Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 14 Sep 2017 4:47 a.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 9/13/2017 4:06 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

>
> On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>> So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the
>>> universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific
>>> belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical)
>>> beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent
>>> provability to be a notion of knowledge.
>>>
>>
>> This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because you
>> want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief).  But this
>> does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).
>>
>
> Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of knowledge.
> Gödel mention this already in 1933.
>
>
>
> It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert it
>> and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??
>>
>
> Ih he proves it (correctly or not).
>

But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true belief".
You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which is closer to
Gettier's "caused true belief".


I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in my last
couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality', can only be
relative to a point of view.


That's the very antithesis of the usual understanding of "reality".  As my
later friend Vic Stenger put it, reality is what is point of view
invariant. That's why we replicate experiments - to make sure we're not
fooling ourselves.


Again, I'm afraid you're conflating the notion of truth as the result of an
extended process of verification and checking, with that of the primary
undoubtability of phenomenonal evidence. It's the latter we were discussing
here, unless your intention is just to change the subject. If you need a
criterion to distinguish the two concepts, just ask yourself if there is
any characteristic of a given situation that is beyond doubt. If you can
answer in the affirmative you have identified the truth in question.



It's perfectly possibly that any such idiosyncratic, though unavoidable,
commitment


What committment? Your committment to the idea that, 'correspondence with a
reality', can only be relative to a point of view?


I'm not sure it's entirely helpful to interpolate questions in the middle
of sentences. But, as I hope might have been clearer in the light of the
whole, the notion of belief here, as I am trying to clarify, is more akin
to a commitment rather than a hope, so to speak. IOW, if I 'believe' in the
sense of Bp I am willy-nilly committed to the implied (relative) truth
associated with that commitment.

The general idea, which it was my intention to discuss, is that the comp
theory leads to the speculation that such beliefs/commitments and their
corresponding truths/realities are what ultimately ramify into full-blown
physical/phenomenal viewpoints. The general rationale here is that since
all of the necessary logic is emulable by the 'universal machine' it will
consequently will be so emulated and hence form part of the spectrum of
selectable computations.



may deviate from some more pervasive and general underlying consistency


Are you defining reality as a "consistency"?  Are your provable beliefs not
consistent?


No, I'm saying that erroneous beliefs or commitments, as outlined above,
may be nested within ones that are more generally consistent with a wider
environmental perspective. This is in fact the corrective to erroneous
belief provided by an evolutionary logic and it is thereby both
indispensable and hazardous to each individual which, willy-nilly, must
place 'bets' on its own idiosyncratic version of reality.




and that this may put its possessor at hazard. That's the ineluctable logic
of evolution. Nevertheless if something is true for me, in this primary or
undoubtable sense, it will correspond with my (relative) reality,


Are your beliefs undoubtable?


In the primary sense I've explained. More than once actually. What is so
hard to grasp about this distinction?

This whole paragraph makes no sense to me.  What does it mean, "true for
me" and "relative reality"?


My personal phenomenonal reality of course. What else are we discussing?



in both its formal or effective aspect (Bp) and its truthful or phenomenal
one (and p). Any subsequent interpretation based on such primary givens is
of course a separate question.

It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim about
the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect, that there is no
reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he calls) our judgements
about the existence of conscious phenomena - that 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 Sep 2017, at 05:49, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/13/2017 4:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:21, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of  
knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it;  
because you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true  
provable belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning  
of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of  
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can  
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know  
it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not).


But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true  
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".


Gödel already saw that "prove" is not a knowledge predicate. So  
what remains is a notion of rational belief, and "knowledge" is  
defined by that rational belief when conjuncetd to the truth. Here,  
the truth is simply the "0th-person view", that the arithmetical  
truth (and eventually only the tiiny sigma_1 part, that is the  
universal dovetailing).



So does Bp not mean "beweisbar p"?


Bp means (usually) "beweisbar p".
Knowable(p) is Bp & p.
G* knows Bp <-> (Bp & p), but G does not, and that makes the  
(important) difference.


With p sigma_1, G* knows p <-> Bp, but again, G does not prove that,  
and again, this explains the difference, from the machine's persective.












Which is closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


Yes, but it is "justified" true belief. "cause" appeal to the  
physical, and thus needs the pov with the occurence of  
"Dt" ("assumed" consistency).


Gettier says "justified" means a causal, though perhaps indirect,  
connection (and I've discussed it with him personally).


I can agree. Justification is logical, non physical, and eventually  
sigma_1 justification is a form of causality, but for physical  
causality we need something like K~K~(K~K~ (p -> q)), with Kx = Bx &  
Dt, p and q sigma_1. Physics is given by the S4Grz1, Z1* and X1* logics.


Which is close to nonsense to me, because he use the word  
"transcend" like if observation could lead correctly to such  
judgment. he is very coherent in his materialism, and he is force  
to eliminate consciousness in that process.


He doesn't eliminate consciousness, he says it is the conclusion of  
competition between modules of the brain constructing narratives to  
explain perceptions.


Yes. Even himself realizes at some point that this explains  
consciousness away. It invokes the solution to the "easy problem", and  
nothing more, which is basically the "modern" method to put the "hard  
problem" (the antique mind-body problem) under the rug. He does not  
eliminate the narrative on consciousness, but still ignore its meaning.


Bruno







Brent






Brent



Bruno






Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable  
(~Bp). We just cannot know an undecidable (by us)  proposition,  
by definition, although we can bet on it, but then it is  
different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the  
dream argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are  
forced into disbelieving the existence of consciousness in  
dreams, as he did.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/13/2017 4:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 13 Sep 2017, at 13:06, David Nyman wrote:




On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the
existence of the universal number(s), then I define a
notion of rational belief "scientific belief",
(Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1
arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a
notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do
it; because you want knowledge to be true belief (not
just true provable belief).  But this does violence to
the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.



It means that given some undecidable proposition one of
us can assert it and the other deny it, and then one of
us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not).


But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".  
Which is closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in 
my last couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality', 
can only be relative to a point of view. It's perfectly possibly that 
any such idiosyncratic, though unavoidable, commitment may deviate 
from some more pervasive and general underlying consistency and that 
this may put its possessor at hazard. That's the ineluctable logic of 
evolution. Nevertheless if something is true for me, in this primary 
or undoubtable sense, it will correspond with my (relative) reality, 
in both its formal or effective aspect (Bp) and its truthful or 
phenomenal one (and p). Any subsequent interpretation based on such 
primary givens is of course a separate question.


OK, but in the general context, explicitly assuming Mechanism (and 
thus Church's thesis, arithmetic, ...), "p" refer to the "absolute" 
arithmetical truth (or better at some point, the sigma_1 truth).


I hope you agree that elementary arithmetic is "absolutely true". Just 
slightly more doubtable than consciousness!





It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim 
about the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect, that 
there is no reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he calls) 
our judgements about the existence of conscious phenomena - that 
transcends the mere judgements themselves. So his claim is that such 
judgments are lacking in *truth*.


Which is close to nonsense to me, because he use the word "transcend" 
like if observation could lead correctly to such judgment. he is very 
coherent in his materialism, and he is force to eliminate 
consciousness in that process.


He doesn't eliminate consciousness, he says it is the conclusion of 
competition between modules of the brain constructing narratives to 
explain perceptions.


Brent

But that is close to the mechanist reduction ad absurdum, because 
consciousness existence, although not out there, is still existing in 
here. Actually, if we really put the "p" (alone) in consciousness, we 
get the unnameable cosmic consciousness of the zeroth person view (but 
here we are in G* minus G, and so I am blaspheming again).


Bruno






David



Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable
(~Bp). We just cannot know an undecidable (by us)
proposition, by definition, although we can bet on it, but
then it is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the
dream argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are
forced into disbelieving the existence of consciousness in
dreams, as he did.

Bruno



Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/13/2017 4:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:21, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the 
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief 
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's 
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to 
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because 
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable 
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge 
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of 
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can 
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not).


But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true 
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".


Gödel already saw that "prove" is not a knowledge predicate. So what 
remains is a notion of rational belief, and "knowledge" is defined by 
that rational belief when conjuncetd to the truth. Here, the truth is 
simply the "0th-person view", that the arithmetical truth (and 
eventually only the tiiny sigma_1 part, that is the universal 
dovetailing).



So does Bp not mean "beweisbar p"?







Which is closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


Yes, but it is "justified" true belief. "cause" appeal to the 
physical, and thus needs the pov with the occurence of "Dt" ("assumed" 
consistency).


Gettier says "justified" means a causal, though perhaps indirect, 
connection (and I've discussed it with him personally).


Brent



Bruno






Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). 
We just cannot know an undecidable (by us)  proposition, by 
definition, although we can bet on it, but then it is different kind 
of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream 
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into 
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/13/2017 4:06 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the
existence of the universal number(s), then I define a
notion of rational belief "scientific belief",
(Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1
arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a
notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it;
because you want knowledge to be true belief (not just
true provable belief).  But this does violence to the
usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.



It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us
can assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us
will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not).


But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which
is closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in my 
last couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality', can 
only be relative to a point of view.


That's the very antithesis of the usual understanding of "reality". As 
my later friend Vic Stenger put it, reality is what is point of view 
invariant. That's why we replicate experiments - to make sure we're not 
fooling ourselves.


It's perfectly possibly that any such idiosyncratic, though 
unavoidable, commitment


What committment? Your committment to the idea that, 'correspondence 
with a reality', can only be relative to a point of view?



may deviate from some more pervasive and general underlying consistency


Are you defining reality as a "consistency"?  Are your provable beliefs 
not consistent?


and that this may put its possessor at hazard. That's the ineluctable 
logic of evolution. Nevertheless if something is true for me, in this 
primary or undoubtable sense, it will correspond with my (relative) 
reality,


Are your beliefs undoubtable?  This whole paragraph makes no sense to 
me.  What does it mean, "true for me" and "relative reality"?


in both its formal or effective aspect (Bp) and its truthful or 
phenomenal one (and p). Any subsequent interpretation based on such 
primary givens is of course a separate question.


It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim 
about the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect, that 
there is no reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he calls) 
our judgements about the existence of conscious phenomena - that 
transcends the mere judgements themselves. So his claim is that such 
judgments are lacking in *truth*.


I've read several of Dennett's books and I've always found him to take 
the correspondence theory of truth.  Can you cite where he says there is 
no reality?


Brent



David



Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable
(~Bp). We just cannot know an undecidable (by us) 
proposition, by definition, although we can bet on it, but
then it is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the
dream argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are
forced into disbelieving the existence of consciousness in
dreams, as he did.

Bruno



Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 13 September 2017 at 16:48, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 13 Sep 2017, at 15:05, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 13 Sep 2017 12:34 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:
>
>
> On 13 Sep 2017, at 13:06, David Nyman wrote:
>
>
>
> On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:
>
>
>
> On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
 So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the
 universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific
 belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical)
 beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent
 provability to be a notion of knowledge.

>>>
>>> This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because you
>>> want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief).  But this
>>> does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).
>>>
>>
>> Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of knowledge.
>> Gödel mention this already in 1933.
>>
>>
>>
>> It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert it
>>> and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??
>>>
>>
>> Ih he proves it (correctly or not).
>>
>
> But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true belief".
> You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which is closer to
> Gettier's "caused true belief".
>
>
> I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in my
> last couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality', can only
> be relative to a point of view. It's perfectly possibly that any such
> idiosyncratic, though unavoidable, commitment may deviate from some more
> pervasive and general underlying consistency and that this may put its
> possessor at hazard. That's the ineluctable logic of evolution.
> Nevertheless if something is true for me, in this primary or undoubtable
> sense, it will correspond with my (relative) reality, in both its formal or
> effective aspect (Bp) and its truthful or phenomenal one (and p). Any
> subsequent interpretation based on such primary givens is of course a
> separate question.
>
> OK, but in the general context, explicitly assuming Mechanism (and thus
> Church's thesis, arithmetic, ...), "p" refer to the "absolute" arithmetical
> truth (or better at some point, the sigma_1 truth).
>
>
> Yes, I was trying to be (too) short, I guess.
>
>
> I think so, but I can't resist. It is for the possible others, and I react
> like an old school teacher because I'm wired like that ;)
>
>
>
>
> I hope you agree that elementary arithmetic is "absolutely true". Just
> slightly more doubtable than consciousness!
>
>
> Yes indeed, for our purposes here.
>
>
> Hmm... That is slightly ambiguous. But as someone said to me "when someone
> begins to doubt that 2+2=4, to avoid the consequence of computationalism,
> it means the reductio ad absurdum is completed!".
>
> Of course, we have to doubt even 2+2=4, as part of being scientist, but
> when we assume computationalism, we can no more, because 2+2=4 is used to
> define it.
>

​Yes, exactly. That's what I meant by "for our purposes here".

David
​

> Simply. Then, a case can be made that we can't doubt the simple
> arithmetical relation with small numbers. 1+1=2 is close to consciousness,
> in matter of doubtability. But 6789 + 6789 = 13578 is already more doubtful!
>
>
>
>
> It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim about
> the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect, that there is no
> reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he calls) our judgements
> about the existence of conscious phenomena - that transcends the mere
> judgements themselves. So his claim is that such judgments are lacking in
> *truth*.
>
> Which is close to nonsense to me, because he use the word "transcend" like
> if observation could lead correctly to such judgment. he is very coherent
> in his materialism, and he is force to eliminate consciousness in that
> process. But that is close to the mechanist reduction ad absurdum, because
> consciousness existence, although not out there, is still existing in here.
>
>
> Yes I agree, but then although he is, as you say, forced by prior
> commitment to deny any distinct reality to consciousness, he persists
> (deliberately and with polemical purpose, I'm convinced) in using ambiguous
> terms like 'illusory'. This terminology easily misleads because we all
> think we know what is meant by an illusion. Trouble is, every other
> illusion we can bring to mind is in fact a veridical perception,
> misinterpreted, and this bleeds into his idiosyncratic use of the same term
> to characterise consciousness. I think he takes advantage of this ambiguity
> in bullying his less wary readers into a sort 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 Sep 2017, at 15:05, David Nyman wrote:




On 13 Sep 2017 12:34 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:

On 13 Sep 2017, at 13:06, David Nyman wrote:




On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"   
wrote:



On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because  
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable  
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge  
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of  
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can  
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not).

But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true  
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which  
is closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in  
my last couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality',  
can only be relative to a point of view. It's perfectly possibly  
that any such idiosyncratic, though unavoidable, commitment may  
deviate from some more pervasive and general underlying consistency  
and that this may put its possessor at hazard. That's the  
ineluctable logic of evolution. Nevertheless if something is true  
for me, in this primary or undoubtable sense, it will correspond  
with my (relative) reality, in both its formal or effective aspect  
(Bp) and its truthful or phenomenal one (and p). Any subsequent  
interpretation based on such primary givens is of course a separate  
question.


OK, but in the general context, explicitly assuming Mechanism (and  
thus Church's thesis, arithmetic, ...), "p" refer to the "absolute"  
arithmetical truth (or better at some point, the sigma_1 truth).


Yes, I was trying to be (too) short, I guess.


I think so, but I can't resist. It is for the possible others, and I  
react like an old school teacher because I'm wired like that ;)






I hope you agree that elementary arithmetic is "absolutely true".  
Just slightly more doubtable than consciousness!


Yes indeed, for our purposes here.


Hmm... That is slightly ambiguous. But as someone said to me "when  
someone begins to doubt that 2+2=4, to avoid the consequence of  
computationalism, it means the reductio ad absurdum is completed!".


Of course, we have to doubt even 2+2=4, as part of being scientist,  
but when we assume computationalism, we can no more, because 2+2=4 is  
used to define it. Simply. Then, a case can be made that we can't  
doubt the simple arithmetical relation with small numbers. 1+1=2 is  
close to consciousness, in matter of doubtability. But 6789 + 6789 =  
13578 is already more doubtful!





It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim  
about the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect,  
that there is no reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he  
calls) our judgements about the existence of conscious phenomena -  
that transcends the mere judgements themselves. So his claim is  
that such judgments are lacking in *truth*.


Which is close to nonsense to me, because he use the word  
"transcend" like if observation could lead correctly to such  
judgment. he is very coherent in his materialism, and he is force to  
eliminate consciousness in that process. But that is close to the  
mechanist reduction ad absurdum, because consciousness existence,  
although not out there, is still existing in here.


Yes I agree, but then although he is, as you say, forced by prior  
commitment to deny any distinct reality to consciousness, he  
persists (deliberately and with polemical purpose, I'm convinced) in  
using ambiguous terms like 'illusory'. This terminology easily  
misleads because we all think we know what is meant by an illusion.  
Trouble is, every other illusion we can bring to mind is in fact a  
veridical perception, misinterpreted, and this bleeds into his  
idiosyncratic use of the same term to characterise consciousness. I  
think he takes advantage of this ambiguity in bullying his less wary  
readers into a sort of confused acquiescence.


So typical. yes, the world "illusion" is misleading. That is why I  
prefer dream, but this is also easy to mock or dismiss as poetry. The  
term "hallucination" has some charm, and I like Feynman's answer to  
the question if there is a physical wave 

Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 13 Sep 2017 12:34 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:


On 13 Sep 2017, at 13:06, David Nyman wrote:



On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

>
> On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>> So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the
>>> universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific
>>> belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical)
>>> beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent
>>> provability to be a notion of knowledge.
>>>
>>
>> This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because you
>> want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief).  But this
>> does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).
>>
>
> Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of knowledge.
> Gödel mention this already in 1933.
>
>
>
> It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert it
>> and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??
>>
>
> Ih he proves it (correctly or not).
>

But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true belief".
You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which is closer to
Gettier's "caused true belief".


I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in my last
couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality', can only be
relative to a point of view. It's perfectly possibly that any such
idiosyncratic, though unavoidable, commitment may deviate from some more
pervasive and general underlying consistency and that this may put its
possessor at hazard. That's the ineluctable logic of evolution.
Nevertheless if something is true for me, in this primary or undoubtable
sense, it will correspond with my (relative) reality, in both its formal or
effective aspect (Bp) and its truthful or phenomenal one (and p). Any
subsequent interpretation based on such primary givens is of course a
separate question.

