account for the apparent existence of compound entities? We need two things. The primitive objects, and the basic laws to which the primitive objects obeys, and which will be responsible of making possible the higher level of organization of those primitive objects, or some higher level appearances of structures. In the case of mechanism, we can take as primitive objects the natural numbers: 0, s(0), s(s(0), etc. And, we need only the basic laws of addition and multiplication, together with succession laws: 0 ≠ s(x) s(x) = s(y) - x = y x+0 = x x+s(y) = s(x+y) x*0=0 x*s(y)=(x*y)+x There is some amount of latitude here. We could consider that there is only one primitive object, 0. Given that we can define 1, 2, 3, by Ex(x= s(0)), Ex(x= s(s(0))), etc. [Or we could take the combinators (K, S, SK, KS, KKK, K(KK), etc.) as primitive, and the combinators laws: Kxy = x Sxyz = xz(yz) ] It might seems amazing but those axioms are enough to prove the existence of UMs and LUMs, and the whole Indra Matrix from which consciousness and physical laws appears at some (different) epistemological levels. It is the same as the brick in the house example. You need the primitive elements (brick) and some laws which makes them holding together (ciment, gravitation, for example). The same occur with physicalism. You need elementary particles, and elementary forces which makes them interact. What I show is that IF mechanism is correct, elementary particles and elementary forces are not primitive but arise as the border of some universal mind (to be short), which lives, at some epistemological level, in arithmetic. If the supposedly fundamental underlying mechanism is describable (in principle) entirely at the level of primitives, there would appear to be no need of any such further entities, and indeed Occam would imply that they should not be hypothesised. Yes. And that is indeed why we can say that we explain them. We can explain the DNA structure entirely from the atoms quantum physical laws. So DNA does not need to be taken as a new elementary particle. With digital mechanism, atoms and particles are themselves reducible to the non trivial intrinsic unavoidable consequences of addition and multiplication laws. Yet the bald fact remains that this is not how things appear to us. Why?
Re: Existence and Properties
On 1 October 2011 14:50, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But UDA shows (I think) that matter and consciousness are first person collective constructs of all the numbers. Yes, I agree. But my general point was that even in terms of physicalism, the way matter ordinarily appears to the (unexplained) first person is very obviously not in terms of its supposed material primitives. When we seek an explanation for such non-primitive experiential constructs, we look for appropriate compound concepts that in turn are expected to cash out, ultimately, in terms of these selfsame primitives. But, because of this very process of explanation, such constructs, considered at the level of the primitives that exhaustively comprise them, are exposed as unnecessary supplementary hypotheses. They are needed to justify appearances, not to provide unlooked-for additional influence over what, ex hypothesi, are already primitive, self-sufficient mechanisms. Their demand for attention stems exclusively from the manifest fact that such things *appear to us*. Consequently, unless one (unintelligibly) attempts to deny such appearances, despite relying on them for the very explanations in question, such conceptual realities must be accepted as having some distinct existence (even if only for us) over and above the primitives of which they are composed. So matter seems this (strong) sense to be a first person collective construct even under the primitive assumptions of physicalism. One may call this construct epistemological reality, or consciousness, or the first-person. But whatever one calls it, subtracting it leaves nothing but a barren primitive arena; one which, notwithstanding this, continues, at its own level, to do exactly what it always did. This is the zombie argument writ large, except that here the zombie stands revealed as merely an undifferentiated and uninterpreted primitive background. Consequently, in my view, denial of a distinct first person ontology ought to be seen as having the consequence of radical reduction of the remainder to some such arena of primitives and their relations, independent of any metaphysical postulate of their fundamental nature. Hence, such denial is unintelligible. David On 01 Oct 2011, at 02:18, David Nyman wrote: On 30 September 2011 16:55, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. I've been following this discussion, though not commenting (I don't understand all of it). However, your remark above caught my eye, because it reminded me of something that came up a while back, about whether reductive explanations logically entail elimination of non-primitive entities. I argued that this is their whole point; Peter Jones disputed it. Your comment (supporting my view, I think) was that reductionism was necessarily ontologically eliminative, though of course not epistemologically so. Yes. This makes sense. Certainly a