OK, but in the general context, explicitly assuming Mechanism (and thus
Church's thesis, arithmetic, ...), "p" refer to the "absolute" arithmetical
truth (or better at some point, the sigma_1 truth).


Yes, I was trying to be (too) short, I guess.


I hope you agree that elementary arithmetic is "absolutely true". Just
slightly more doubtable than consciousness!


Yes indeed, for our purposes here.

It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim about
the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect, that there is no
reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he calls) our judgements
about the existence of conscious phenomena - that transcends the mere
judgements themselves. So his claim is that such judgments are lacking in
*truth*.

Which is close to nonsense to me, because he use the word "transcend" like
if observation could lead correctly to such judgment. he is very coherent
in his materialism, and he is force to eliminate consciousness in that
process. But that is close to the mechanist reduction ad absurdum, because
consciousness existence, although not out there, is still existing in here.


Yes I agree, but then although he is, as you say, forced by prior
commitment to deny any distinct reality to consciousness, he persists
(deliberately and with polemical purpose, I'm convinced) in using ambiguous
terms like 'illusory'. This terminology easily misleads because we all
think we know what is meant by an illusion. Trouble is, every other
illusion we can bring to mind is in fact a veridical perception,
misinterpreted, and this bleeds into his idiosyncratic use of the same term
to characterise consciousness. I think he takes advantage of this ambiguity
in bullying his less wary readers into a sort of confused acquiescence.

It's a bit like the distinction that's often missed (e.g. in some of my
discussions with Brent) between the primary undoubtability of perceptual
phenomena and their subsequent interpretation. It's the latter, not the
former, that is basically the origin of the notion of the illusory. I've
even seen this misattribution quoted as a rebuttal of Descartes' cogito, as
though he had been claiming that he couldn't be mistaken in *what* he was
experiencing as distinct from *that* he was experiencing. But that very
distinction was always his precise point.

Actually, if we really put the "p" (alone) in consciousness, we get the
unnameable cosmic consciousness of the zeroth person view (but here we are
in G* minus G, and so I am blaspheming again).


Blasphemy apart, I accept that we will ultimately require the Dt nuance to
split the cosmic consciousness into the multiple first person views of the
generic or digital knower (this is beginning to sound like a mechanistic
credo!). So those views will then turn out to rely for their consistency on
a phenomenal 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 Sep 2017, at 13:06, David Nyman wrote:




On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:


On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because  
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable  
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge  
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of  
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can  
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not).

But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true  
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which  
is closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in  
my last couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality',  
can only be relative to a point of view. It's perfectly possibly  
that any such idiosyncratic, though unavoidable, commitment may  
deviate from some more pervasive and general underlying consistency  
and that this may put its possessor at hazard. That's the  
ineluctable logic of evolution. Nevertheless if something is true  
for me, in this primary or undoubtable sense, it will correspond  
with my (relative) reality, in both its formal or effective aspect  
(Bp) and its truthful or phenomenal one (and p). Any subsequent  
interpretation based on such primary givens is of course a separate  
question.


OK, but in the general context, explicitly assuming Mechanism (and  
thus Church's thesis, arithmetic, ...), "p" refer to the "absolute"  
arithmetical truth (or better at some point, the sigma_1 truth).


I hope you agree that elementary arithmetic is "absolutely true". Just  
slightly more doubtable than consciousness!





It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim  
about the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect, that  
there is no reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he calls)  
our judgements about the existence of conscious phenomena - that  
transcends the mere judgements themselves. So his claim is that such  
judgments are lacking in *truth*.


Which is close to nonsense to me, because he use the word "transcend"  
like if observation could lead correctly to such judgment. he is very  
coherent in his materialism, and he is force to eliminate  
consciousness in that process. But that is close to the mechanist  
reduction ad absurdum, because consciousness existence, although not  
out there, is still existing in here. Actually, if we really put the  
"p" (alone) in consciousness, we get the unnameable cosmic  
consciousness of the zeroth person view (but here we are in G* minus  
G, and so I am blaspheming again).


Bruno






David


Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable (~Bp).  
We just cannot know an undecidable (by us)  proposition, by  
definition, although we can bet on it, but then it is different kind  
of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream  
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into  
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Bruno



Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Sep 2017, at 19:21, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of  
knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because  
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable  
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge  
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of  
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can  
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not).


But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true  
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".


Gödel already saw that "prove" is not a knowledge predicate. So what  
remains is a notion of rational belief, and "knowledge" is defined by  
that rational belief when conjuncetd to the truth. Here, the truth is  
simply the "0th-person view", that the arithmetical truth (and  
eventually only the tiiny sigma_1 part, that is the universal  
dovetailing).






Which is closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


Yes, but it is "justified" true belief. "cause" appeal to the  
physical, and thus needs the pov with the occurence of "Dt" ("assumed"  
consistency).


Bruno






Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable  
(~Bp). We just cannot know an undecidable (by us)  proposition, by  
definition, although we can bet on it, but then it is different  
kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream  
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into  
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 11 Sep 2017 6:21 p.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

>
> On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>> So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the
>>> universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific
>>> belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical)
>>> beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent
>>> provability to be a notion of knowledge.
>>>
>>
>> This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because you
>> want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief).  But this
>> does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).
>>
>
> Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of knowledge.
> Gödel mention this already in 1933.
>
>
>
> It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert it
>> and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??
>>
>
> Ih he proves it (correctly or not).
>

But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true belief".
You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which is closer to
Gettier's "caused true belief".


I think you're missing the point I've been attempting to develop in my last
couple of posts. Truth, or 'correspondence with a reality', can only be
relative to a point of view. It's perfectly possibly that any such
idiosyncratic, though unavoidable, commitment may deviate from some more
pervasive and general underlying consistency and that this may put its
possessor at hazard. That's the ineluctable logic of evolution.
Nevertheless if something is true for me, in this primary or undoubtable
sense, it will correspond with my (relative) reality, in both its formal or
effective aspect (Bp) and its truthful or phenomenal one (and p). Any
subsequent interpretation based on such primary givens is of course a
separate question.

It's interesting to compare this, by the way, with Dennett's claim about
the illusory nature of consciousness. He says, in effect, that there is no
reality - i.e. one that corresponds with (what he calls) our judgements
about the existence of conscious phenomena - that transcends the mere
judgements themselves. So his claim is that such judgments are lacking in
*truth*.

David



Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). We
> just cannot know an undecidable (by us)  proposition, by definition,
> although we can bet on it, but then it is different kind of knowledge
> (closer to Bp & Dt).
> That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream
> argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into
> disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>> Brent
>>
>> --
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>> "Everything List" group.
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>>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/11/2017 1:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the 
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief 
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's 
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to 
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because 
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable 
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge 
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of 
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert 
it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not). 


But that is inconsistent with your definition of "know" = "true 
belief".  You are really using "know" = "true and proven".   Which is 
closer to Gettier's "caused true belief".


Brent

Knowledge is Bp & p, which is impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). 
We just cannot know an undecidable (by us)  proposition, by 
definition, although we can bet on it, but then it is different kind 
of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream 
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into 
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Sep 2017, at 17:20, David Nyman wrote:

On 11 September 2017 at 15:56, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 11 Sep 2017, at 11:23, David Nyman wrote:


On 11 Sep 2017 9:22 a.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:

On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because  
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable  
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge  
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of  
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.





It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can  
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not). Knowledge is Bp & p, which is  
impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). We just cannot know an  
undecidable (by us)  proposition, by definition, although we can  
bet on it, but then it is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp  
& Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream  
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into  
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Yes, I think the difficulty Brent may be having with this is that  
the notion of belief in play here is to be understood as ramifying  
in some limit (delineated by the FPI) to that of physical structure  
and action.


That follows once we assume the mechanist hypothesis.



Consequently it constitutes, in the first place, an idiosyncratic  
commitment to truths that may or may not correspond, in part or in  
whole, to what is more generally 'believed'. Nonetheless,  
commitments of this sort cannot be disentangled from their own  
proper, and equally undoubtable, truth values, however misleading  
these may ultimately turn out to be in a wider context. They are,  
as you say, more in the nature of bets on a reality,


In this case it is a weaker bet on absence of change in  
consciousness for some self-transformation, but OK, that is the  
"reality" in the sense of "Dt", arguably.


​Yes, that's what I meant.​ We can't know what lies 'beyond' our  
perceptions, but we can take a risk on our conjectures, refined by a  
process of evolution.​​


With multidimensional "Darwinian like story (universal number  
chatting) above the substitution level, and infinitely many  
projections on all computations, below the substitution level. The  
logics (hypostases) operate *at* any correct level.




​which in general of course is consistent with the unavoidable  
rigour of an evolutionary logic. This is the crucial distinction  
between primary or perceptual undoubtability and secondary  
reliability that I've previously remarked on. And as is indeed the  
case with any serious bet, they represent an inescapable commitment  
that puts the bettor permanently at hazard.


OK.
It seems to me also that there are nested levels of such beliefs  
and their associated truths. Hence what is, at a certain level, an  
idiosyncratic commitment to what we would normally think of as  
something non veridical, as in a dream, may be nested within a more  
general or systemic commitment to a consistent and more generally  
shared physical reality (i.e. what will appear in phenomenal terms  
as a brain and its generalised environment).


Probably, but the initial nested "levels" we have should be given by  
the hypostases p, Bp, etc. and also the graded B^n p  & D^m t, with  
m bigger than n. With p sigma_1 they all provide a quantization, and  
thus the physical reality is layered in some sense. There are no  
"correct dream" within a dream, because physical correctness appears  
when "you" are distributed all (infinitely many) most probable  
relative history. This might be related to what you say here.


​I think it might be. The idea is that the probabilities converge  
on what we might then call a canonical (shared) reality.


Exactly.



​
It plays some role in the "after life", making it a bit closer to to  
the Tibetan Bardo Todol. A poet said that there are only two  
certainties: taxes and death, but that was still wishful thinking​ 
:​


​I know, and I can't honestly say this ​has ​give​n​ me  
much comfort​.​



Hmm...






there is only one certainty: taxes.

​Or this :(​



I might be wrong on this. The universal machine does not pay taxes  
(well, not yet!). There is (from experience reports) a state of  
consciousness which needs no energy, nor time, etc.


So I guess the Greek were right on this God (the One) 

Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 11 September 2017 at 15:56, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 11 Sep 2017, at 11:23, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 11 Sep 2017 9:22 a.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:
>
>
> On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>> So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the
>>> universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific
>>> belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical)
>>> beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent
>>> provability to be a notion of knowledge.
>>>
>>
>> This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because you
>> want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief).  But this
>> does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).
>>
>
> Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of knowledge.
> Gödel mention this already in 1933.
>
>
>
>
> It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert it
>> and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??
>>
>
> Ih he proves it (correctly or not). Knowledge is Bp & p, which is
> impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). We just cannot know an undecidable
> (by us)  proposition, by definition, although we can bet on it, but then it
> is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
> That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream
> argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into
> disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.
>
>
> Yes, I think the difficulty Brent may be having with this is that the
> notion of belief in play here is to be understood as ramifying in some
> limit (delineated by the FPI) to that of physical structure and action.
>
>
> That follows once we assume the mechanist hypothesis.
>
>
>
> Consequently it constitutes, in the first place, an idiosyncratic
> commitment to truths that may or may not correspond, in part or in whole,
> to what is more generally 'believed'. Nonetheless, commitments of this sort
> cannot be disentangled from their own proper, and equally undoubtable,
> truth values, however misleading these may ultimately turn out to be in a
> wider context. They are, as you say, more in the nature of bets on a
> reality,
>
> In this case it is a weaker bet on absence of change in consciousness for
> some self-transformation, but OK, that is the "reality" in the sense of
> "Dt", arguably.
>

​Yes, that's what I meant.
​ We can't know what lies 'beyond' our perceptions, but we can take a risk
on our conjectures, refined by a process of evolution.​
​

> ​
> which in general of course is consistent with the unavoidable rigour of an
> evolutionary logic. This is the crucial distinction between primary or
> perceptual undoubtability and secondary reliability that I've previously
> remarked on. And as is indeed the case with any serious bet, they represent
> an inescapable commitment that puts the bettor permanently at hazard.
>
> OK.
>
> It seems to me also that there are nested levels of such beliefs and their
> associated truths. Hence what is, at a certain level, an idiosyncratic
> commitment to what we would normally think of as something non veridical,
> as in a dream, may be nested within a more general or systemic commitment
> to a consistent and more generally shared physical reality (i.e. what will
> appear in phenomenal terms as a brain and its generalised environment).
>
> Probably, but the initial nested "levels" we have should be given by the
> hypostases p, Bp, etc. and also the graded B^n p  & D^m t, with m bigger
> than n. With p sigma_1 they all provide a quantization, and thus the
> physical reality is layered in some sense. There are no "correct dream"
> within a dream, because physical correctness appears when "you" are
> distributed all (infinitely many) most probable relative history. This
> might be related to what you say here.
>

​I think it might be. The idea is that the probabilities converge on what
we might then call a canonical (shared) reality.
​

> It plays some role in the "after life", making it a bit closer to to the
> Tibetan Bardo Todol. A poet said that there are only two certainties: taxes
> and death, but that was still wishful thinking
> ​:​
>

​I know, and
 I can't honestly say this
​has ​
give
​n​
me much comfort
​.​




> there is only one certainty: taxes.
>

​Or this :(​

David


> Bruno
>
> PS B^n p is ...Bp, with n Bs. (B^0 p = p, by convention).
>
>
> David
>
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>> Brent
>>
>> --
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>> "Everything List" group.
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>> Visit this group at 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Sep 2017, at 11:23, David Nyman wrote:


On 11 Sep 2017 9:22 a.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:

On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because  
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable  
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge  
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of  
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.





It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can  
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not). Knowledge is Bp & p, which is  
impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). We just cannot know an  
undecidable (by us)  proposition, by definition, although we can bet  
on it, but then it is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream  
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into  
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Yes, I think the difficulty Brent may be having with this is that  
the notion of belief in play here is to be understood as ramifying  
in some limit (delineated by the FPI) to that of physical structure  
and action.


That follows once we assume the mechanist hypothesis.



Consequently it constitutes, in the first place, an idiosyncratic  
commitment to truths that may or may not correspond, in part or in  
whole, to what is more generally 'believed'. Nonetheless,  
commitments of this sort cannot be disentangled from their own  
proper, and equally undoubtable, truth values, however misleading  
these may ultimately turn out to be in a wider context. They are, as  
you say, more in the nature of bets on a reality,


In this case it is a weaker bet on absence of change in consciousness  
for some self-transformation, but OK, that is the "reality" in the  
sense of "Dt", arguably.




which in general of course is consistent with the unavoidable rigour  
of an evolutionary logic. This is the crucial distinction between  
primary or perceptual undoubtability and secondary reliability that  
I've previously remarked on. And as is indeed the case with any  
serious bet, they represent an inescapable commitment that puts the  
bettor permanently at hazard.


OK.



It seems to me also that there are nested levels of such beliefs and  
their associated truths. Hence what is, at a certain level, an  
idiosyncratic commitment to what we would normally think of as  
something non veridical, as in a dream, may be nested within a more  
general or systemic commitment to a consistent and more generally  
shared physical reality (i.e. what will appear in phenomenal terms  
as a brain and its generalised environment).


Probably, but the initial nested "levels" we have should be given by  
the hypostases p, Bp, etc. and also the graded B^n p  & D^m t, with m  
bigger than n. With p sigma_1 they all provide a quantization, and  
thus the physical reality is layered in some sense. There are no  
"correct dream" within a dream, because physical correctness appears  
when "you" are distributed all (infinitely many) most probable  
relative history. This might be related to what you say here. It plays  
some role in the "after life", making it a bit closer to to the  
Tibetan Bardo Todol. A poet said that there are only two certainties:  
taxes and death, but that was still wishful thinking: there is only  
one certainty: taxes.


Bruno

PS B^n p is ...Bp, with n Bs. (B^0 p = p, by convention).



David


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 11 Sep 2017 9:22 a.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:


On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:


>
> On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the universal
>> number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific belief",
>> (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar
>> Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent provability to be
>> a notion of knowledge.
>>
>
> This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because you
> want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief).  But this
> does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for example).
>

Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of knowledge.
Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can assert it
> and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??
>

Ih he proves it (correctly or not). Knowledge is Bp & p, which is
impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). We just cannot know an undecidable
(by us)  proposition, by definition, although we can bet on it, but then it
is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Yes, I think the difficulty Brent may be having with this is that the
notion of belief in play here is to be understood as ramifying in some
limit (delineated by the FPI) to that of physical structure and action.
Consequently it constitutes, in the first place, an idiosyncratic
commitment to truths that may or may not correspond, in part or in whole,
to what is more generally 'believed'. Nonetheless, commitments of this sort
cannot be disentangled from their own proper, and equally undoubtable,
truth values, however misleading these may ultimately turn out to be in a
wider context. They are, as you say, more in the nature of bets on a
reality, which in general of course is consistent with the unavoidable
rigour of an evolutionary logic. This is the crucial distinction between
primary or perceptual undoubtability and secondary reliability that I've
previously remarked on. And as is indeed the case with any serious bet,
they represent an inescapable commitment that puts the bettor permanently
at hazard.

It seems to me also that there are nested levels of such beliefs and their
associated truths. Hence what is, at a certain level, an idiosyncratic
commitment to what we would normally think of as something non veridical,
as in a dream, may be nested within a more general or systemic commitment
to a consistent and more generally shared physical reality (i.e. what will
appear in phenomenal terms as a brain and its generalised environment).