wise attitude, given that UDA shows that if Mechanism is correct then both consciousness and matter are reduced to number relations. If reduction was elimination, we should conclude that consciousness does not exist (that would be nonsensical for any conscious creature) and that the physical reality does not exist, which does not make much sense either. A physicalist would also be obliged to say that molecules, living organism, etc. don't exist. Note that James Watson seemed to have defended such a strong reductive eliminativism. But I don't see any problem with reduction, once we agree that some form of existence can be reduced to other, without implying elimination. Mechanism makes it clear that machine are *correct* when they believe in material form. Indeed all LUMs can see by themselves the rise of matter, or the correct laws of matter by introspection, and they will all see the same laws. Indeed this seemed to me uncontroversial, in that the whole point of a reductionist program is to show how all references to compound entities can be replaced by more primitive ones. Your remark above seems now to be making a similar point about arithmetical reductionism in the sense that, presumably, computations can analogously (if loosely) be considered compounds of arithmetical primitives, a point that had indeed occurred to me at the time. If so, what interests me is the question that inspired the older controversy. If the primitives of a given ontology are postulated to be all that really exist, how are we supposed to account for the apparent existence of compound entities? We need two things. The primitive objects, and the basic laws to
Re: Existence and Properties
On 01 Oct 2011, at 17:42, David Nyman wrote: On 1 October 2011 14:50, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But UDA shows (I think) that matter and consciousness are first person collective constructs of all the numbers. Yes, I agree. But my general point was that even in terms of physicalism, the way matter ordinarily appears to the (unexplained) first person is very obviously not in terms of its supposed material primitives. I agree. That can be related to the weakness of the physicalist approach. I will try to answer in my other comment why this does not apply to digital mechanism (DM). In a sense, you remark does apply to DM, and I refer to it sometimes by the 0,0001% of consciousness that DM cannot explain. Then point will be that we (and machines) can explain why IF mechanism is true, there must remain something which just cannot be explained, and this without postulating any new first person primitive experience. You put your finger on the crux of the difficulty of the mind-body problem. When we seek an explanation for such non-primitive experiential constructs, we look for appropriate compound concepts that in turn are expected to cash out, ultimately, in terms of these selfsame primitives. Not necessarily. Consciousness does not need to be a compound things. It is here that consciousness, as a notion, differ from the nameable constructs; like prime numbers, universal numbers, etc. With mechanism, we can relate consciousness with modal qualitative, and non compounded notion, like arithmetical truth, which can already be said not compounded for any machine approaching it closely. Machines just lacks the vocabulary here: there are none. But, because of this very process of explanation, such constructs, considered at the level of the primitives that exhaustively comprise them, are exposed as unnecessary supplementary hypotheses. I see what you mean. But they are implicit in the belief that our axioms makes sense. This is the implicit (and often unconscious) religious belief of any scientist. We still have to bet that our theories make sense, despite we know that no public theories can provide by itself such a sense. We are using implicitly, at the very moment we suggest (any) theory, an assumption of self-consistency, or an assumption that there is something real. That reality is not compounded, and cannot be reduced into its components, *by us*. Some alien might be able to do this for us, like we can do it for simpler machine than us, but those aliens will not been able to do this for themselves. Colin McGuin is right: consciousness need some amount of mysterianism. They are needed to justify appearances, not to provide unlooked-for additional influence over what, ex hypothesi, are already primitive, self-sufficient mechanisms. Their demand for attention stems exclusively from the manifest fact that such things *appear to us*. That is the heart of the qualia problem. You single out the 0,0001% of consciousness that mechanism cannot explain by the conscious entities themselves, *for themselves*. But machine can understand why it has to be like that, once they bet that they are machines. And this implies that we cannot explain completely how mechanism work, and why mechanism does need some act of faith in the case we use it (in practice, or in theory). That's the key reason why mechanism *is* a theology. Consequently, unless one (unintelligibly) attempts to deny such appearances, despite relying on them for the very explanations in question, such conceptual realities must