David


Bruno




> Brent
>
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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Sep 2017, at 00:55, David Nyman wrote:

On 10 September 2017 at 18:24, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 09 Sep 2017, at 18:58, David Nyman wrote:

On 7 September 2017 at 10:03, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 06 Sep 2017, at 19:45, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/6/2017 7:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Some physicists can be immaterialist, but still believe that the  
fundamental reality is physical, a bit like Tegmark who remains  
(despite he is willing to think differently) open to the idea  
that the physical reality is a special mathematical structure  
among all mathematical structures, for example. That is  
problematical for pure mathematical reason: the notion of all  
mathematical structures do not make much mathematical sense, but  
it is of course problematic also with Mechanism, where the  
physical reality becomes the border of the whole "computable  
mathematics" (which is very tiny, as it is the tiny sigma_1 part  
of arithmetic).


I think Tegmark has changed his opinion and now only champions all  
computable universes.


Yes. The problem now, is that there are no computable physical  
universes. Here he miss the first person indeterminacy in  
arithmetic. He miss that any universal machine looking below its  
substitution level is confronted to its infinity of implementations  
in arithmetic. In fact, he remains somehow physicalist, and does  
not seem aware of the computationalist mind-body problem.


​Yes, it's quite surprising how elusive this absence of universes  
seems to be in the context of mechanism. Old presuppositions  
seemingly die very hard. Another elusive point is what Chalmers is  
getting at with what he calls the Paradox of Phenomenal Judgement​ 
. This is the problem of how what one might call an 'extensional  
infrastructure' and any corresponding phenomenal reality are  
seemingly able to 'refer' to each other. It's a big fly in the  
ointment of physicalist theories of mind like panpsychism, although  
it seems to be exceedingly difficult to point this out to  
panpsychists in my experience. For example, if we consider a movie  
being rendered on an LCD screen, nobody imagines that either the  
pixels comprising the screen, or the action of the movie tracked or  
carried by those pixels, either do, or in any way need to, refer to  
each other. They are, in a sense, mutual epiphenomena. However, my  
own utterances or judgements - standing in a general way for the  
'extensional infrastructure' of my perceptions - and those  
perceptions themselves, do indeed seem to need to cross-refer. It's  
this cross-reference that is alluded to in Bp and p.


Hmm... Perhaps OK. There might be a problem with the "extensional  
infrastructure" where I see an intensional one, and only the "body"  
is the (relatively and indexically) extensional.


​Yes, in this case I meant beliefs or judgments as they would  
appear in bodily expression, e.g. utterances, and hence extensional.

  ​




I've been thinking about how this might play out very generally in  
terms of the coincidence or intersection of action and perception  
as generalisations of B and p. As you say, we assume at the outset  
a knower in the guise of the universal or generic machine (i.e. a  
number playing the role of 'processor' with respect to another  
number).


You force me to be very precise. I assume only p, the true sigma_1  
propositions. You can equate them with the computational states  
attained by the, or a, universal dovetailing. I define the "believer- 
knower-observer-feeler" by a universal number, mastering classical  
first order logic, and (unlike what we need to assume for the  
ontology) the induction axioms (on the sigma_1 sentences). The  
believer can prove its own incompleteness and its "modesty", in the  
conditional way.


So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


Then incompleteness enforce the correct machine to distinguish the  
nuances between p, Bp, Bp & p, Bp & Dt, Bp & Dt & p. Which  
corresponds with Truth ("God", the One, Reality, ...), Belief  
(theories, ideas), Knowledge (where ideas fits with Reality), and  
the "material" version which encapsulate the idea of possibility and  
non transitive alternative, which incompleteness offers on a plate:  
consistency, Dt.


So the universal machine endowed with, say, a classical logical  
instinct, is born with those quite different views on the universal  
reality. Those views can be in conflict, or live at peace.


G* prove p <-> Bp <-> Bp & p <-> etc.

But G does not prove any of those equivalences. Sigma_1 truth, seen  
as the set of all true arithmetical sigma_1 sentences is the same  
set as the set of provable 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 10 Sep 2017, at 22:25, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because  
you want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable  
belief).  But this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge  
(c.f. Getteir for example).


Yes. Incompleteness makes provability into belief instead of  
knowledge. Gödel mention this already in 1933.




It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us can  
assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Ih he proves it (correctly or not). Knowledge is Bp & p, which is  
impossible if p is not provable (~Bp). We just cannot know an  
undecidable (by us)  proposition, by definition, although we can bet  
on it, but then it is different kind of knowledge (closer to Bp & Dt).
That we can know for bad reason is the ultimate lesson of the dream  
argument. People like Malcom who dislike Mechanism are forced into  
disbelieving the existence of consciousness in dreams, as he did.


Bruno




Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 10 September 2017 at 18:24, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 09 Sep 2017, at 18:58, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 7 September 2017 at 10:03, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>>
>> On 06 Sep 2017, at 19:45, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 9/6/2017 7:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>> Some physicists can be immaterialist, but still believe that the
>> fundamental reality is physical, a bit like Tegmark who remains (despite he
>> is willing to think differently) open to the idea that the physical reality
>> is a special mathematical structure among all mathematical structures, for
>> example. That is problematical for pure mathematical reason: the notion of
>> all mathematical structures do not make much mathematical sense, but it is
>> of course problematic also with Mechanism, where the physical reality
>> becomes the border of the whole "computable mathematics" (which is very
>> tiny, as it is the tiny sigma_1 part of arithmetic).
>>
>>
>> I think Tegmark has changed his opinion and now only champions all
>> *computable* universes.
>>
>>
>> Yes. The problem now, is that there are no computable physical universes.
>> Here he miss the first person indeterminacy in arithmetic. He miss that any
>> universal machine looking below its substitution level is confronted to its
>> infinity of implementations in arithmetic. In fact, he remains somehow
>> physicalist, and does not seem aware of the computationalist mind-body
>> problem.
>>
>
> ​Yes, it's quite surprising how elusive this absence of universes seems to
> be in the context of mechanism. Old presuppositions seemingly die very
> hard. Another elusive point is what Chalmers is getting at with what he
> calls the Paradox of Phenomenal Judgement​. This is the problem of how what
> one might call an 'extensional infrastructure' and any corresponding
> phenomenal reality are seemingly able to 'refer' to each other. It's a big
> fly in the ointment of physicalist theories of mind like panpsychism,
> although it seems to be exceedingly difficult to point this out to
> panpsychists in my experience. For example, if we consider a movie being
> rendered on an LCD screen, nobody imagines that either the pixels
> comprising the screen, or the action of the movie tracked or carried by
> those pixels, either do, or in any way need to, refer to each other. They
> are, in a sense, mutual epiphenomena. However, my own utterances or
> judgements - standing in a general way for the 'extensional infrastructure'
> of my perceptions - and those perceptions themselves, do indeed seem to
> need to cross-refer. It's this cross-reference that is alluded to in Bp and
> p.
>
>
> Hmm... Perhaps OK. There might be a problem with the "extensional
> infrastructure" where I see an intensional one, and only the "body" is the
> (relatively and indexically) extensional.
>

​Yes, in this case I meant beliefs or judgments as they would appear in
bodily expression, e.g. utterances, and hence extensional.
  ​

>
>
>
> I've been thinking about how this might play out very generally in terms
> of the coincidence or intersection of action and perception as
> generalisations of B and p. As you say, we assume at the outset a knower in
> the guise of the universal or generic machine (i.e. a number playing the
> role of 'processor' with respect to another number).
>
>
> You force me to be very precise. I assume only p, the true sigma_1
> propositions. You can equate them with the computational states attained by
> the, or a, universal dovetailing. I define the 
> "believer-knower-observer-feeler"
> by a universal number, mastering classical first order logic, and (unlike
> what we need to assume for the ontology) the induction axioms (on the
> sigma_1 sentences). The believer can prove its own incompleteness and its
> "modesty", in the conditional way.
>
> So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the universal
> number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief "scientific belief",
> (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's (sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar
> Bp. That makes sense, due to incompleteness which prevent provability to be
> a notion of knowledge.
>
> Then incompleteness enforce the correct machine to distinguish the nuances
> between p, Bp, Bp & p, Bp & Dt, Bp & Dt & p. Which corresponds with Truth
> ("God", the One, Reality, ...), Belief (theories, ideas), Knowledge (where
> ideas fits with Reality), and the "material" version which encapsulate the
> idea of possibility and non transitive alternative, which incompleteness
> offers on a plate: consistency, Dt.
>
> So the universal machine endowed with, say, a classical logical instinct,
> is born with those quite different views on the universal reality. Those
> views can be in conflict, or live at peace.
>
> G* prove p <-> Bp <-> Bp & p <-> etc.
>
> But G does not prove any of those equivalences. Sigma_1 truth, seen as the
> set of all true arithmetical sigma_1 sentences is the same set as 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/10/2017 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the 
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief 
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's 
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to 
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


This seems problematic to me.  I understand why you do it; because you 
want knowledge to be true belief (not just true provable belief).  But 
this does violence to the usual meaning of knowledge (c.f. Getteir for 
example).  It means that given some undecidable proposition one of us 
can assert it and the other deny it, and then one of us will know it. ??


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 09 Sep 2017, at 18:58, David Nyman wrote:


On 7 September 2017 at 10:03, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

On 06 Sep 2017, at 19:45, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/6/2017 7:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Some physicists can be immaterialist, but still believe that the  
fundamental reality is physical, a bit like Tegmark who remains  
(despite he is willing to think differently) open to the idea that  
the physical reality is a special mathematical structure among all  
mathematical structures, for example. That is problematical for  
pure mathematical reason: the notion of all mathematical  
structures do not make much mathematical sense, but it is of   
course problematic also with Mechanism, where the physical reality  
becomes the border of the whole "computable mathematics" (which is  
very tiny, as it is the tiny sigma_1 part of arithmetic).


I think Tegmark has changed his opinion and now only champions all  
computable universes.


Yes. The problem now, is that there are no computable physical  
universes. Here he miss the first person indeterminacy in  
arithmetic. He miss that any universal machine looking below its  
substitution level is confronted to its infinity of implementations  
in arithmetic. In fact, he remains somehow physicalist, and does not  
seem aware of the computationalist mind-body problem.


​Yes, it's quite surprising how elusive this absence of universes  
seems to be in the context of mechanism. Old presuppositions  
seemingly die very hard. Another elusive point is what Chalmers is  
getting at with what he calls the Paradox of Phenomenal Judgement​.  
This is the problem of how what one might call an 'extensional  
infrastructure' and any corresponding phenomenal reality are  
seemingly able to 'refer' to each other. It's a big fly in the  
ointment of physicalist theories of mind like panpsychism, although  
it seems to be exceedingly difficult to point this out to  
panpsychists in my experience. For example, if we consider a movie  
being rendered on an LCD screen, nobody imagines that either the  
pixels comprising the screen, or the action of the movie tracked or  
carried by those pixels, either do, or in any way need to, refer to  
each other. They are, in a sense, mutual epiphenomena. However, my  
own utterances or judgements - standing in a general way for the  
'extensional infrastructure' of my perceptions - and those  
perceptions themselves, do indeed seem to need to cross-refer. It's  
this cross-reference that is alluded to in Bp and p.


Hmm... Perhaps OK. There might be a problem with the "extensional  
infrastructure" where I see an intensional one, and only the "body" is  
the (relatively and indexically) extensional.





I've been thinking about how this might play out very generally in  
terms of the coincidence or intersection of action and perception as  
generalisations of B and p. As you say, we assume at the outset a  
knower in the guise of the universal or generic machine (i.e. a  
number playing the role of 'processor' with respect to another  
number).


You force me to be very precise. I assume only p, the true sigma_1  
propositions. You can equate them with the computational states  
attained by the, or a, universal dovetailing. I define the "believer- 
knower-observer-feeler" by a universal number, mastering classical  
first order logic, and (unlike what we need to assume for the  
ontology) the induction axioms (on the sigma_1 sentences). The  
believer can prove its own incompleness and its "modesty", in the  
conditional way.


So I assume elementary arithmetic; I prove the existence of the  
universal number(s), then I define a notion of rational belief  
"scientific belief", (Plotinus discursive reasoner) by Gödel's  
(sigma_1 arithmetical) beweisbar Bp. That makes sense, due to  
incompleteness which prevent provability to be a notion of knowledge.


Then incompleteness enforce the correct machine to distinguish the  
nuances between p, Bp, Bp & p, Bp & Dt, Bp & Dt & p. Which corresponds  
with Truth ("God", the One, Reality, ...), Belief (theories, ideas),  
Knowledge (where ideas fits with Reality), and the "material" version  
which encapsulate the idea of possibility and non transitive  
alternative, which incompleteness offers on a plate: consistency, Dt.


So the universal machine endowed with, say, a classical logical  
instinct, is born with those quite different views on the universal  
reality. Those views can be in conflict, or live at peace.


G* prove p <-> Bp <-> Bp & p <-> etc.

But G does not prove any of those equivalences. Sigma_1 truth, seen as  
the set of all true arithmetical sigma_1 sentences is the same set as  
the set of provable sigma_1 sentences.


The universal machine might know she is God, but she will never tell  
you.




The computational duals enacted by such machines are then projected  
to be elaborated to the point where they are tracking or carrying  
the state changes of an 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 06 Sep 2017, at 19:45, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/6/2017 7:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Some physicists can be immaterialist, but still believe that the  
fundamental reality is physical, a bit like Tegmark who remains  
(despite he is willing to think differently) open to the idea that  
the physical reality is a special mathematical structure among all  
mathematical structures, for example. That is problematical for  
pure mathematical reason: the notion of all mathematical structures  
do not make much mathematical sense, but it is of course  
problematic also with Mechanism, where the physical reality becomes  
the border of the whole "computable mathematics" (which is very  
tiny, as it is the tiny sigma_1 part of arithmetic).


I think Tegmark has changed his opinion and now only champions all  
computable universes.


Yes. The problem now, is that there are no computable physical  
universes. Here he miss the first person indeterminacy in arithmetic.  
He miss that any universal machine looking below its substitution  
level is confronted to its infinity of implementations in arithmetic.  
In fact, he remains somehow physicalist, and does not seem aware of  
the computationalist mind-body problem.


Bruno






Brent

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



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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/6/2017 7:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Some physicists can be immaterialist, but still believe that the 
fundamental reality is physical, a bit like Tegmark who remains 
(despite he is willing to think differently) open to the idea that the 
physical reality is a special mathematical structure among all 
mathematical structures, for example. That is problematical for pure 
mathematical reason: the notion of all mathematical structures do not 
make much mathematical sense, but it is of course problematic also 
with Mechanism, where the physical reality becomes the border of the 
whole "computable mathematics" (which is very tiny, as it is the tiny 
sigma_1 part of arithmetic). 


I think Tegmark has changed his opinion and now only champions all 
/computable/ universes.


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 06 Sep 2017, at 11:06, smitra wrote:


On 06-09-2017 10:39, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2017, at 18:53, Brent Meeker wrote:

On 9/5/2017 2:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
It is not a metaphor. When you say "yes" to the surgeon, he will   
not replace your brain by a metaphor, but by a digital machine.   
Then we use the math of self-reference to study what a digital   
machine can prove and not prove about itself, and the 8  
different  views are extracted from this. Bp & p gives the  
classical  Theaetetus standard definition of knowledge, for  
exemple. Socrates  criticized it, but the incompleteness theorem  
makes it able to work  in the mechanist context.
If you are only going to reason about an ideal machine, why begin   
from replacing one's brain with a digital machine?

You might say that when we say "yes" to the doctor, we hope we are
self-referentially correct, and we were in case it succeeds. Then, at
the substitution level, the G and G* logic applies.
The answer of course is that you really want to identify the   
machine's function (which is physical) with conscious thought of   
abstractions like numbers and theorems.
No. That follows from mechanism. It makes us into number reflecting  
on

their possibilities. I just simplify the reasoning by assuming ideal
correctness, to avoid interviewing an "Helsinki" guy who believes  
that

he is Napoleon ... You can put this in the default hypotheses.
This is a bit of a stretch...but OK.  Then you go further and   
idealize the abstract machine so that it proves all of RA

Potentially.

and interprets the 8 different logical classes in terms of knowing.

Only Bp & p, and Bp & Dt & p, and somehow perhaps p are related to
knowledge. But OK. You were quick I guess.
This seems to me to already have stretched the connection to  
human  experience beyond the breaking point.

in UDA I use diaries and duplication to explain that physics has to
emerge from "number dream". It is a reasoning, based on the comp
assumption.
But when it is translated in arithmetic, you have the shows to  
imagine

human or non human. It is irrelevant. To get the "correct physics" we
limit ourself to correct machine (which exclude perhaps humans, but
that is not relevant from a theoretical standpoint.
But the connection to human experience is the only connection  
back  to physics.

Why? I don't see that at all.

Yet a physical world seems essential to human experience.

It is. The point is that the physical world is a number experience,
and physics is reduced to number psychology/theology.
Then the human soul can get lost, and forget its nature, and believe
the lies, but that cannot change the "correct physical laws" dreamed
by "winning" computations (those with measure 1 or 1 minus epsilon).

So the argument looks like a reductio to me.
I don't see this, nor am I sure what this means. I think you mix  
level

of explanation. It is a bit like saying to a quantum physicist "oh,
you know what matter is, so you should be able to give me the recipe
of the salami pizza".
Bruno


Thing is that you can extend Einstein's comment about quantum  
mechanics asking whether the Moon is really there if we don't look,  
to the entire external World.


Assuming this makes sense. OK. That was the argument by Belinfante  
that God exist. He assumes Copenhagen's collapse, and so need a God to  
reduce and select the Universal Wave. That is the only way to have  
both QM applicable to the entire world, and the wave-reduction.  A  
bizarre job for God, though.




So, if we assume a physical universe, then given that Einstein was  
wrong about QM being fundamental,


What do you mean? I think you made a typo. Einstein was wrong in  
thinking QM being *not* fundamental or not complete.




you'll end up with either an anti-realist interpretation of physical  
reality or the  MWI, what you won't get is the good old solid  
classical type of reality.


OK.



So, assuming a physical world is rather pointless  in this discussion.

The people who insist that it exists are typically the same people  
who hold on to fundamental classical views for the macroscopic  
world, who think that somehow the Hilbert Space can become the same  
as a classical configuration space, who think that the MWI is wrong  
or that in some way a FAPP argument about the macroscopic world  
leads to the absolute truth (to them 1-epsilon = 1 for sufficiently  
small but strictly larger than zero epsilon).