be accepted as having some distinct existence (even if only for us) over and above the primitives of which they are composed. They will be distinct in the sense that they need, from the part of the machine, an (instinctive) bet in a reality. With mechanism, the bet in arithmetical truth (or more weakly self-consistency) is enough, despite or thanks to the fact that this cannot be an entirely intelligible act. But the machine can describe it at some metalevel, and that is what is done with the internal modal logics. So matter seems this (strong) sense to be a first person collective construct even under the primitive assumptions of physicalism. Yes. But this shows physicalism being contradictory or eliminativist. Nice point. One may call this construct epistemological reality, or consciousness, or the first-person. But whatever one calls it, subtracting it leaves nothing but a barren primitive arena; one which, notwithstanding this, continues, at its own level, to do exactly what it always did. This is the zombie argument writ large, except that here the zombie stands revealed as merely an undifferentiated and uninterpreted primitive background. Consequently, in my view, denial of a distinct first person ontology ought to be seen as having the consequence of radical reduction of the remainder to some such
Re: Existence and Properties
On 1 October 2011 18:07, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: To be short, only intelligible ideas exist [only numbers and definable relations exist]. God and matter does NOT exist, but they do exist epistemologically. And they are quite distinct for what really exist. This does not work for a physicalist, because he want to avoid that GOD, and make the global picture a compound of the elementary things: he want a universe composed of material stuff, but that cannot work if we want maintain the existence (even if epistemological) of first person, and that is why honest and rational materialist are bounded to eliminate the very existence of the persons. Yes, this can make sense for me (fortunately we have been round some of these houses before, so I've had some time to bash my brains into shape on these points!). I don't wish to fight over vocabulary here, so when you say God and matter does NOT exist, but they do exist epistemologically I will resist any temptation to accuse you of contradicting yourself, but rather accept that this statement is a way of recognising both the reality and the distinctiveness of God, matter, consciousness and the intelligible ideas. After all, given that it's theology we're talking about, I don't find this more confusing than the doctrine of the Trinity! We agree that honest and rational materialist are bounded to eliminate the very existence of the persons, although (and this is the nub of my argument) to be consistent they ought at the same time to give up using any vocabulary predicated on (and entirely derived from) such existence. The problem is that if they did, they wouldn't have much left to say for themselves. Perhaps that's why they don't. Consequently, in my view, denial of a distinct first person ontology ought to be seen as having the consequence of radical reduction of the remainder to some such arena of primitives and their relations, independent of any metaphysical postulate of their fundamental nature. Hence, such denial is unintelligible. Not really, even for a physicalist. Because my point above explain why for machine, their consciousness will appear to be both ontologically real yet quite distinct from anything postulated as primitive in the theory. I'm still not sure why you would say not for a physicalist. In terms of your theory, there is a principled account of why their consciousness will appear to be both ontologically real yet quite distinct from anything postulated as primitive in the theory, but in the physicalist theory (say, the identity version) there can be no such account, given the premise that only the physical primitives are really real. Of course, if their theory is physicalism + CTM (which we both believe to be incorrect), they are equating consciousness = computation, but the problem with this is that, in the physicalist theory, computation just isn't anything of the sort you describe above; it's just certain kinds of relations that happen to exist between entities defined solely in terms of the real reality. To make this theory coherent, the physicalist would have to accept that computation additionally has just the kind of ontological reality and distinctness you describe. But then, in the face of physicalism, this would be, as you remark, frankly dualistic (and also, in this case, wrong, unless UDA is false). David David On 01 Oct 2011, at 17:42, David Nyman wrote: On 1 October 2011 14:50, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But UDA shows (I think) that matter and consciousness are first person collective constructs of all the numbers. Yes, I agree. But my general point was that even in terms of physicalism, the way matter ordinarily appears to the (unexplained) first person is very obviously not in terms of its supposed material primitives. I agree. That can be related to the weakness of the physicalist approach. I will try to answer in my other comment why this does not apply to digital mechanism (DM). In a sense, you remark does apply to DM, and I refer to it sometimes by the 0,0001% of consciousness that DM cannot explain. Then point will be that we (and machines) can explain why IF mechanism is true, there must remain something which just cannot be explained, and this without postulating any new first person primitive experience. You put your finger on the crux of the difficulty of the mind-body problem. When we seek an explanation for such non-primitive experiential constructs, we look for appropriate compound concepts that in turn are expected to cash out, ultimately, in terms of these selfsame primitives. Not necessarily. Consciousness does not need to be a compound things. It is here that consciousness, as a notion, differ from the nameable constructs; like prime numbers, universal numbers, etc. With mechanism, we can relate consciousness with modal qualitative, and non compounded notion, like arithmetical truth, which can already be said not
Re: Existence and Properties
On 01 Oct 2011, at 19:49, David Nyman wrote: On 1 October 2011 18:07, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: To be short, only intelligible ideas exist [only numbers and definable relations exist]. God and matter does NOT exist, but they do exist epistemologically. And they are quite distinct for what really exist. This does not work for a physicalist, because he want to avoid that GOD, and make the global picture a compound of the elementary things: he want a universe composed of material stuff, but that cannot work if we want maintain the existence (even if epistemological) of first person, and that is why honest and rational materialist are bounded to eliminate the very existence of the persons. Yes, this can make sense for me (fortunately we have been round some of these houses before, so I've had some time to bash my brains into shape on these points!). I don't wish to fight over vocabulary here, so when you say God and matter does NOT exist, but they do exist epistemologically I will resist any temptation to accuse you of contradicting yourself, but rather accept that this statement is a way of recognising both the reality and the distinctiveness of God, matter, consciousness and the intelligible ideas. Absolutely. Except for consciousness, those correspond two the epistemological distinction between p (truth, God), Bp (intelligible: it splits into two parts (provable and unprovable) which play a role in the machine acknowledging her ignorance), Bp p (the soul, which is when the intelligible connects with the transcendental: truth), Bp Dt (matter, which is when a reality exist: it is weaker than truth, because it is only the possibility of the (any) truth. Thoses modalities are extensionally equivalent. for all arithmetical p, once the ideally correct machine is chosen, we have, with p sigma_1, that p - Bp - Bp p - Bp Dt. yet, the machine cannot proves those equivalence for all p, and this will introduce, from the machine's views, those insuperable (epistemological, but real!) distinctions. There is a sense to say that from the point of view of God, those distinction does not occur, but machine embedded in computational histories (that is: living) are NOT, usually, God. They cannot *talk* at his place. Sorry for introducing those arithmetical formal precision, but they illustrate what you are saying in the case of ideally correct self- inquiring machines. After all, given that it's theology we're talking about, I don't find this more confusing than the doctrine of the Trinity! St Augustin's explanation of Trinity is inspired from the three Plotinian primary hypostases: God (the One), the Intelligible (The Noùs), and the Soul (the universal or world's soul). but with mechanism, the Intelligible split (in the provable and unprovable) and gives the discursive reasoner (man) as a little part of the noùs. Which gives four hypostases. We get a Quaternity. And then you recover Plotinus' intelligible matter (Bp Dt) and sensible matter (Bp Dt p), which both split (in the provable and unprovable truth). Which makes a total of 8 hypostases: an Octonity, really :) Plotinus does not range the matter notion in the primary hypostases, nor the discursive reasoner. I don't think he would have found problematic that I call the matter notion secondary hypostases, given that he use only primary hypostase. We agree that honest and rational materialist are bounded to eliminate the very existence of the persons, although (and this is the nub of my argument) to be consistent they ought at the same time to give up using any vocabulary predicated on (and entirely derived from) such existence. The problem is that if they did, they wouldn't have much left to say for themselves. OK. Perhaps that's why they don't. Making them somehow into contradiction. It is a sort of aristotelian schizophrenia. Consequently, in my view, denial of a distinct first person ontology ought to be seen as having the consequence of radical reduction of the remainder to some such arena of primitives and their relations, independent of any metaphysical postulate of their fundamental nature. Hence, such denial is unintelligible. Not really, even for a physicalist. Because my point above explain why for machine, their consciousness will appear to be both ontologically real yet quite distinct from anything postulated as primitive in the theory. I'm still not sure why you would say not for a physicalist. In terms of your theory, there is a principled account of why their consciousness will appear to be both ontologically real yet quite distinct from anything postulated as primitive in the theory, but in the physicalist theory (say, the identity version) there can be no such account, given the premise that only the physical primitives are really real. Of course, if their theory is physicalism + CTM (which we both believe to be