I am not entirely sure. Some people want a primary ontological  
physical reality because they want physics to remain the fundamental  
science. They dislike the idea that the physical reality might be  
explainable by an entirely different domain (namely by pure  
mathematics, or worst (for them) arithmetic, or still worst "theology"  
or "metaphysics" or "psychology").


Some physicists can be immaterialist, but still believe that the  
fundamental reality is physical, a bit like Tegmark who remains  
(despite he is 

Re: Is math real?

[smitra]

On 06-09-2017 10:39, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 05 Sep 2017, at 18:53, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/5/2017 2:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


It is not a metaphor. When you say "yes" to the surgeon, he will  not 
replace your brain by a metaphor, but by a digital machine.  Then we 
use the math of self-reference to study what a digital  machine can 
prove and not prove about itself, and the 8 different  views are 
extracted from this. Bp & p gives the classical  Theaetetus standard 
definition of knowledge, for exemple. Socrates  criticized it, but 
the incompleteness theorem makes it able to work  in the mechanist 
context.


If you are only going to reason about an ideal machine, why begin  
from replacing one's brain with a digital machine?


You might say that when we say "yes" to the doctor, we hope we are
self-referentially correct, and we were in case it succeeds. Then, at
the substitution level, the G and G* logic applies.




The answer of course is that you really want to identify the  
machine's function (which is physical) with conscious thought of  
abstractions like numbers and theorems.


No. That follows from mechanism. It makes us into number reflecting on
 their possibilities. I just simplify the reasoning by assuming ideal
correctness, to avoid interviewing an "Helsinki" guy who believes that
 he is Napoleon ... You can put this in the default hypotheses.



This is a bit of a stretch...but OK.  Then you go further and  
idealize the abstract machine so that it proves all of RA


Potentially.




and interprets the 8 different logical classes in terms of knowing.


Only Bp & p, and Bp & Dt & p, and somehow perhaps p are related to
knowledge. But OK. You were quick I guess.




This seems to me to already have stretched the connection to human  
experience beyond the breaking point.



in UDA I use diaries and duplication to explain that physics has to
emerge from "number dream". It is a reasoning, based on the comp
assumption.
But when it is translated in arithmetic, you have the shows to imagine
 human or non human. It is irrelevant. To get the "correct physics" we
 limit ourself to correct machine (which exclude perhaps humans, but
that is not relevant from a theoretical standpoint.




But the connection to human experience is the only connection back  to 
physics.


Why? I don't see that at all.




Yet a physical world seems essential to human experience.


It is. The point is that the physical world is a number experience,
and physics is reduced to number psychology/theology.

Then the human soul can get lost, and forget its nature, and believe
the lies, but that cannot change the "correct physical laws" dreamed
by "winning" computations (those with measure 1 or 1 minus epsilon).




So the argument looks like a reductio to me.



I don't see this, nor am I sure what this means. I think you mix level
 of explanation. It is a bit like saying to a quantum physicist "oh,
you know what matter is, so you should be able to give me the recipe
of the salami pizza".

Bruno


Thing is that you can extend Einstein's comment about quantum mechanics 
asking whether the Moon is really there if we don't look, to the entire 
external World. So, if we assume a physical universe, then given that 
Einstein was wrong about QM being fundamental, you'll end up with either 
an anti-realist interpretation of physical reality or the  MWI, what you 
won't get is the good old solid classical type of reality. So, assuming 
a physical world is rather pointless  in this discussion.


The people who insist that it exists are typically the same people who 
hold on to fundamental classical views for the macroscopic world, who 
think that somehow the Hilbert Space can become the same as a classical 
configuration space, who think that the MWI is wrong or that in some way 
a FAPP argument about the macroscopic world leads to the absolute truth 
(to them 1-epsilon = 1 for sufficiently small but strictly larger than 
zero epsilon).


Saibal

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2017, at 18:53, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/5/2017 2:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


It is not a metaphor. When you say "yes" to the surgeon, he will  
not replace your brain by a metaphor, but by a digital machine.  
Then we use the math of self-reference to study what a digital  
machine can prove and not prove about itself, and the 8 different  
views are extracted from this. Bp & p gives the classical  
Theaetetus standard definition of knowledge, for exemple. Socrates  
criticized it, but the incompleteness theorem makes it able to work  
in the mechanist context.


If you are only going to reason about an ideal machine, why begin  
from replacing one's brain with a digital machine?


You might say that when we say "yes" to the doctor, we hope we are  
self-referentially correct, and we were in case it succeeds. Then, at  
the substitution level, the G and G* logic applies.





The answer of course is that you really want to identify the  
machine's function (which is physical) with conscious thought of  
abstractions like numbers and theorems.


No. That follows from mechanism. It makes us into number reflecting on  
their possibilities. I just simplify the reasoning by assuming ideal  
correctness, to avoid interviewing an "Helsinki" guy who believes that  
he is Napoleon ... You can put this in the default hypotheses.




This is a bit of a stretch...but OK.  Then you go further and  
idealize the abstract machine so that it proves all of RA


Potentially.




and interprets the 8 different logical classes in terms of knowing.


Only Bp & p, and Bp & Dt & p, and somehow perhaps p are related to  
knowledge. But OK. You were quick I guess.





This seems to me to already have stretched the connection to human  
experience beyond the breaking point.



in UDA I use diaries and duplication to explain that physics has to  
emerge from "number dream". It is a reasoning, based on the comp  
assumption.
But when it is translated in arithmetic, you have the shows to imagine  
human or non human. It is irrelevant. To get the "correct physics" we  
limit ourself to correct machine (which exclude perhaps humans, but  
that is not relevant from a theoretical standpoint.





But the connection to human experience is the only connection back  
to physics.


Why? I don't see that at all.




Yet a physical world seems essential to human experience.


It is. The point is that the physical world is a number experience,  
and physics is reduced to number psychology/theology.


Then the human soul can get lost, and forget its nature, and believe  
the lies, but that cannot change the "correct physical laws" dreamed  
by "winning" computations (those with measure 1 or 1 minus epsilon).





So the argument looks like a reductio to me.



I don't see this, nor am I sure what this means. I think you mix level  
of explanation. It is a bit like saying to a quantum physicist "oh,  
you know what matter is, so you should be able to give me the recipe  
of the salami pizza".


Bruno





Brent

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



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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/5/2017 2:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


It is not a metaphor. When you say "yes" to the surgeon, he will not 
replace your brain by a metaphor, but by a digital machine. Then we 
use the math of self-reference to study what a digital machine can 
prove and not prove about itself, and the 8 different views are 
extracted from this. Bp & p gives the classical Theaetetus standard 
definition of knowledge, for exemple. Socrates criticized it, but the 
incompleteness theorem makes it able to work in the mechanist context.


If you are only going to reason about an ideal machine, why begin from 
replacing one's brain with a digital machine?  The answer of course is 
that you really want to identify the machine's function (which is 
physical) with conscious thought of abstractions like numbers and 
theorems.  This is a bit of a stretch...but OK.  Then you go further and 
idealize the abstract machine so that it proves all of RA and interprets 
the 8 different logical classes in terms of knowing.  This seems to me 
to already have stretched the connection to human experience beyond the 
breaking point.  But the connection to human experience is the only 
connection back to physics.  Yet a physical world seems essential to 
human experience.  So the argument looks like a reductio to me.


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2017, at 03:14, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

I honestly don't feel that a TOE cannot be achieved unless  
astronomers and physicists build and use better detection equipment  
to observe the universe. I am convinced just by more prosaic  
achievements, like dark mater and LIGO, and planet spotting, that  
more profound discoveries will be made. Improve the telescope and we  
improve the discovery.


Physics can only help us to explore the physical reality, but I still  
do not know if the physical reality is the "real thing", or an  
invention of the devil to distract us from the real thing.


The failure of physics in metaphysics and theology (if not our social  
lives) is for me an indication that physics when taken as metaphysics/ 
theology is wrong. Mechanism and Arithmetic does not fail on this  
because it explains the gap between observation and truth, and it  
explains many other dualities that we live in our chair and bones. So  
let us do the test, and let us try to avoid wishful thinking. Today,  
we just don't know.


Bruno







-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Sep 4, 2017 12:31 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?


On 04 Sep 2017, at 01:00, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

I cannot see Math Not being real, because it would fail, enormously,  
if "laws" of the cosmos, did not work. In other words, we could  
describe the world via phlogiston mist, or, luminiferous ether (tip  
o' the hat to the 19th century scientists), so it works. If math  
didn't work, simple objects like planets would not reliably work,  
circling their parent star. Are there any counter-examples, where  
Math fails to describe? Or, does Math have real examples of failure?  
Please cite these. G'wan!


I agree math is real in that sense, but for a TOE it can be  
important to agree at least that some part is real, in its meaning,  
and everybody do agree on first-order classical arithmetic without  
induction (even Nelson and the ultrafinitist). I think that doubting  
that entails the doubting that "doubting" means anything.


And with mechanism, we don't need more than that, as that  
characterize universal computability (in the sense of Turing, Post,  
Church, Kleene).


So I put the "induction axioms" (the formula (F(0) & F(n) -> F(n+1)  
for all n -> F(n) for all n) already in the epistemological tools.


In mathematics, all attempt to get a theory of everything failed,  
and there are quasi logical reason to bet that the mathematical  
reality is not mathematically describable. This does not mean that  
set theories and category theories (the "TOE" for math) are not  
interesting, even for mechanism in the long run.


Only the computable has that miraculous property of being able to  
invite its god, the universal machine, at the table of discussion!  
To be sure, this applies to machine with oracles and other  
relativized notions.


With mechanism, the physical has a mathematical origin, which at  
least explain why the physical is so much mathematical.


Bruno




-Original Message-
From: David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 6:07 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?

On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>  
wrote:



On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.

That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white  
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still  
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god  
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains  
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of  
the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias  
elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as  
well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The  
progress are the following


Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear  
theory of mind


Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind  
(+ an identity thesis).


Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants  
to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics  
or consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that the very  
possibility of computation depends on the physics of the world and  
is invented by evolut

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2017, at 03:01, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 5/09/2017 1:03 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 04 Sep 2017, at 14:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter,  
and that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.

Primary means "not deducible" from something else.


Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is  
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary,


What do you mean by "observation is primary"? I don't understand  
what that could mean. Normally this assumes an observer and some  
reality.


You ignore a lot of 18th and 19th century philosophy.


?



The British empiricist school spent a lot of time discussing the  
primacy of observation, leading eventually to positivism, which  
insisted that the only meaningful statements were those that could  
be reduced to elementary observational statements. This might not  
have been a treeibly successful philosophy, but at least it is  
understandable.


Which has lead to Vienna positivism, which is self-defeating. I  
explain this in detail in my long french text, but that would be just  
a distraction here.


Note that I am an empiricist in the more modern Popperian sense.

Yes, I say the physical reality is all in your head (with "you"  
equated to any universal number), but the criterion of verification is  
still empirical, despite what we see is a dream.


It is like when we become lucid in a dream, and realize from dream  
clues that we are dreaming.


If we are machine, then we can show that the observable must be dreams  
obeying to this and that laws, and then we do the meaurement, and find  
that indeed our physical reality obeys to those laws of dreams/self- 
reference.









not the matter. But then I assume matter and deduce that I will  
observe it - so the matter becomes primary.


Well, that is not so easy. The whole point of the UDA consists in  
showing that EVEN if we assume primary matter, it remains out of my  
consciousness.


But that proof fails to convince.


At which step?






Also, I talk on primary matter. To believe in primary matter you  
have, by definition, the belief that the apperance of matter and  
its law are not deducible from something else.


No, you only have to believe in the existence, for example, of the  
particles of the Standard Model of particle physics and their  
interactions -- the basic Lagrangian of the theory is all that is  
required. Everything folloows from that, so that is primary.


Everything physical follows from that. But it fails on consciousness  
(that is why materialist when honest try to eliminate it).


Physics just fails, and even does not aboard, consciousness.

Then mechanism is testable by making the physical derivable from  
arithmetic. So let us do the derivation and the measurement before  
concluding.








You claim arithmetic is primary, because 2+2=4 independent of you  
and me.


... and that we cannot derive it from something simpler. We can  
derive it only from something Turing-equivalent.


You again ignore the thousands of years of human cultural history  
that led from counting rocks to the Turing machine. That was a  
process of deduction and refinement par excellence.


You confuse arithmetic and the human history of science. You would  
mock a neurophysiologist by telling him that all his talk on brain is  
biased because he is using a brain.









But I can deduce arithmetic from observation,


Observation of something which you infer to be Turing equivalent  
with numbers.



making observation primary again,


?

and arithmetic merely derivative. But then I assume that matter is  
primary -  I can then deduce both observation and 
arithmetic.


No, by UDA you will miss "observation". It is the whole point.  
Observation is a conscious experience, and with mechanism, you need  
to put some non-Turing emulable magic in some stuff to select the  
computations which exists in arithmetic.


I do not assume mechanism. Why should I prejudge the outcome by  
assuming I already have all the answers?


Then you lost me.

What do you assume? What is you theory? If you assume a physical  
universe (automatically primary if you add that we need to assume it),  
then that is fine, but mechanism is wrong, indeed, and we are just  
working in a different theory. But I still do not know which one you  
are assuming.









It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary,


I study the consequence of the mechanist assumption. There is no  
way to define what a digital machine is without assuming arithmetic  
(or Turing-equivalent).



but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case.


yes, I can. I can prove that if you suppress any one axiom in RA:

0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1))  -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x

then I cannot retrieve it, and in all case, I lost Turing  

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2017, at 02:01, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 5/09/2017 12:49 am, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 Sep 2017 13:11, "Bruce Kellett"   
wrote:

On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical  
reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.

Indeed.

But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for  
primary matter. Not one.



"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem  
inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.


?

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and  
that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.


Primary means "not deducible" from something else.

Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is  
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary, not the matter.  
But then I assume matter and deduce that I will observe it - so the  
matter becomes primary. You claim arithmetic is primary, because  
2+2=4 independent of you and me. But I can deduce arithmetic from  
observation, making observation primary again, and arithmetic  
merely derivative. But then I assume that matter is primary -  I  
can then deduce both observation and arithmetic.


It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic  
primary, but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case. I  
can assume that quarks and electrons, etc, are primary, and else  
follows from this. Maybe I can't prove that either, but I have a  
hell of a lot more evidence for the possibility of deriving  
arithmetic from the existence of matter than you have of proving  
the existence of quarks from pure arithmetic. The evidence is all  
in my favour.


Honestly, Bruce, I think it's you who is playing with words here.  
The sense in which Bruno is using primary here is perfectly clear -  
i.e. the fundamental ontological assumption in a comprehensive  
theory of origins.


That is not what Bruno says above. I quote: "Primary means 'not  
deducible' from something else." Given that definition, then what I  
say is perfectly logical. Primacy has nothing to do with ontology  
according to Bruno's definition.


Except that I define the ontic level by what we take as primary. How  
to proceed differently? (without ontological commitment).







It doesn't aid comprehension to substitute a quite different  
meaning - that of primary sense perception -  in 'rebuttal'. As to  
choice of primary ontological assumption, that is fixed by the  
prior choice of mechanism as the theory of mind.


But I do not assume mechanism as the theory of mind.


Then, I guess we talk on different things.





It seems to me begging the question to assume the answer before you  
begin the investigation.


That does not make sense. I study the consequence of the mechanist  
hypothesis. Now, you loss me. I am not sure what you are arguing for.  
You can assume a physical primary universe, but then the result is  
that you need a non computationalist theory of mind.






One's choice of "primary ontological assumption" is a choice, and I  
am not constrained to assume your ontology in order to discuss your  
theory. As has been said, "Epistemology precedes ontology", so  
constraining one's ontology from the outset is not necessarily the  
brightest strategy.


OK. But with mechanism, the TOE does not need to assume more than:


0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1))  -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x

which is assumed in all physical theory, and also many non physical  
theory.








I think frankly that this is the sticking point for you. You want  
to claim that computation can equally well be 'inferred' from the  
primary ontological assumption of physics. But unfortunately this  
amounts to egregious question begging, since the phenomenon of  
inference, and a fortiori any perceptible phenomenon that depends  
on it, is itself already part of the mental spectrum whose  
provenance we're seeking to explain in the first place.


Consciousness is a necessary prerequisite for the understanding of  
consciousness. This might be true, but it is an unhelpful  
observation. Just as unhelpful as your observation that logic and  
inference are necessary for the understanding of logic and  
inference. I am not begging the question, I am doing the opposite,  
and not assuming the answer before I begin the investigation.


What are you assuming? You will be in trouble, because the theory  
above can be proved to be not deducible from any other theory (unless  
Turing equivalent: all the axiom above can be deduce from Kxy = x +  
Sxya = xz(yz)).




In science, one has to observe the phenomenon before seeking to  
explain it -- it if is not observed, what is there to explain?


Here you do beg the question. We do that in 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Sep 2017, at 00:25, Russell Standish wrote:


On Mon, Sep 04, 2017 at 11:58:29AM -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:


My complaint is that it implicitly assumes more than "Yes doctor".
It assumes that computation exists in a Platonic realm independent
of the physical.


This not really needed. At step 7 of the UDA, whatever is primary can
be anything capable of universal computation, and phenomenal physics
is unchanged. Primary physics then becomes the "invisible horse" of
the horseless carriage. However, I can see the same point can be made
of primary arithmetic. The only really primary thing in
computationalism is (Turing) computation.


I would not say this. I gues I have to do that someday, but we can  
prove the existence of the computations from


0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1))  -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x

(and nothing else, except calssical logic).

We can use less, and use

Kxy = x
Sxyz = xz(yz)

in which case we can use just small identity axioms instead of logic,  
but to get the Löbian entities, we have to extend this also with  
classical logic, so it is easier to admit it at the base.






Of course this doesn't speak to the "non-robust" or small universe
move that is supposed to be addressed by the MGA. Whilst I'm not
totally convinced by the MGA, I think that ultimately a non-robust
universe will severely constrain the sort of computations possible
with a quantum computer, and that a working 512 qubit quantum computer
will be strong empirical evidence that we live in a robust universe  
anyway.