Re: Existence and Properties
On 30 Sep 2011, at 13:44, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/30/2011 5:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: If comp +Theaetus is correct, you have to distinguish physical existence, which is of the type []#, and existence, which is of the type Ex ... x I will use the modal box [] and diamond fro the intelligible hypostases ([]X = BX DX). [SPK] It seems that we have very different ideas of the meaning of the word Existence. Ex ... x... seems to be a denotative definition and thus is not neutral with respect to properties. I may not comprehend you thoughts on this. It seems that you introduce meta-difficulties to elude simple question. Do you have a concept for the totality of all that exists? A priori and personally: no. Assuming comp: yes. N is the totality of what exists, but, assuming comp, I have to add this is a G* minus G proposition. It is not really communicable/provable. You have to grasp it by your own understanding (of UDA, for example). Would such be unnamable for you? It is for me. Yes. Arithmetical truth, which relies on the ontic N whole, is unnamable for me, that is why I can only refer to it indirectly, by making the comp assumption explicit. As I see it, existence itself is the neutral primitive ground of all things, abstract and concrete. Perhaps my philosophy is more like dual-aspect monism than neutral monism. Can you elaborate shortly on the difference between dual-aspect and neutral monism? Comp is octal-aspect monism, when Theaetetus enters into play. [SPK] Once I have constructed a mental representation of the subject of a reasoning or concept I can use the symbolic representations in a denotative capacity. This is how we dyslexics overcome our disability. :-) Why don't you do that for Ex ... x ? in the numbers domain? My result is: mechanism entails immateralism (matter can exist but as no more any relation with consciousness, and so is eliminated with the usual weak occam principle). This should be a problem for you if you want to keep both mechanism and weak materialism, but why do you want to do that. On the contrary, mechanism makes the laws of physics much more solid and stable, by providing an explanation relying only on diophantine addition and multiplication. [SPK] I reject all form of monism except neutral monism. Existence itself is the only primitive. In what sense would mechanism, after UDA, not be a neutral monism. When you use the word existence without saying what you assume to exist, it look like the joke what is the difference between a raven?. [SPK] The totality of all that exists, it merely exists. In non founded set theories, perhaps. But this is assuming far too much, again in the comp frame. The totality of all that exists does not make much sense to me. I can imagine model of Quine New Foundation playing that role, but that is too much literal, and seems to me contradictory, or quasi-contradictory. But with comp this would be a reification of the epistemological. We just cannot do that. Prior to the specification of properties, even distinctions themselves, there is only existence. Existence is not a property such as Red, two or heavy. It has no extension or form in itself but is the possibility to be and have all properties. This seems to me quite speculative, and useless in the comp theory. If you were betting that comp is false, I could understand the motivation for such postulation, but are you really betting that comp is false? [SPK] Numbers and arithmetic presuppose a specific meaning, valuation and relation. This is fuzzy. In the TOE allowed by comp, we can presuppose only 0, s, *, and + and the usual first order axioms. This implies, in my reasoning, that they are not primitive. They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. You seem to assume that they are objects in the mind of God, making God = Existence. I disagree with this thinking. But with comp, God = arithmetical truth, although we have to be careful, because no machines, including perhaps me, can really assert that. It is a just non rationally communicable, but betable, once we bet on comp. Could you define to me what you mean by topological dual of a number, or a program? [SPK] I do not recognize the idea that a number or a program has a meaning isolate from all else. I do not understand your theory of meaningfulness. How does meaningfulness arise in your thinking? I use a non-well founded set type Dictionary model and have discussed it before.