OK. The MGA is really used for a subtle critics à-la Peter Jones. We  
can come back on this, someday, but I am not sure it helps people who  
usually are not well versed enough in philosophy of mind to see the  
difficulty. In fact, some philosophers have convinced me that the move  
to a small non-robust reality is already a reification error in  
philosophy. It is an ontological commitment, and it violate  
computationalism by adding a non explainable role to primary matter  
for consciousness. It is adding a metaphysical things to make the  
arithmetical being into zombies, and that is a bit like inventing a  
soul so that we can say that this or that category of person have no  
soul. We could use blessed water instead of robust universe. Of course  
the MGA and Maudlin is interesting per se, as it shows how far we need  
to go to provide sense to "primary matter". It also rises other  
interesting questions, but unrelated to the topic.


Bruno

PS I did read the beginning of your recent draft, but I have  
difficulties with it, and notably with your definition of OM. I will  
take more time to think about this. I try to avoid "OM" because they  
are intensional notions, so it makes sense only by fixing some  
universal base (like the axioms above), at least when we assume  
Mechanism.







--


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Senior Research Fellowhpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Sep 2017, at 21:54, smitra wrote:


Reply to everyone.

What we experience is not the physical world but a simulation of it  
by our brain. So, even if we assume that there exists a "primary"  
physical world, we're not really living in one, we're at most living  
in a World that's simulated inside it.


The fact that our primary experiences derive from a simulation  
allows magicians to earn a living. If you walk into your living  
room, what you see, what you experience is not the living room as it  
exists right now, it is almost entirely a reconstruction based on  
cached data from your memory.


Real time processing of data would be computationally infeasible,  
and we need to keep in mind that the brain evolved from a simple  
nervous system. In each step in the evolution where this became more  
complex, there would never be a system that could render a precise  
picture of the World, it was only ever about getting to a  better  
response giving the inputs. And in principle all inputs from now and  
some time ago can contain useful information.


Yes. That is made explicit in Turing's paper, and that is what  
eventually convinced Gödel of Church's thesis.






So, this way we ended up with a brain that ends up simulating the  
World,


Not the World, but some part of it. OK.




the simulation is what we are (the set of everything we experience  
is an OM that defines us).


Very locally, and the OM makes sense only to a Universal machine, and  
unfortunately, to an infinity of universal machine distributed in  
arithmetic (or any semantic of a Turing universal system), and that is  
why at some point we must define the observable by a statistics on the  
couples (universal machine --- OM), i.e. the computations.


Bruno





Saibal

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 5 September 2017 at 01:01, Bruce Kellett 
wrote:

> On 5/09/2017 12:49 am, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 4 Sep 2017 13:11, "Bruce Kellett"  wrote:
>
> On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>> On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality for
 which there are no evidences at all.

>>>
>>> You can't prove primary arithmetic either.
>>>
>>
>> Indeed.
>>
>> But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for
>> primary matter. Not one.
>>
>>
>> "Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem
>>> inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.
>>>
>>
>> ?
>>
>> Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and that
>> is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.
>>
>> Primary means "not deducible" from something else.
>>
>
> Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is
> evidence for matter, so the observation is primary, not the matter. But
> then I assume matter and deduce that I will observe it - so the matter
> becomes primary. You claim arithmetic is primary, because 2+2=4 independent
> of you and me. But I can deduce arithmetic from observation, making
> observation primary again, and arithmetic merely derivative. But then I
> assume that matter is primary -  I can then deduce both observation and
> arithmetic.
>
> It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary, but
> you can't prove that this is necessarily the case. I can assume that quarks
> and electrons, etc, are primary, and else follows from this. Maybe I can't
> prove that either, but I have a hell of a lot more evidence for the
> possibility of deriving arithmetic from the existence of matter than you
> have of proving the existence of quarks from pure arithmetic. The evidence
> is all in my favour.
>
>
> Honestly, Bruce, I think it's you who is playing with words here. The
> sense in which Bruno is using primary here is perfectly clear - i.e. the
> fundamental ontological assumption in a comprehensive theory of origins.
>
>
> That is not what Bruno says above. I quote: "Primary means 'not deducible'
> from something else." Given that definition, then what I say is perfectly
> logical. Primacy has nothing to do with ontology according to Bruno's
> definition.
>

​Yes it has, if you understand the role of ontology in a theory - as I
think Bruno intends it - to mean the inferential basis from which all other
theoretical phenomena will be deduced or inferred.​


>
> It doesn't aid comprehension to substitute a quite different meaning -
> that of primary sense perception -  in 'rebuttal'. As to choice of primary
> ontological assumption, that is fixed by the prior choice of mechanism as
> the theory of mind.
>
>
> But I do not assume mechanism as the theory of mind.
>

​But all Bruno's arguments are based on that assumption. Of course you
don't have to accept it, but then you are proposing a different theory and
that is not the same as a counter-argument to mechanism.​



> It seems to me begging the question to assume the answer before you begin
> the investigation.
>

​Not at all. If nothing else, it is the preliminary to a reductio ad
absurdum, which by his own account is what Bruno originally assumed would
be the outcome. However, as it turned out, the 'reductio' has so far failed
to convince.
​

> One's choice of "primary ontological assumption" is a choice, and I am not
> constrained to assume your ontology in order to discuss your theory.
>

​Well, either that or propose a more convincing one. If the theory is that
perception is a consequence of computation then it behoves the theorist to
take computation seriously as something other than a secondary phenomenon
*inferred* from perception. Despite what you say below, in the context of
the reasoning under consideration, this would be a very blatant beggaring
of the question.


As has been said, "Epistemology precedes ontology", so constraining one's
> ontology from the outset is not necessarily the brightest strategy.
>

Nice quote. However ​I suspect that whoever it was that said that wasn't
considering the possible theoretical origins of ​epistemology at the time.


>
> I think frankly that this is the sticking point for you. You want to claim
> that computation can equally well be 'inferred' from the primary
> ontological assumption of physics. But unfortunately this amounts to
> egregious question begging, since the phenomenon of inference, and a
> fortiori any perceptible phenomenon that depends on it, is itself already
> part of the mental spectrum whose provenance we're seeking to explain in
> the first place.
>
>
> Consciousness is a necessary prerequisite for the understanding of
> consciousness. This might be true, but it is an unhelpful observation.
>

​That isn't what I said. If we are considering the provenance of conscious

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Sep 2017, at 20:58, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/4/2017 12:05 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 4 Sep 2017 12:27 a.m., "Brent Meeker"   
wrote:



On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker   
wrote:



On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.

That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white  
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still  
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god  
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains  
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence  
of the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology  
(alias elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as  
well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The  
progress are the following


Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear  
theory of mind


Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind  
(+ an identity thesis).


Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he  
wants to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than  
physics or consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that  
the very possibility of computation depends on the physics of the  
world and is invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of  
computation in arithmetic.


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to  
choose the axioms.


On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical  
reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a  
word you stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a  
theory that is assumed rather than derived.


But  in that case I can just assume that the particles of the  
Standard Model are primary.  Then there's a lot of evidence for  
primary matter.  It's as though physicists are being criticized  
because they are willing to look deeper for an explanation of their  
best theory.  But computationalist are to be congratulated for  
asserting that there's no origin for arithmetic.


That criticism is just daft. Of course you can make physics primary  
if you like, but then you need to propose a different, non- 
computational, theory of mind, one that doesn't covertly add a  
primary role for "physical computation", as distinct from "primary  
physics", as the origin of phenomenal reality. In fact you have  
frequently proposed just such a theory, in the form of an  
"engineering solution". In which case fine, but then we're no  
longer discussing mechanism.


I'm sorry, I didn't know I was limited to discuss only mechanism. I  
was replying to Bruno's remark that there is no evidence at all for  
a primary physical reality.


It seems to me obvious that we cannot have evidence for "primariness".  
This follows, even without mechanism, from the (antic) dream argument.  
I can do a billion of experiences and then wake up: it was all a  
dream. It shows that seeing/measuring is not a criteria for  
metaphysical truth. It shows that "applied science" requires always  
some amount of fait in some reality.










In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in which it is  
assumed that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an  
epistemological consequence of computation. That being the case,  
the theory relies on computation, or its combinatorial basis, as  
its ontology (i.e. that part of the theory that is taken to exist  
independently of point-of-view). It then sets out to derive its  
phenomenology by means of an epistemological analysis (i.e. that  
part of the theory that is understood to be point-of-view  
relative) based on the generic or universal machine as unique  
subject or agent. Physics, as an observationally-selected subset  
both of the computational ontology and its derived phenomenology,  
cannot thus be considered primary, in the sense given here.


Of course it's not primary given a theory that assumes something  
else as primary.  Note that computationalism has yet to succeed in  
deriving phenomenology.


You need to make up your mind about what you are criticising.  
Mechanism necessarily assumes computation as primary and hence must  
derive physics and phenomenology.


My complaint is that it implicitly assumes more than "Yes doctor".   
It assumes that computation exists in a Platonic realm 

Re: Is math real?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

I honestly don't feel that a TOE cannot be achieved unless astronomers and 
physicists build and use better detection equipment to observe the universe. I 
am convinced just by more prosaic achievements, like dark mater and LIGO, and 
planet spotting, that more profound discoveries will be made. Improve the 
telescope and we improve the discovery. 



-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Sep 4, 2017 12:31 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?




On 04 Sep 2017, at 01:00, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:


I cannot see Math Not being real, because it would fail, enormously, if "laws" 
of the cosmos, did not work. In other words, we could describe the world via 
phlogiston mist, or, luminiferous ether (tip o' the hat to the 19th century 
scientists), so it works. If math didn't work, simple objects like planets 
would not reliably work, circling their parent star. Are there any 
counter-examples, where Math fails to describe? Or, does Math have real 
examples of failure? Please cite these. G'wan!



I agree math is real in that sense, but for a TOE it can be important to agree 
at least that some part is real, in its meaning, and everybody do agree on 
first-order classical arithmetic without induction (even Nelson and the 
ultrafinitist). I think that doubting that entails the doubting that "doubting" 
means anything. 


And with mechanism, we don't need more than that, as that characterize 
universal computability (in the sense of Turing, Post, Church, Kleene). 


So I put the "induction axioms" (the formula (F(0) & F(n) -> F(n+1) for all n 
-> F(n) for all n) already in the epistemological tools.


In mathematics, all attempt to get a theory of everything failed, and there are 
quasi logical reason to bet that the mathematical reality is not mathematically 
describable. This does not mean that set theories and category theories (the 
"TOE" for math) are not interesting, even for mechanism in the long run.


Only the computable has that miraculous property of being able to invite its 
god, the universal machine, at the table of discussion! To be sure, this 
applies to machine with oracles and other relativized notions.


With mechanism, the physical has a mathematical origin, which at least explain 
why the physical is so much mathematical.


Bruno




 
 
 
-Original Message-
 From: David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com>
 To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
 Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 6:07 pm
 Subject: Re: Is math real?
 
 
 
 
 
On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
 
 
 

 
 On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 
 On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
 
 
 
 
 On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 
 This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.
 
 
 That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white rabbits or, 
to refute computationalism by showing there are still white rabbits, and then 
you can try to invent some matter or god able to eliminate them, but that will 
in any case refute mechanism.
 
 
 
 
 What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains consciousness 
and physics to something like what we observe?
 
 
 Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of the 
relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias elementary 
arithmetic).
 
 
 Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as well as the 
other way around.
 
 
 OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The progress are the 
following
 
 Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear theory of mind
 
 Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind (+ an 
identity thesis).
 
 Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).
 
 Brent wrote to David:
 
 
 I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants to take 
arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics or consciousness and 
not derivative.  It seems to me that the very possibility of computation 
depends on the physics of the world and is invented by evolution.
 
 
 But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation in 
arithmetic. 
 
 
  After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to choose the 
axioms.
 
 
 On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality for which 
there are no evidences at all. 
 
 
  You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a word you 
stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.
 

 
 
​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a theory that is 
assumed rather than derived. In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in 
which it is assumed that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an 
epistemological cons

Re: Is math real?

[Bruce Kellett]

On 5/09/2017 1:03 am, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 04 Sep 2017, at 14:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and 
that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.

Primary means "not deducible" from something else.


Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is 
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary,


What do you mean by "observation is primary"? I don't understand what 
that could mean. Normally this assumes an observer and some reality.


You ignore a lot of 18th and 19th century philosophy. The British 
empiricist school spent a lot of time discussing the primacy of 
observation, leading eventually to positivism, which insisted that the 
only meaningful statements were those that could be reduced to 
elementary observational statements. This might not have been a treeibly 
successful philosophy, but at least it is understandable.



not the matter. But then I assume matter and deduce that I will 
observe it - so the matter becomes primary.


Well, that is not so easy. The whole point of the UDA consists in 
showing that EVEN if we assume primary matter, it remains out of my 
consciousness.


But that proof fails to convince.

Also, I talk on primary matter. To believe in primary matter you have, 
by definition, the belief that the apperance of matter and its law are 
not deducible from something else.


No, you only have to believe in the existence, for example, of the 
particles of the Standard Model of particle physics and their 
interactions -- the basic Lagrangian of the theory is all that is 
required. Everything folloows from that, so that is primary.



You claim arithmetic is primary, because 2+2=4 independent of you and 
me.


... and that we cannot derive it from something simpler. We can derive 
it only from something Turing-equivalent.


You again ignore the thousands of years of human cultural history that 
led from counting rocks to the Turing machine. That was a process of 
deduction and refinement par excellence.




But I can deduce arithmetic from observation,


Observation of something which you infer to be Turing equivalent with 
numbers.



making observation primary again,


?

and arithmetic merely derivative. But then I assume that matter is 
primary -  I can then deduce both observation and arithmetic.


No, by UDA you will miss "observation". It is the whole point. 
Observation is a conscious experience, and with mechanism, you need to 
put some non-Turing emulable magic in some stuff to select the 
computations which exists in arithmetic.


I do not assume mechanism. Why should I prejudge the outcome by assuming 
I already have all the answers?



It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary,


I study the consequence of the mechanist assumption. There is no way 
to define what a digital machine is without assuming arithmetic (or 
Turing-equivalent).



but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case.


yes, I can. I can prove that if you suppress any one axiom in RA:

0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1))  -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x

then I cannot retrieve it, and in all case, I lost Turing universality.


Where did these axioms of RA come from if not from millennia of 
experience of the real world? Or were they handed down from on high, 
inscribed on tablets of stone?




I can assume that quarks and electrons, etc, are primary,


Just show the theory.


The Langrangian of the standard model is the theory. It is well-understood.

I have not see one set of axioms capable of making electrons or quarks 
primary.


It is not a matter of axioms. If 'primary' is what everything else is 
derived from, then the 'primary' is not deducible from anything else, 
axioms or not!


I have seen only an attempt to do so with strings (by Schmidhuber). 
but it was a really "toy string theory" (nevertheless quite 
interesting per se).


The axiomatization of physics is largely a failed enterprise. String 
theory is a failed attempt at a fundamental theory -- I have nothing to 
do with it. But why should everything conform to your standards of 
axiomatized logic? There are more things in heaven and earth, [Bruno], 
than are dreamt of in your philosophy.


and else follows from this. Maybe I can't prove that either, but I 
have a hell of a lot more evidence for the possibility of deriving 
arithmetic from the existence of matter


I am not sure we have any evidence of how to derive number from 
anything physical or Turing equivalent.


Only millennia of experience..

Provide the theory and the deduction. If you can derive arithmetic 
from it, you will just prove it to be Turing equivalent, but with a 
lot more assumptions, and with the digital mechanist mind-body problem 
unsolved.



I don't want to solve the mechanist mind-body problem since I do not 
accept mechanism.


than you have of proving the 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruce Kellett]

On 5/09/2017 12:49 am, David Nyman wrote:
On 4 Sep 2017 13:11, "Bruce Kellett" > wrote:


On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary
physical reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.


Indeed.

But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence
for primary matter. Not one.


"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make
it seem inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical,
I observe it.


?

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe
matter, and that is an evidence for matter, not for primary
matter.

Primary means "not deducible" from something else.


Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary, not the
matter. But then I assume matter and deduce that I will observe it
- so the matter becomes primary. You claim arithmetic is primary,
because 2+2=4 independent of you and me. But I can deduce
arithmetic from observation, making observation primary again, and
arithmetic merely derivative. But then I assume that matter is
primary -  I can then deduce both observation and arithmetic.

It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic
primary, but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case. I
can assume that quarks and electrons, etc, are primary, and else
follows from this. Maybe I can't prove that either, but I have a
hell of a lot more evidence for the possibility of deriving
arithmetic from the existence of matter than you have of proving
the existence of quarks from pure arithmetic. The evidence is all
in my favour.


Honestly, Bruce, I think it's you who is playing with words here. The 
sense in which Bruno is using primary here is perfectly clear - i.e. 
the fundamental ontological assumption in a comprehensive theory of 
origins.


That is not what Bruno says above. I quote: "Primary means 'not 
deducible' from something else." Given that definition, then what I say 
is perfectly logical. Primacy has nothing to do with ontology according 
to Bruno's definition.


It doesn't aid comprehension to substitute a quite different meaning - 
that of primary sense perception -  in 'rebuttal'. As to choice of 
primary ontological assumption, that is fixed by the prior choice of 
mechanism as the theory of mind.


But I do not assume mechanism as the theory of mind. It seems to me 
begging the question to assume the answer before you begin the 
investigation. One's choice of "primary ontological assumption" is a 
choice, and I am not constrained to assume your ontology in order to 
discuss your theory. As has been said, "Epistemology precedes ontology", 
so constraining one's ontology from the outset is not necessarily the 
brightest strategy.


I think frankly that this is the sticking point for you. You want to 
claim that computation can equally well be 'inferred' from the primary 
ontological assumption of physics. But unfortunately this amounts to 
egregious question begging, since the phenomenon of inference, and a 
fortiori any perceptible phenomenon that depends on it, is itself 
already part of the mental spectrum whose provenance we're seeking to 
explain in the first place.


Consciousness is a necessary prerequisite for the understanding of 
consciousness. This might be true, but it is an unhelpful observation. 
Just as unhelpful as your observation that logic and inference are 
necessary for the understanding of logic and inference. I am not begging 
the question, I am doing the opposite, and not assuming the answer 
before I begin the investigation. In science, one has to observe the 
phenomenon before seeking to explain it -- it if is not observed, what 
is there to explain? The Cartesian attempt at a solution to the 
conundrum of explaining consciousness does not really work: I might not 
be able to doubt that I doubt, but that doesn't explain anything.


Bruce

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Re: Is math real?

[Russell Standish]

On Mon, Sep 04, 2017 at 11:58:29AM -0700, Brent Meeker wrote:
> 
> My complaint is that it implicitly assumes more than "Yes doctor".
> It assumes that computation exists in a Platonic realm independent
> of the physical. 

This not really needed. At step 7 of the UDA, whatever is primary can
be anything capable of universal computation, and phenomenal physics
is unchanged. Primary physics then becomes the "invisible horse" of
the horseless carriage. However, I can see the same point can be made
of primary arithmetic. The only really primary thing in
computationalism is (Turing) computation.

Of course this doesn't speak to the "non-robust" or small universe
move that is supposed to be addressed by the MGA. Whilst I'm not
totally convinced by the MGA, I think that ultimately a non-robust
universe will severely constrain the sort of computations possible
with a quantum computer, and that a working 512 qubit quantum computer
will be strong empirical evidence that we live in a robust universe anyway.


-- 


Dr Russell StandishPhone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Senior Research Fellowhpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au


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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/4/2017 12:54 PM, smitra wrote:

Reply to everyone.

What we experience is not the physical world but a simulation of it by 
our brain. So, even if we assume that there exists a "primary" 
physical world, we're not really living in one, we're at most living 
in a World that's simulated inside it.


The fact that our primary experiences derive from a simulation allows 
magicians to earn a living. If you walk into your living room, what 
you see, what you experience is not the living room as it exists right 
now, it is almost entirely a reconstruction based on cached data from 
your memory.


We're never mistaken about what experience we're having, but we're often 
mistaken about the physical world - which is why we tend to regard it as 
more real.


Brent



Real time processing of data would be computationally infeasible, and 
we need to keep in mind that the brain evolved from a simple nervous 
system. In each step in the evolution where this became more complex, 
there would never be a system that could render a precise picture of 
the World, it was only ever about getting to a better response giving 
the inputs. And in principle all inputs from now and some time ago can 
contain useful information.


So, this way we ended up with a brain that ends up simulating the 
World, the simulation is what we are (the set of everything we 
experience is an OM that defines us).


Saibal



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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/4/2017 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 04 Sep 2017, at 01:27, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that there
is no white rabbits or, to refute computationalism
by showing there are still white rabbits, and then
you can try to invent some matter or god able to
eliminate them, but that will in any case refute
mechanism.



What if getting rid of those white rabbits
tightly constrains consciousness and physics to
something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving
the existence of the relevant measure = deriving
physics from machine theology (alias elementary
arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails
consciousness as well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory.
The progress are the following

Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and
unclear theory of mind

Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory
of mind (+ an identity thesis).

Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in
that he wants to take arithmetic or computation as more
really real than physics or consciousness and not
derivative.  It seems to me that the very possibility of
computation depends on the physics of the world and is
invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of
computation in arithmetic.


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to
choose the axioms.

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical
reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a
word you stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a 
theory that is assumed rather than derived.


But  in that case I can just assume that the particles of the 
Standard Model are primary.  Then there's a lot of evidence for 
primary matter.  It's as though physicists are being criticized 
because they are willing to look deeper for an explanation of their 
best theory.  But computationalist are to be congratulated for 
asserting that there's no origin for arithmetic.


In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in which it is assumed 
that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an 
epistemological consequence of computation. That being the case, the 
theory relies on computation, or its combinatorial basis, as its 
ontology (i.e. that part of the theory that is taken to exist 
independently of point-of-view). It then sets out to derive its 
phenomenology by means of an epistemological analysis (i.e. that 
part of the theory that is understood to be point-of-view relative) 
based on the generic or universal machine as unique subject or 
agent. Physics, as an observationally-selected subset both of the 
computational ontology and its derived phenomenology, cannot thus be 
considered primary, in the sense given here.


Of course it's not primary given a theory that assumes something else 
as primary.  Note that computationalism has yet to succeed in 
deriving phenomenology.


Is that not slightly disingenuous?

The phenomenology is given by the 8 hypostases, with p sigma_1: p, Bp, 
Bp & p, Bp & Dt, Bp & Dt & p. That gives 8 person points of view as 
three of them split along G/G*. That splits, on the material 
hypostases, makes quanta into particular qualia, and the physical 
reality as a special first person plural reality (exactly what you get 
with QM without collapse), both obeying a different quantum like logics.


It is interesting that there are eight different logics, but calling 
them persons and points of view is just metaphor - not proof.  You say 
that they model human experience, but I think the model is very 
imperfect.  Humans don't believe all theorems of axioms they believe.  
In general their beliefs are contradictory.  If you're going to claim to 
derive human experience, then you need to define human experience so we 
can judge whether it is correctly modelled or not.




Explaining numbers from physics seems 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/4/2017 4:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the 
very possibility of computation depends on God".


If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not 
taking the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf 
Church-Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all what 
you are talking about.


So you put words in my mouth and then complain that you don't know 
what I'm talking about?


I am just deducing that you are using a term in a non standard meaning 
which I do not understand. If you have a definition of computations 
which does not rely on numbers or Church's thesis, you should make it 
precise, and you will have found a version of computationalism which 
might be coherent with physicalism.


I didn't use the word "computation"; in a standard or any other 
meaning.  It's one of the words you put in my mouth.


But I do have a different idea related to what you call computation.  It 
is that computation is the physical process of transforming some 
interactions into different interactions. That this can be described by 
arithmetical operations is because we abstracted arithmetical operations 
from the physical.  Notice that I did not need the concept of "primary" 
matter, just as you do not use "primary" computatation.


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/4/2017 12:05 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 4 Sep 2017 12:27 a.m., "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker > wrote:



On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white
rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that
there is no white rabbits or, to refute
computationalism by showing there are still white
rabbits, and then you can try to invent some
matter or god able to eliminate them, but that
will in any case refute mechanism.



What if getting rid of those white rabbits
tightly constrains consciousness and physics
to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit =
proving the existence of the relevant measure =
deriving physics from machine theology (alias
elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails
consciousness as well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory.
The progress are the following

Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and
unclear theory of mind

Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist
theory of mind (+ an identity thesis).

Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno
in that he wants to take arithmetic or computation as
more really real than physics or consciousness and
not derivative. It seems to me that the very
possibility of computation depends on the physics of
the world and is invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of
computation in arithmetic.


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get
to choose the axioms.

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary
physical reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just
a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a
theory that is assumed rather than derived.


But  in that case I can just assume that the particles of the
Standard Model are primary.  Then there's a lot of evidence for
primary matter.  It's as though physicists are being criticized
because they are willing to look deeper for an explanation of
their best theory.  But computationalist are to be congratulated
for asserting that there's no origin for arithmetic.


That criticism is just daft. Of course you can make physics primary if 
you like, but then you need to propose a different, non-computational, 
theory of mind, one that doesn't covertly add a primary role for 
"physical computation", as distinct from "primary physics", as the 
origin of phenomenal reality. In fact you have frequently proposed 
just such a theory, in the form of an "engineering solution". In which 
case fine, but then we're no longer discussing mechanism.


I'm sorry, I didn't know I was limited to discuss only mechanism. I was 
replying to Bruno's remark that there is no evidence at all for a 
primary physical reality.






In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in which it is
assumed that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an
epistemological consequence of computation. That being the case,
the theory relies on computation, or its combinatorial basis, as
its ontology (i.e. that part of the theory that is taken to exist
independently of point-of-view). It then sets out to derive its
phenomenology by means of an epistemological analysis (i.e. that
part of the theory that is understood to be point-of-view
relative) based on the generic or universal machine as unique
subject or agent. Physics, as an observationally-selected subset
both of the computational ontology and its derived phenomenology,
cannot thus be considered primary, in the sense given here.


Of course it's not primary given a theory that assumes something
else as primary.  Note that computationalism has yet to succeed in
deriving 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Sep 2017, at 01:27, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker   
wrote:



On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.

That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white  
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still  
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god  
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains  
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of  
the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology  
(alias elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as  
well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The  
progress are the following


Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear  
theory of mind


Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind  
(+ an identity thesis).


Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he  
wants to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than  
physics or consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that  
the very possibility of computation depends on the physics of the  
world and is invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation  
in arithmetic.


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to  
choose the axioms.


On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical  
reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a  
word you stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a  
theory that is assumed rather than derived.


But  in that case I can just assume that the particles of the  
Standard Model are primary.  Then there's a lot of evidence for  
primary matter.  It's as though physicists are being criticized  
because they are willing to look deeper for an explanation of their  
best theory.  But computationalist are to be congratulated for  
asserting that there's no origin for arithmetic.


In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in which it is assumed  
that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an  
epistemological consequence of computation. That being the case,  
the theory relies on computation, or its combinatorial basis, as  
its ontology (i.e. that part of  the theory that is  
taken to exist independently of point-of-view). It then sets out to  
derive its phenomenology by means of an epistemological analysis  
(i.e. that part of the theory that is understood to be point-of- 
view relative) based on the generic or universal machine as unique  
subject or agent. Physics, as an observationally-selected subset  
both of the computational ontology and its derived phenomenology,  
cannot thus be considered primary, in the sense given here.


Of course it's not primary given a theory that assumes something  
else as primary.  Note that computationalism has yet to succeed in  
deriving phenomenology.


Is that not slightly disingenuous?

The phenomenology is given by the 8 hypostases, with p sigma_1: p, Bp,  
Bp & p, Bp & Dt, Bp & Dt & p. That gives 8 person points of view as  
three of them split along G/G*. That splits, on the material  
hypostases, makes quanta into particular qualia, and the physical  
reality as a special first person plural reality (exactly what you get  
with QM without collapse), both obeying a different quantum like logics.


Explaining numbers from physics seems to me as weird as explaining  
general relativity by studying Einstein's brain biochemistry.


Anyway, a part of the point is that if we assume mechanism in  
cognitive science, we don't have much choice in the matter.
I do not claim any truth, just testability, in a field where many want  
to believe we can believe what we want. Well. No, if we want to  
respect some reality or truth without which research has no sense.


Bruno







Brent

Rather, it makes its appearance as a tightly-constrained  
extensional infrastructure in terms of which the machine's  
phenomenology is enabled to play out in action.


David


  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.

Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the  
very possibility of computation depends on God".


If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not  
taking the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf Church- 
Turing-Post-Kleene 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Sep 2017, at 16:49, David Nyman wrote:





On 4 Sep 2017 13:11, "Bruce Kellett"   
wrote:

On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality  
for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.

Indeed.

But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for  
primary matter. Not one.



"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem  
inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.


?

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and  
that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.


Primary means "not deducible" from something else.

Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is  
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary, not the matter.  
But then I assume matter and deduce that I will observe it - so the  
matter becomes primary. You claim arithmetic is primary, because  
2+2=4 independent of you and me. But I can deduce arithmetic from  
observation, making observation primary again, and arithmetic merely  
derivative. But then I assume that matter is primary -  I can then  
deduce both observation and arithmetic.


It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary,  
but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case. I can assume  
that quarks and electrons, etc, are primary, and else follows from  
this. Maybe I can't prove that either, but I have a hell of a lot  
more evidence for the possibility of deriving arithmetic from the  
existence of matter than you have of proving the existence of quarks  
from pure arithmetic. The evidence is all in my favour.


Honestly, Bruce, I think it's you who is playing with words here.  
The sense in which Bruno is using primary here is perfectly clear -  
i.e. the fundamental ontological assumption in a comprehensive  
theory of origins. It doesn't aid comprehension to substitute a  
quite different meaning - that of primary sense perception -  in  
'rebuttal'.


Well seen. It is begging the question by defining the criteria of  
truth by the Aristotelian WYSIWYG dogma.


The Aristotelian are like St-Thomas, they believe only in what they  
see/measure.


The (Neo)Platonists, when they see something, are skeptical, on what  
it can be, and if it does not hide something.





As to choice of primary ontological assumption, that is fixed by the  
prior choice of mechanism as the theory of mind. I think frankly  
that this is the sticking point for you. You want to claim that  
computation can equally well be 'inferred' from the primary  
ontological assumption of physics. But unfortunately this amounts to  
egregious question begging, since the phenomenon of inference, and a  
fortiori any perceptible phenomenon that depends on it, is itself  
already part of the mental spectrum whose provenance we're seeking  
to explain in the first place.


Well said.

Bruno





David



Bruce


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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Sep 2017, at 01:00, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

I cannot see Math Not being real, because it would fail, enormously,  
if "laws" of the cosmos, did not work. In other words, we could  
describe the world via phlogiston mist, or, luminiferous ether (tip  
o' the hat to the 19th century scientists), so it works. If math  
didn't work, simple objects like planets would not reliably work,  
circling their parent star. Are there any counter-examples, where  
Math fails to describe? Or, does Math have real examples of failure?  
Please cite these. G'wan!


I agree math is real in that sense, but for a TOE it can be important  
to agree at least that some part is real, in its meaning, and  
everybody do agree on first-order classical arithmetic without  
induction (even Nelson and the ultrafinitist). I think that doubting  
that entails the doubting that "doubting" means anything.


And with mechanism, we don't need more than that, as that characterize  
universal computability (in the sense of Turing, Post, Church, Kleene).


So I put the "induction axioms" (the formula (F(0) & F(n) -> F(n+1)  
for all n -> F(n) for all n) already in the epistemological tools.


In mathematics, all attempt to get a theory of everything failed, and  
there are quasi logical reason to bet that the mathematical reality is  
not mathematically describable. This does not mean that set theories  
and category theories (the "TOE" for math) are not interesting, even  
for mechanism in the long run.


Only the computable has that miraculous property of being able to  
invite its god, the universal machine, at the table of discussion! To  
be sure, this applies to machine with oracles and other relativized  
notions.


With mechanism, the physical has a mathematical origin, which at least  
explain why the physical is so much mathematical.


Bruno





-Original Message-
From: David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 6:07 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?

On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>  
wrote:



On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.

That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white  
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still  
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god  
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains  
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of  
the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias  
elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as  
well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The  
progress are the following


Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear  
theory of mind


Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind  
(+ an identity thesis).


Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants  
to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics  
or consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that the very  
possibility of computation depends on the physics of the world and  
is invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation  
in arithmetic.


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to  
choose the axioms.


On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality  
for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a word  
you stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a  
theory that is assumed rather than derived. In the case at hand the  
theory is mechanism, in which it is assumed that concrete or  
phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an epistemological consequence of  
computation. That being the case, the theory relies on computation,  
or its combinatorial basis, as its ontology (i.e. that part of the  
theory that is taken to exist independently of point-of-view). It  
then sets out to derive its phenomenology by means of an  
epistemological analysis (i.e. that part of the theory that is  
understood to be point-of-view relative) based on the generic or  
universal machine as unique subject or agent. Physics, as an  
observationally-selected subset both of the computational ontology  
and its derived phenomenology, cannot thus be con

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Sep 2017, at 14:11, Bruce Kellett wrote:


On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical  
reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.


Indeed.

But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for  
primary matter. Not one.



"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem  
inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.


?

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and  
that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.


Primary means "not deducible" from something else.


Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is  
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary,


What do you mean by "observation is primary"? I don't understand what  
that could mean. Normally this assumes an observer and some reality.






not the matter. But then I assume matter and deduce that I will  
observe it - so the matter becomes primary.


Well, that is not so easy. The whole point of the UDA consists in  
showing that EVEN if we assume primary matter, it remains out of my  
consciousness.


Also, I talk on primary matter. To believe in primary matter you have,  
by definition, the belief that the apperance of matter and its law are  
not deducible from something else.






You claim arithmetic is primary, because 2+2=4 independent of you  
and me.


... and that we cannot derive it from something simpler. We can derive  
it only from something Turing-equivalent.





But I can deduce arithmetic from observation,


Observation of something which you infer to be Turing equivalent with  
numbers.




making observation primary again,


?



and arithmetic merely derivative. But then I assume that matter is  
primary -  I can then deduce both observation and arithmetic.


No, by UDA you will miss "observation". It is the whole point.  
Observation is a conscious experience, and with mechanism, you need to  
put some non-Turing emulable magic in some stuff to select the  
computations which exists in arithmetic.






It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary,


I study the consequence of the mechanist assumption. There is no way  
to define what a digital machine is without assuming arithmetic (or  
Turing-equivalent).






but you can't prove that this is necessarily the case.


yes, I can. I can prove that if you suppress any one axiom in RA:

0 ≠ (x + 1)
((x + 1) = (y + 1))  -> x = y
x = 0 v Ey(x = y + 1)
x + 0 = x
x + (y + 1) = (x + y) + 1
x * 0 = 0
x * (y + 1) = (x * y) + x

then I cannot retrieve it, and in all case, I lost Turing universality.







I can assume that quarks and electrons, etc, are primary,


Just show the theory. I have not see one set of axioms capable of  
making electrons or quarks primary. I have seen only an attempt to do  
so with strings (by Schmidhuber). but it was a really "toy string  
theory" (nevertheless quite interesting per se).




and else follows from this. Maybe I can't prove that either, but I  
have a hell of a lot more evidence for the possibility of deriving  
arithmetic from the existence of matter


I am not sure we have any evidence of how to derive number from  
anything physical or Turing equivalent.
Provide the theory and the deduction. If you can derive arithmetic  
from it, you will just prove it to be Turing equivalent, but with a  
lot more assumptions, and with the digital mechanist mind-body problem  
unsolved.






than you have of proving the existence of quarks from pure  
arithmetic. The evidence is all in my favour.


You have not provided any evidence. You have not provided any theory  
actually. And you are refuted by UDA if you claim that by assuming  
matter you can derive that you can observe it. For this you need a  
theory of matter and a theory of mind and an explanation of the  
relation in between.