Re: Existence and Properties
On 30 September 2011 16:55, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. I've been following this discussion, though not commenting (I don't understand all of it). However, your remark above caught my eye, because it reminded me of something that came up a while back, about whether reductive explanations logically entail elimination of non-primitive entities. I argued that this is their whole point; Peter Jones disputed it. Your comment (supporting my view, I think) was that reductionism was necessarily ontologically eliminative, though of course not epistemologically so. Indeed this seemed to me uncontroversial, in that the whole point of a reductionist program is to show how all references to compound entities can be replaced by more primitive ones. Your remark above seems now to be making a similar point about arithmetical reductionism in the sense that, presumably, computations can analogously (if loosely) be considered compounds of arithmetical primitives, a point that had indeed occurred to me at the time. If so, what interests me is the question that inspired the older controversy. If the primitives of a given ontology are postulated to be all that really exist, how are we supposed to account for the apparent existence of compound entities? If the supposedly fundamental underlying mechanism is describable (in principle) entirely at the level of primitives, there would appear to be no need of any such further entities, and indeed Occam would imply that they should not be hypothesised. Yet the bald fact remains that this is not how things appear to us. So should such compound appearances be considered entirely a matter of epistemology? IOW, is the first-person - the inside view - in some sense the necessary arena - and the sole explanation - for the emergence of anything at all beyond the primitive ontological level? David On 30 Sep 2011, at 13:44, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/30/2011 5:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: If comp +Theaetus is correct, you have to distinguish physical existence, which is of the type []#, and existence, which is of the type Ex ... x I will use the modal box [] and diamond fro the intelligible hypostases ([]X = BX DX). [SPK] It seems that we have very different ideas of the meaning of the word Existence. Ex ... x... seems to be a denotative definition and thus is not neutral with respect to properties. I may not comprehend you thoughts on this. It seems that you introduce meta-difficulties to elude simple question. Do you have a concept for the totality of all that exists? A priori and personally: no. Assuming comp: yes. N is the totality of what exists, but, assuming comp, I have to add this is a G* minus G proposition. It is not really communicable/provable. You have to grasp it by your own understanding (of UDA, for example). Would such be unnamable for you? It is for me. Yes. Arithmetical truth, which relies on the ontic N whole, is unnamable for me, that is why I can only refer to it indirectly, by making the comp assumption explicit. As I see it, existence itself is the neutral primitive ground of all things, abstract and concrete. Perhaps my philosophy is more like dual-aspect monism than neutral monism. Can you elaborate shortly on the difference between dual-aspect and neutral monism? Comp is octal-aspect monism, when Theaetetus enters into play. [SPK] Once I have constructed a mental representation of the subject of a reasoning or concept I can use the symbolic representations in a denotative capacity. This is how we dyslexics overcome our disability. :-) Why don't you do that for Ex ... x ? in the numbers domain? My result is: mechanism entails immateralism (matter can exist but as no more any relation with consciousness, and so is eliminated with the usual weak occam principle). This should be a problem for you if you want to keep both mechanism and weak materialism, but why do you want to do that. On the contrary, mechanism makes the laws of physics much more solid and stable, by providing an explanation relying only on diophantine addition and multiplication. [SPK] I reject all form of monism except neutral monism. Existence itself is the only primitive. In what sense would mechanism, after UDA, not be a neutral monism. When you use the word existence without saying what you assume to exist, it look like the joke what is the difference between a raven?. [SPK] The totality of all that exists, it merely exists. In non founded set theories, perhaps. But this is assuming far too much, again
Re: Existence and Properties