But the theories of physics derived from arithmetic explains the  
quantum, the symmetries, and is totally definite, so is completely  
testable. If you succeed in showing it is violated by the quack  
existence, then we can say that we have an evidence to doubt digital  
mechanism, but that is premature.


Bruno








Bruce

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 4 Sep 2017 13:11, "Bruce Kellett"  wrote:

On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

> On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality for
>>> which there are no evidences at all.
>>>
>>
>> You can't prove primary arithmetic either.
>>
>
> Indeed.
>
> But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for primary
> matter. Not one.
>
>
> "Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem
>> inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.
>>
>
> ?
>
> Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and that
> is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.
>
> Primary means "not deducible" from something else.
>

Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is evidence
for matter, so the observation is primary, not the matter. But then I
assume matter and deduce that I will observe it - so the matter becomes
primary. You claim arithmetic is primary, because 2+2=4 independent of you
and me. But I can deduce arithmetic from observation, making observation
primary again, and arithmetic merely derivative. But then I assume that
matter is primary -  I can then deduce both observation and arithmetic.

It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary, but
you can't prove that this is necessarily the case. I can assume that quarks
and electrons, etc, are primary, and else follows from this. Maybe I can't
prove that either, but I have a hell of a lot more evidence for the
possibility of deriving arithmetic from the existence of matter than you
have of proving the existence of quarks from pure arithmetic. The evidence
is all in my favour.


Honestly, Bruce, I think it's you who is playing with words here. The sense
in which Bruno is using primary here is perfectly clear - i.e. the
fundamental ontological assumption in a comprehensive theory of origins. It
doesn't aid comprehension to substitute a quite different meaning - that of
primary sense perception -  in 'rebuttal'. As to choice of primary
ontological assumption, that is fixed by the prior choice of mechanism as
the theory of mind. I think frankly that this is the sticking point for
you. You want to claim that computation can equally well be 'inferred' from
the primary ontological assumption of physics. But unfortunately this
amounts to egregious question begging, since the phenomenon of inference,
and a fortiori any perceptible phenomenon that depends on it, is itself
already part of the mental spectrum whose provenance we're seeking to
explain in the first place.

David



Bruce


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Re: Is math real?

[Bruce Kellett]

On 4/09/2017 9:15 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality 
for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.


Indeed.

But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for 
primary matter. Not one.



"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem 
inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.


?

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and 
that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.


Primary means "not deducible" from something else.


Bruno, you are just playing with words. I observe matter - that is 
evidence for matter, so the observation is primary, not the matter. But 
then I assume matter and deduce that I will observe it - so the matter 
becomes primary. You claim arithmetic is primary, because 2+2=4 
independent of you and me. But I can deduce arithmetic from observation, 
making observation primary again, and arithmetic merely derivative. But 
then I assume that matter is primary -  I can then deduce both 
observation and arithmetic.


It is all a matter of choice. You choose to make arithmetic primary, but 
you can't prove that this is necessarily the case. I can assume that 
quarks and electrons, etc, are primary, and else follows from this. 
Maybe I can't prove that either, but I have a hell of a lot more 
evidence for the possibility of deriving arithmetic from the existence 
of matter than you have of proving the existence of quarks from pure 
arithmetic. The evidence is all in my favour.


Bruce

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Sep 2017, at 18:46, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white  
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still  
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god  
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains  
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence  
of the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology  
(alias elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as  
well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The  
progress are the following


Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear  
theory of mind


Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind  
(+ an identity thesis).


Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he  
wants to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than  
physics or consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that  
the very possibility of computation depends on the physics of the  
world and is invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation  
in arithmetic.


After you assume arithmetic.


All scientists do. All parents do. If you doubt that 2+2=4, that is  
good, and that is why I put the assumtion on the tables, but it is  
used in any part of science (unlike the axiom of infinity, which is  
used only in 98% of science, but eventually, should be abandonned in  
the ontology).





I can prove anything if I get to choose the axioms.


Yes, and we can never prove the axioms. So some amount of faith has to  
be put somewhere at the start. If you have lost the faith in 2+2=4, I  
understand you disbelieve in mechanism, its consequences, and .. any  
piece of science, including any theory in physics.


But, frankly, I don't believe you are skeptical toward arithmetic.






On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical  
reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.


Indeed.

But there are many evidences that 2+2=4. There are no evidence for  
primary matter. Not one.





"Primary" is just a word you stick on "physical" to make it seem  
inaccessible.  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.


?

Nobody can observe a metaphysical idea. You can observe matter, and  
that is an evidence for matter, not for primary matter.


Primary means "not deducible" from something else. The primariness of  
life has been abandonned by the reduction of life to chemistry and  
physics. Likewise, primary matter will be abandonned, lik ether and  
phlogistic, not because we can actually reduce it to number, but  
because we have to, when we say yes to the doctor, which we will be  
compel to do for economical reason in the long run.






Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the  
very possibility of computation depends on God".


If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not  
taking the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf Church- 
Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all what you are  
talking about.


So you put words in my mouth and then complain that you don't know  
what I'm talking about?


I am just deducing that you are using a term in a non standard meaning  
which I do not understand. If you have a definition of computations  
which does not rely on numbers or Church's thesis, you should make it  
precise, and you will have found a version of computationalism which  
might be coherent with physicalism.


Bruno





Brent



Bruno










Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 4 Sep 2017 12:27 a.m., "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:

On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
 This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.
>

 That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white
 rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still white
 rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god able to
 eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.



 What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains
> consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?
>

 Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of the
 relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias elementary
 arithmetic).

>>>
>>> Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as well
>>> as the other way around.
>>>
>>
>> OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The progress
>> are the following
>>
>> Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear theory
>> of mind
>>
>> Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind (+ an
>> identity thesis).
>>
>> Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).
>>
>> Brent wrote to David:
>>
>> I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants to
>>> take arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics or
>>> consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that the very possibility
>>> of computation depends on the physics of the world and is invented by
>>> evolution.
>>>
>>
>> But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation in
>> arithmetic.
>>
>
> After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to choose the
> axioms.
>
> On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality for
>> which there are no evidences at all.
>>
>
> You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a word you
> stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a theory that
is assumed rather than derived.


But  in that case I can just assume that the particles of the Standard
Model are primary.  Then there's a lot of evidence for primary matter.
It's as though physicists are being criticized because they are willing to
look deeper for an explanation of their best theory.  But computationalist
are to be congratulated for asserting that there's no origin for arithmetic.


That criticism is just daft. Of course you can make physics primary if you
like, but then you need to propose a different, non-computational, theory
of mind, one that doesn't covertly add a primary role for "physical
computation", as distinct from "primary physics", as the origin of
phenomenal reality. In fact you have frequently proposed just such a
theory, in the form of an "engineering solution". In which case fine, but
then we're no longer discussing mechanism.



In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in which it is assumed that
concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an epistemological
consequence of computation. That being the case, the theory relies on
computation, or its combinatorial basis, as its ontology (i.e. that part of
the theory that is taken to exist independently of point-of-view). It then
sets out to derive its phenomenology by means of an epistemological
analysis (i.e. that part of the theory that is understood to be
point-of-view relative) based on the generic or universal machine as unique
subject or agent. Physics, as an observationally-selected subset both of
the computational ontology and its derived phenomenology, cannot thus be
considered primary, in the sense given here.


Of course it's not primary given a theory that assumes something else as
primary.  Note that computationalism has yet to succeed in deriving
phenomenology.


You need to make up your mind about what you are criticising. Mechanism
necessarily assumes computation as primary and hence must derive physics
and phenomenology. That is its project. Whether that project can ultimately
succeed is a separate question.

David



Brent


Rather, it makes its appearance as a tightly-constrained extensional
infrastructure in terms of which the machine's phenomenology is enabled to
play out in action.

David


  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.
>
> Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the very
>> possibility of computation depends on God".
>>
>> If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not taking
>> the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf
>> Church-Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all what you are
>> 

Re: Is math real?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

I am thinking something profound that applies to physics, based on math. 
Invalid proofs are usually mistakes made by amateur math heads, correct? I am 
not meaning students who are just learning the art, but, masters of the game. 
The cosmos must resemble math if causality is correct? Or, when is causality 
not? 



-Original Message-
From: Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 10:26 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?


On 4/09/2017 11:42 am, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:


 It seems primary, unlike spoken languages.Molecules, Atoms, and 
Galaxies, run on the math behind thephysics,
  

The problem here is with the idea that the universe "runs on maths".
That is just begging the question. Maths gives a description of the
universe, just as we could describe it in French, English, or anyother 
comprehensive language. It is just that some descriptions aremore concise 
than others, just as some languages are more concisethan others.



because if the universe ran on French, wewould all say Zuit Alor's 
Mon Deiu! We'd also make a lot ofboring movies, which we do never 
the less. I wonder if thereis any math that has been proven wrong, 
if you want to knockdown my assertion? Hopw would we prove it wrong?

  

Lots of maths has been proven wrong: have you never seen an invalid
proof?

Bruce



 -Original Message-

  
  From: Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>
  To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
  Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 7:43 pm
  Subject: Re: Is math real?
  
  

 On 4/09/2017 9:00 am, spudboy100  via Everything List wrote:
  
I cannot see Math Not being  real, because it would fail, 
enormously, if "laws" of  the cosmos, did not work. In other 
words, we could  describe the world via phlogiston mist, or,
  luminiferous ether (tip o' the hat to the 19th century
  scientists), so it works. If math didn't work, simple  
objects like planets would not reliably work, circling  their 
parent star. Are there any counter-examples,  where Math fails 
to describe? Or, does Math have real  examples of failure? 
Please cite these. G'wan!
  
  
  Is English real? Is French real? 
  The fact that maths can be used to describe physical  
reality does not mean that it is any more "real" than any  other 
descriptive language. Descriptive success does not  imply an 
independent ontology for the language, or that it  is "primary" in 
any sense.
  
  Bruce

  

  

  
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Re: Is math real?

[Bruce Kellett]

On 4/09/2017 11:42 am, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
It seems primary, unlike spoken languages. Molecules, Atoms, and 
Galaxies, run on the math behind the physics,


The problem here is with the idea that the universe "runs on maths". 
That is just begging the question. Maths gives a description of the 
universe, just as we could describe it in French, English, or any other 
comprehensive language. It is just that some descriptions are more 
concise than others, just as some languages are more concise than others.


because if the universe ran on French, we would all say Zuit Alor's 
Mon Deiu! We'd also make a lot of boring movies, which we do never the 
less. I wonder if there is any math that has been proven wrong, if you 
want to knock down my assertion? Hopw would we prove it wrong?


Lots of maths has been proven wrong: have you never seen an invalid proof?

Bruce


-Original Message-
From: Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 7:43 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?

On 4/09/2017 9:00 am, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

I cannot see Math Not being real, because it would fail,
enormously, if "laws" of the cosmos, did not work. In other words,
we could describe the world via phlogiston mist, or, luminiferous
ether (tip o' the hat to the 19th century scientists), so it
works. If math didn't work, simple objects like planets would not
reliably work, circling their parent star. Are there any
counter-examples, where Math fails to describe? Or, does Math have
real examples of failure? Please cite these. G'wan!


Is English real? Is French real? 
The fact that maths can be used to describe physical reality does not 
mean that it is any more "real" than any other descriptive language. 
Descriptive success does not imply an independent ontology for the 
language, or that it is "primary" in any sense.


Bruce


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Re: Is math real?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

 It seems primary, unlike spoken languages. Molecules, Atoms, and Galaxies, run 
on the math behind the physics, because if the universe ran on French, we would 
all say Zuit Alor's Mon Deiu! We'd also make a lot of boring movies, which we 
do never the less. I wonder if there is any math that has been proven wrong, if 
you want to knock down my assertion? Hopw would we prove it wrong?

 

 

-Original Message-
From: Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 7:43 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?


On 4/09/2017 9:00 am, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

I cannot seeMath Not being real, because it would fail, enormously, if  
  "laws" of the cosmos, did not work. In other words, we could
describe the world via phlogiston mist, or, luminiferous ether(tip o' 
the hat to the 19th century scientists), so it works. Ifmath didn't 
work, simple objects like planets would not reliablywork, circling 
their parent star. Are there anycounter-examples, where Math fails to 
describe? Or, does Mathhave real examples of failure? Please cite 
these. G'wan!


Is English real? Is French real? 
The fact that maths can be used to describe physical reality doesnot 
mean that it is any more "real" than any other descriptivelanguage. 
Descriptive success does not imply an independent ontologyfor the language, 
or that it is "primary" in any sense.

Bruce
  
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Re: Is math real?

[Bruce Kellett]

On 4/09/2017 9:00 am, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
I cannot see Math Not being real, because it would fail, enormously, 
if "laws" of the cosmos, did not work. In other words, we could 
describe the world via phlogiston mist, or, luminiferous ether (tip o' 
the hat to the 19th century scientists), so it works. If math didn't 
work, simple objects like planets would not reliably work, circling 
their parent star. Are there any counter-examples, where Math fails to 
describe? Or, does Math have real examples of failure? Please cite 
these. G'wan!


Is English real? Is French real? 
The fact that maths can be used to describe physical reality does not 
mean that it is any more "real" than any other descriptive language. 
Descriptive success does not imply an independent ontology for the 
language, or that it is "primary" in any sense.


Bruce

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/3/2017 3:07 PM, David Nyman wrote:
On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that there
is no white rabbits or, to refute computationalism by
showing there are still white rabbits, and then you
can try to invent some matter or god able to eliminate
them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.



What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly
constrains consciousness and physics to something
like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the
existence of the relevant measure = deriving physics
from machine theology (alias elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails
consciousness as well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The
progress are the following

Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and
unclear theory of mind

Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of
mind (+ an identity thesis).

Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in
that he wants to take arithmetic or computation as more
really real than physics or consciousness and not
derivative.  It seems to me that the very possibility of
computation depends on the physics of the world and is
invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of
computation in arithmetic.


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to
choose the axioms.

On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical
reality for which there are no evidences at all.


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a
word you stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a theory 
that is assumed rather than derived.


But  in that case I can just assume that the particles of the Standard 
Model are primary.  Then there's a lot of evidence for primary matter.  
It's as though physicists are being criticized because they are willing 
to look deeper for an explanation of their best theory.  But 
computationalist are to be congratulated for asserting that there's no 
origin for arithmetic.


In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in which it is assumed 
that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an epistemological 
consequence of computation. That being the case, the theory relies on 
computation, or its combinatorial basis, as its ontology (i.e. that 
part of the theory that is taken to exist independently of 
point-of-view). It then sets out to derive its phenomenology by means 
of an epistemological analysis (i.e. that part of the theory that is 
understood to be point-of-view relative) based on the generic or 
universal machine as unique subject or agent. Physics, as an 
observationally-selected subset both of the computational ontology and 
its derived phenomenology, cannot thus be considered primary, in the 
sense given here.


Of course it's not primary given a theory that assumes something else as 
primary.  Note that computationalism has yet to succeed in deriving 
phenomenology.


Brent

Rather, it makes its appearance as a tightly-constrained extensional 
infrastructure in terms of which the machine's phenomenology is 
enabled to play out in action.


David


  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.

Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that
the very possibility of computation depends on God".

If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are
not taking the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf
Church-Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all
what you are talking about.


So you put words in my mouth and then complain that you don't know
what I'm talking about?

Brent



Bruno









Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

I cannot see Math Not being real, because it would fail, enormously, if "laws" 
of the cosmos, did not work. In other words, we could describe the world via 
phlogiston mist, or, luminiferous ether (tip o' the hat to the 19th century 
scientists), so it works. If math didn't work, simple objects like planets 
would not reliably work, circling their parent star. Are there any 
counter-examples, where Math fails to describe? Or, does Math have real 
examples of failure? Please cite these. G'wan!



-Original Message-
From: David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Sep 3, 2017 6:07 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?



On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:




On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white rabbits or, to 
refute computationalism by showing there are still white rabbits, and then you 
can try to invent some matter or god able to eliminate them, but that will in 
any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains consciousness and 
physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of the 
relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias elementary 
arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as well as the 
other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The progress are the 
following

Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear theory of mind

Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind (+ an 
identity thesis).

Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:


I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants to take 
arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics or consciousness and 
not derivative.  It seems to me that the very possibility of computation 
depends on the physics of the world and is invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation in 
arithmetic. 


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to choose the 
axioms.


On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality for which 
there are no evidences at all. 


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a word you stick 
on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a theory that is 
assumed rather than derived. In the case at hand the theory is mechanism, in 
which it is assumed that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is ultimately an 
epistemological consequence of computation. That being the case, the theory 
relies on computation, or its combinatorial basis, as its ontology (i.e. that 
part of the theory that is taken to exist independently of point-of-view). It 
then sets out to derive its phenomenology by means of an epistemological 
analysis (i.e. that part of the theory that is understood to be point-of-view 
relative) based on the generic or universal machine as unique subject or agent. 
Physics, as an observationally-selected subset both of the computational 
ontology and its derived phenomenology, cannot thus be considered primary, in 
the sense given here. Rather, it makes its appearance as a tightly-constrained 
extensional infrastructure in terms of which the machine's phenomenology is 
enabled to play out in action.


David




  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.


Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the very 
possibility of computation depends on God".

If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not taking the 
word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf Church-Turing-Post-Kleene 
thesis), and I have no clue at all what you are talking about.


So you put words in my mouth and then complain that you don't know what I'm 
talking about?

Brent




Bruno










Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 3 September 2017 at 17:46, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
 This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.
>

 That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white
 rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still white
 rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god able to
 eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.



 What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains
> consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?
>

 Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of the
 relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias elementary
 arithmetic).

>>>
>>> Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as well
>>> as the other way around.
>>>
>>
>> OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The progress
>> are the following
>>
>> Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear theory
>> of mind
>>
>> Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind (+ an
>> identity thesis).
>>
>> Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).
>>
>> Brent wrote to David:
>>
>> I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants to
>>> take arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics or
>>> consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that the very possibility
>>> of computation depends on the physics of the world and is invented by
>>> evolution.
>>>
>>
>> But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation in
>> arithmetic.
>>
>
> After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to choose the
> axioms.
>
> On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality for
>> which there are no evidences at all.
>>
>
> You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a word you
> stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.