On 9/30/2011 8:18 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 30 September 2011 16:55, Bruno Marchalmarc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: They are ontologically primitive, in the sense that ontologically they are the only things which exist. even computations don't exist in that primitive sense. Computations already exists only relationally. I will keep saying that computations exists, for pedagogical reasons. For professional logicians, I make a nuance, which would look like total jargon in this list. I've been following this discussion, though not commenting (I don't understand all of it). However, your remark above caught my eye, because it reminded me of something that came up a while back, about whether reductive explanations logically entail elimination of non-primitive entities. I argued that this is their whole point; Peter Jones disputed it. Your comment (supporting my view, I think) was that reductionism was necessarily ontologically eliminative, though of course not epistemologically so. Indeed this seemed to me uncontroversial, in that the whole point of a reductionist program is to show how all references to compound entities can be replaced by more primitive ones. Your remark above seems now to be making a similar point about arithmetical reductionism in the sense that, presumably, computations can analogously (if loosely) be considered compounds of arithmetical primitives, a point that had indeed occurred to me at the time. If so, what interests me is the question that inspired the older controversy. If the primitives of a given ontology are postulated to be all that really exist, how are we supposed to account for the apparent existence of compound entities? If the supposedly fundamental underlying mechanism is describable (in principle) entirely at the level of primitives, there would appear to be no need of any such further entities, and indeed Occam would imply that they should not be hypothesised. Yet the bald fact remains that this is not how things appear to us. So should such compound appearances be considered entirely a matter of epistemology? IOW, is the first-person - the inside view - in some sense the necessary arena - and the sole explanation - for the emergence of anything at all beyond the primitive ontological level? David [SPK] I have been attempting to ask a similar question, but my words were failing me. What is the necessity of the 1p? AFAIK, it seems that because it is possible. This is what I mean by existence = []. But does this line of reasoning, arithmetical reductionism, eventually fall into the abyss of infinite regress or loop back to the 1p for a means to define itself? How can we be sure that we are assuming a primitive that is only a artifact of the limits of our imagination? Why are we so sure that there is a primitive in the well founded sense? Onward! Stephen On 30 Sep 2011, at 13:44, Stephen P. King wrote: On 9/30/2011 5:45 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: If comp +Theaetus is correct, you have to distinguish physical existence, which is of the type []#, and existence, which is of the type Ex ... x I will use the modal box [] and diamond fro the intelligible hypostases ([]X = BX DX). [SPK] It seems that we have very different ideas of the meaning of the word Existence. Ex ... x... seems to be a denotative definition and thus is not neutral with respect to properties. I may not comprehend you thoughts on this. It seems that you introduce meta-difficulties to elude simple question. Do you have a concept for the totality of all that exists? A priori and personally: no. Assuming comp: yes. N is the totality of what exists, but, assuming comp, I have to add this is a G* minus G proposition. It is not really communicable/provable. You have to grasp it by your own understanding (of UDA, for example). Would such be unnamable for you? It is for me. Yes. Arithmetical truth, which relies on the ontic N whole, is unnamable for me, that is why I can only refer to it indirectly, by making the comp assumption explicit. As I see it, existence itself is the neutral primitive ground of all things, abstract and concrete. Perhaps my philosophy is more like dual-aspect monism than neutral monism. Can you elaborate shortly on the difference between dual-aspect and neutral monism? Comp is octal-aspect monism, when Theaetetus enters into play. [SPK] Once I have constructed a mental representation of the subject of a reasoning or concept I can use the symbolic representations in a denotative capacity. This is how we dyslexics overcome our disability. :-) Why don't you do that for Ex ... x ? in the numbers domain? My result is: mechanism entails immateralism (matter can exist but as no more any relation with consciousness, and so is eliminated with the usual weak occam principle). This should be a problem for you if you want to keep both mechanism and weak materialism, but why do you want to do that. On the contrary, mechanism makes the laws
Re: Existence and Properties
On 9/29/2011 10:36 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/29/2011 4:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 28 Sep 2011, at 16:44, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/27/2011 10:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 27 Sep 2011, at 13:49, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/26/2011 7:56 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
snip
For well-defined propositions regarding the numbers I think the
values are confined to true or false.
Jason
--
[SPK]
Not in general, unless one is only going to allow only Boolean
logics to exist. There have been proven to exist logics that have
truth values that range over any set of numbers, not just {0,1}.
Recall the requirement for a mathematical structure to exist:
Self-consistency.
Consistency is a notion applied usually to theories, or (chatty)
machines, not to mathematical structures.
A theory is consistent if it does not prove some proposition and
its negation. A machine is consistent if it does not assert a
proposition and its negation.
[SPK]
Is not a machine represented mathematically by some abstract
(mathematical ) structure? I am attempting to find clarity in the
ideas surrounding the notion of machine and how you arrive at the
idea that the abstract notion of implementation is sufficient to
derive the physical notion of implementation.
This follows from the UD Argument, in the digital mechanist theory.
No need of AUDA or complex math to understand the necessity of this,
once we accept that we can survive with (physical, material) digital
machines.
[SPK]
Is the property of universality independent of whether or not a
machine has a set of properties? What is it that determines the
properties of a machine? I need to understand better your definition
of the word machine.
In first order logic we have Gödel-Henkin completeness theorem
which shows that a theory is consistent if and only if there is a
mathematical structure (called model) satisfying (in a sense which
can be made precise) the proposition proved in the theory.
[SPK]
What constraints are defined on the models by the Gödel-Henkin
completeness theorem? How do we separate out effective consistent
first-order theories that do not have computable models?
What do you mean by computable models?
[SPK]
Allow me to quote several definitions: computable functions are
exactly the functions that can be calculated using a mechanical
calculation device given unlimited amounts of time and storage space.
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computable_function). a
computable model is one whose underlying set is decidable and whose
functions and relations are uniformly computable. (from
http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0602483).
A computable model, as I understand it, could be considered as a
representation of a system or structure whose properties can be
determined by some process that can itself be represented as a
function from the set of countable numbers to itself. This defintion
seeks to abstractly represent the way that we can determine the
properties of a physical system X or, equivalently, generate a finite
list of operations that will create an instance of X.
Also, it is true that classical (Boolean) logic are not the only
logic. There are infinitely many logics, below and above classical
propositional logic. But this cannot be used to criticize the use
of classical logic in some domain.
[SPK]
OK. My thought here was to show that classical (Boolean) logic
is not unique and should not be taken as absolute. To do so would be
a mistake similar to Kant's claim that Euclidean logic was absolute.
OK, but then why to use that fact to criticize Jason's defense of
arithmetical truth independent of humans.
[SPK]
I am claiming a distinction between the existence of a structure
and the definiteness of its properties. It is my claim that prior to
the establishment of whether or not a method of determining or
deciding what the properties of a structure or system are, one can
only consider the possibility of the structure or system. For example,
say some proposition or sentence of a language exists. Does that
existence determine the particulars of that proposition or sentence?
If it can how so? How do can we claim to be able to decide that P_i is
true in the absence of a means to determine or decide what P_i means?
How do you know the meaning of these word Unicorn? Is the
meaning of the word Unicorn something that that arises simply from
the existence of sequence of symbols? is not meaning not something
like a map between some set of properties instantiated entity and some
set of instances of those properties in other entities? Consider an
entity X that had a set of properties x_i that could not be related to
those of any other entity? Would this prevent the existence of X?
The existence of X is the necessary possibility of X, []X.
All treatises on any non classical logic used classical (or much
more rarely intuitionistic) logic at the