​I don't think that's right. Primary just means that part of a theory that
is assumed rather than derived. In the case at hand the theory is
mechanism, in which it is assumed that concrete or phenomenal reality ​is
ultimately an epistemological consequence of computation. That being the
case, the theory relies on computation, or its combinatorial basis, as its
ontology (i.e. that part of the theory that is taken to exist independently
of point-of-view). It then sets out to derive its phenomenology by means of
an epistemological analysis (i.e. that part of the theory that is
understood to be point-of-view relative) based on the generic or universal
machine as unique subject or agent. Physics, as an observationally-selected
subset both of the computational ontology and its derived phenomenology,
cannot thus be considered primary, in the sense given here. Rather, it
makes its appearance as a tightly-constrained extensional infrastructure in
terms of which the machine's phenomenology is enabled to play out in action.

David


  I don't need to prove the physical, I observe it.
>
> Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the very
>> possibility of computation depends on God".
>>
>> If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not taking
>> the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf
>> Church-Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all what you are
>> talking about.
>>
>
> So you put words in my mouth and then complain that you don't know what
> I'm talking about?
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>> --
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>>> Groups "Everything List" group.
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>>> an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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>>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/3/2017 7:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white 
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still 
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god 
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains 
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of 
the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias 
elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as 
well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The progress 
are the following


Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear 
theory of mind


Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind (+ 
an identity thesis).


Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants 
to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics or 
consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that the very 
possibility of computation depends on the physics of the world and is 
invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation in 
arithmetic. 


After you assume arithmetic.  I can prove anything if I get to choose 
the axioms.


On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary physical reality 
for which there are no evidences at all. 


You can't prove primary arithmetic either.  "Primary" is just a word you 
stick on "physical" to make it seem inaccessible.  I don't need to prove 
the physical, I observe it.


Your argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the very 
possibility of computation depends on God".


If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not 
taking the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf 
Church-Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all what you 
are talking about.


So you put words in my mouth and then complain that you don't know what 
I'm talking about?


Brent



Bruno










Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Sep 2017, at 19:57, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white  
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still  
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god  
able to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains  
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of  
the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology  
(alias elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as  
well as the other way around.


OK. But arithmetic is a subtheory of any physical theory. The progress  
are the following


Copenhagen QM: assume a physical reality + a dualist and unclear  
theory of mind


Everett QM: assume a universal wave + the mechanist theory of mind (+  
an identity thesis).


Me: the mechanist theory of mind (elementary arithmetic).

Brent wrote to David:

I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants  
to take arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics  
or consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that the very  
possibility of computation depends on the physics of the world and  
is invented by evolution.


But that is plainly false. I can prove the existence of computation in  
arithmetic. On the contrary, we can only speculate on a primary  
physical reality for which there are no evidences at all. Your  
argument is 100% the same as saying "It seems to me that the very  
possibility of computation depends on God".


If God or Matter plays a role in a computation, then you are not  
taking the word "computation" in its standard meaning (cf Church- 
Turing-Post-Kleene thesis), and I have no clue at all what you are  
talking about.


Bruno










Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/1/2017 1:15 AM, David Nyman wrote:



Mechanism makes no assumptions about physics other than that
*some* consistent physics must be deeply implicated in the Bp and
p relation. The observation that the physics we actually observe
is rather tightly constrained seems to imply that its relation
with our particular species of consciousness is in some sense
canonical, although it doesn't necessarily imply the
non-extractability of other variations of physics or, for that
matter, other species of consciousness from computation. However,
these considerations don't alter the fact that physics and
consciousness are derived rather than assumed in the mechanistic
theory.


That's just Bruno's assertion.  All that is /derived/ is very
general schema in which number theoretic proofs stand in for
beliefs.  This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.  What
if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Brent, we seem to be violently agreeing again. As I was saying, and as 
you imply above, the tightness of constraint of the physics we observe 
does indeed suggest that they are in some important sense canonical at 
least for our species of observer. In what essential way does what 
you've said  above differ from the remarks of mine you were commenting?


I am agreeing with you.  I only disagree with Bruno in that he wants to 
take arithmetic or computation as more really real than physics or 
consciousness and not derivative.  It seems to me that the very 
possibility of computation depends on the physics of the world and is 
invented by evolution.


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 9/1/2017 1:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

This leaves, as Bruno says, lots of white rabbits.


That leaves us in the position of showing that there is no white 
rabbits or, to refute computationalism by showing there are still 
white rabbits, and then you can try to invent some matter or god able 
to eliminate them, but that will in any case refute mechanism.




What if getting rid of those white rabbits tightly constrains 
consciousness and physics to something like what we observe?


Exactly. Getting rid of the white rabbit = proving the existence of 
the relevant measure = deriving physics from machine theology (alias 
elementary arithmetic).


Then it will have been shown that physics entails consciousness as well 
as the other way around.


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 31 Aug 2017 23:59, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 8/31/2017 2:20 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 29 Aug 2017 04:39, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 8/28/2017 10:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:44, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>

 On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:


>
> On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing that
>> the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the Mechanist
>> hypothesis.
>>
>
> Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it
> the same as computationalism?
>

 Yes.

 Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +
 Church's Thesis)




 Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?
>

 No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

 I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people tend
 to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's thesis. To
 just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we believe in some
 "essentially undecidable theory", and this is equiavalent with believing in
 the right amount of arithmetic.
 I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the mathematics
 needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".





 >From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would be
> helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.
>

 I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they
 are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital
 Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my version
 just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My version is the
 weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, suggests that if
 we define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot
 defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.

 So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

 1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it exists
 a combinator which computes it)

 (There are many variants of this. You can replace also "combinator"
 by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++ program", or
 "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for "Arithmetical realism"
 which is only the believe that the RA axioms makes "absolute sense", which
 means basically that not only 17 is prime, but that this is true
 independently of me, you, or anyone, or anything physical. All
 mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in
 Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, especially without induction axiom
 like with RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.


 2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital physical
 brain transplant made at some level of description of my (generalized)
 brain.

 It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is equivalent
 with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as a mean of travel
 (UDA step 1).

 Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without a
 physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA reasoning:
 showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to block the
 immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.

>>>
>>> That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was
>>> originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons in
>>> the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole brain.  But we think
>>> with more than our brain.  Our body contributes hormones and afferent and
>>> efferent nerve impluses. And the environment provides stimulation to those
>>> nerves and an arena within which we act.  All that is taken for granted in
>>> answering "yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you
>>> implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced.
>>>
>>
>> The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.
>>
>> My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume only
>> the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious experience
>> would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at that level).
>>
>> If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole observable
>> physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with
>> 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 01 Sep 2017, at 00:59, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/31/2017 2:20 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 29 Aug 2017 04:39, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 8/28/2017 10:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:44, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker   
wrote:



On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing  
that the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with  
the Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is  
it the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +  
Church's Thesis)





Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?

No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many  
people tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant  
with Church's thesis. To just understand Church's thesis  
automatically assume we believe in some "essentially undecidable  
theory", and this is equiavalent with believing in the right  
amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the  
mathematics needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".






>From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It  
would be helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature  
they are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version  
of Digital Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather  
high, where my version just ask for the existence of a  
substitution level. My version is the weaker form possible, and  
Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, suggests that if we define  
mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot  
defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.


So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it  
exists a combinator which computes it)


(There are many variants of this. You can replace also  
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or  
"c++ program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks  
for "Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA  
axioms makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not  
only 17 is prime, but that this is true independently of me,  
you, or anyone, or anything physical. All mathematicians are  
arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in Analysis or set  
theory, not arithmetic, especially without induction axiom like  
with RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.



2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital  
physical brain transplant made at some level of description of  
my (generalized) brain.


It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is  
equivalent with accepting that we can use classical  
teleportation as a mean of travel (UDA step 1).


Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving  
without a physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of  
the UDA reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary- 
Matter to block the immaterialist consequence of Digital  
Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was  
originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated  
nuerons in the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole  
brain.  But we think with more than our brain.  Our body  
contributes hormones and afferent and efferent nerve impluses.  
And the environment provides stimulation to those nerves and an  
arena within which we act.  All that is taken for granted in  
answering "yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me  
that you implicitly suppose all  
ofthis is also  
digitally replaced.


The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.

My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I  
assume only the existence of a substitution level (such that  
your conscious experience would remain invariant for a digital  
substitution made at that level).


If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole  
observable physical reality, at the level of the (super)- 
strings, with 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex  
numbers and real numbers involved. The thought experience become  
harder to imagine, but eventually, it is "the real experience"  
of the step 7 which we have to take into account, that is "us"  
confronted to all computations in the arithmetical reality. The  
arithmetical reality emulates all computations, and this  
includes the 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/31/2017 2:20 AM, David Nyman wrote:



On 29 Aug 2017 04:39, "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 8/28/2017 10:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:44, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker > wrote:



On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I am not someone proposing any new
theory. I am someone showing that the
current materialist metaphysics just
can't work with the Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the
mechanist hyposthesis? Is it the same as
computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism =
Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor + Church's Thesis)




Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus
reifying arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism"
because many people tend to put to much into
it, and is actually redundant with Church's
thesis. To just understand Church's thesis
automatically assume we believe in some
"essentially undecidable theory", and this is
equiavalent with believing in the right amount
of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting
point of the mathematics needed to derive
physics from "machine's theology".





>From your use, these all seem slightly
different to me.  It would be helpful to
some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although
in the literature they are usually stronger.
Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital
Mechanism which assumes a substitition level
rather high, where my version just ask for the
existence of a substitution level. My version
is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in
his Olympia paper, suggests that if we define
mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a
bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by
Descartes' Mechanism.

So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak
sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is
computable iff it exists a combinator which
computes it)

    (There are many variants of this. You can
replace also "combinator" by "game of life
pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++
program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note
that this asks for "Arithmetical realism" which
is only the believe that the RA axioms makes
"absolute sense", which means basically that
not only 17 is prime, but that this is true
independently of me, you, or anyone, or
anything physical. All mathematicians are
arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is
in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic,
especially without induction axiom like with
RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson
agrees with RA.


2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant
for a digital physical brain transplant made at
some level of description of my (generalized)
brain.

It asserts the existence of that substitution
level, and is equivalent with accepting that we
can use classical teleportation as a mean of
travel (UDA step 1).

Important Remark: that definition does not ask
for surviving without a physical brain/machine.
That is indeed the object of the UDA reasoning:
showing that we cannot invoke God, or

Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 29 Aug 2017 04:39, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 8/28/2017 10:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:44, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:

On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>

 On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:


>
> On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing that
>> the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the Mechanist
>> hypothesis.
>>
>
> Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it
> the same as computationalism?
>

 Yes.

 Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +
 Church's Thesis)




 Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?
>

 No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

 I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people tend
 to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's thesis. To
 just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we believe in some
 "essentially undecidable theory", and this is equiavalent with believing in
 the right amount of arithmetic.
 I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the mathematics
 needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".





 >From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would be
> helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.
>

 I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they
 are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital
 Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my version
 just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My version is the
 weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, suggests that if
 we define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot
 defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.

 So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

 1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it exists
 a combinator which computes it)

 (There are many variants of this. You can replace also "combinator"
 by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++ program", or
 "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for "Arithmetical realism"
 which is only the believe that the RA axioms makes "absolute sense", which
 means basically that not only 17 is prime, but that this is true
 independently of me, you, or anyone, or anything physical. All
 mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in
 Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, especially without induction axiom
 like with RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.


 2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital physical
 brain transplant made at some level of description of my (generalized)
 brain.

 It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is equivalent
 with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as a mean of travel
 (UDA step 1).

 Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without a
 physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA reasoning:
 showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to block the
 immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.

>>>
>>> That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was
>>> originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons in
>>> the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole brain.  But we think
>>> with more than our brain.  Our body contributes hormones and afferent and
>>> efferent nerve impluses. And the environment provides stimulation to those
>>> nerves and an arena within which we act.  All that is taken for granted in
>>> answering "yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you
>>> implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced.
>>>
>>
>> The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.
>>
>> My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume only
>> the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious experience
>> would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at that level).
>>
>> If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole observable
>> physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with
>> 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and real numbers
>> involved. The thought experience become harder to imagine, but eventually,

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 29 Aug 2017, at 03:36, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/28/2017 3:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 28 August 2017 at 01:49, Brent Meeker   
wrote:



On 8/27/2017 9:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I think it is more pleasing when you can build the virtuous circle  
of explanations out of simple ideas that we hardly doubt at the  
start, like 2 * 12 = 24. And then, the point is that we have to do  
that, when we take Mechanism seriously enough. We are back to  
Pythagoras, but with the discovery of the universal machine and its  
quantum echo, and a mathematically precise theology, containing  
physics, making it testable.


But you're still trying to make arithmetic the really really  
primary; whereas from the virtuous circle perspective it is the  
product of sapient thought.


​But that explanation wouldn't really be virtuous in the relevant  
sense, would it? Arithmetic, seen merely as the product of thought,  
could hardly at the same time be asserted as the ontological basis  
of that very thought, could it? Unless your notion of the virtuous  
circle is something like Escher's hands drawing each other. Well,  
in a metaphorical sense I guess it could be seen like that.


Exactly.

The arithmetic that is the product of thought is certainly related  
to the arithmetic which ultimately may be assumed to give rise to  
it. That's an idea worth taking seriously, but perhaps not too  
literally.


Let's remember that 'primary' here means only what must be assumed,  
for the purpose of explanation, rather than derived. That's all. So  
physics, in this mode of explanation, isn't primary because it is  
to be derived or inferred, not asserted; arithmetic, on the other  
hand, is assumed without further justification.


But if the physics is necessary for the thought that see units and  
counting and arithmetic, then the physics can be taken as primary.


If physics is made necessary in a simpler theory, then physics is no  
more primary.






The idea of the virtuous circle is that there is no 'primary'.  One  
may start at any point.


If we can start at any point, then the point using the less assumption  
is the best starting point.


Now, when we take the physicalist starting point, history illustrates  
that we usually hide the mind-body problem, and the spiritual  
questions, etc. Mechanism provides a testable theory of mind,  
physicalist theory of mind assume an identity thesis which is  
inconsistent with mechanism, and not so easy to make consistent with  
reasonable non-mechanist theories.


I might miss your point, but your attitude is a bit like saying to  
Darwin that we can start from the humans, and define dinosaurs by  
human myths. I am sure that you would like that, but then why you  
dislike the idea that the physical reality is reduce to something far  
simpler, conceptually, (the many universal numbers and their  
relations)  that we can prove the existence to anyone not to shocked  
by the "revelation" than 2+2=4.


No doubt is put on any work done by physicists, and I remain an  
empiricist. (Even if the theory predicts that the physical reality is  
in "our head" we have still to test the theory in our head with what  
is observed by us and peers).


But physicalism is an hypothesis in theology, or metaphysics. Not in  
physics. And I am not sure there is any evidences for it, and I would  
say there are strong evidence against it, like its constant dismiss of  
the mind-body problem, but also the difficulties to define "primary  
matter", and to relate it to the consciousness and the first person  
verification of an inferred laws of physics. Yet, physics progress  
toward the solution (from Galilee, Einstein, Everett), and the theory  
of mind also, and we might one day close the bridge. Yet to keep the  
qualia of the theory of mind, at some point, the physicalness becomes  
a machine or number phenomenological construction, and I don't see how  
we could evade that objective ("Diophantine") idealism, with  
mechanism, or even without.


Bruno













Physics is not a problem. Physicalist metaphysics is a problem,  
when we assume Mechanism. But apparently, Mechanism explains it by  
showing that if true, the physical reality is in the head of all  
universal machine or number, and that can be tested.


But the universal machine can only have a "head" in a certain kind  
of physical world...on which will via evolution inevitably produce  
mind.


​Yes indeed and no problem with this. I suspect that the three of  
us may be quite near closing this argumentative circle (heaven  
forfend!)​. Let's remember that the thing starts with the rather  
widespread (though often only implicit) assumption that our mental  
processes ultimately depend on no more than some species of  
classical computation. The practicable feasibility of replacing  
biological brains and/or bodies wholly or in part with particular  
alternative prostheses is not really germane to the 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/28/2017 10:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:44, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I am not someone proposing any new theory. I
am someone showing that the current
materialist metaphysics just can't work with
the Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist
hyposthesis? Is it the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism =
(Yes-Doctor + Church's Thesis)




Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying
arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism"
because many people tend to put to much into it, and
is actually redundant with Church's thesis. To just
understand Church's thesis automatically assume we
believe in some "essentially undecidable theory",
and this is equiavalent with believing in the right
amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point
of the mathematics needed to derive physics from
"machine's theology".





>From your use, these all seem slightly
different to me.  It would be helpful to some
firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the
literature they are usually stronger. Putnam's
functionalism is a version of Digital Mechanism
which assumes a substitition level rather high,
where my version just ask for the existence of a
substitution level. My version is the weaker form
possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper,
suggests that if we define mechanism in this way, it
becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot defined
"rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.

So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is
computable iff it exists a combinator which computes it)

    (There are many variants of this. You can
replace also "combinator" by "game of life pattern",
or "fortran program" or "c++ program", or "quantum
computer" etc.). Note that this asks for
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe
that the RA axioms makes "absolute sense", which
means basically that not only 17 is prime, but that
this is true independently of me, you, or anyone, or
anything physical. All mathematicians are
arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in
Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, especially
without induction axiom like with RA. Even a quasi
ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.


2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a
digital physical brain transplant made at some level
of description of my (generalized) brain.

It asserts the existence of that substitution level,
and is equivalent with accepting that we can use
classical teleportation as a mean of travel (UDA
step 1).

Important Remark: that definition does not ask for
surviving without a physical brain/machine. That is
indeed the object of the UDA reasoning: showing that
we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to block the
immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in. 
Yes-doctor was originally presented as substituting some
digitally simulated nuerons in the brain.  But then it
was generalized to the whole brain. But we think with
more than our brain. Our body contributes hormones and
afferent and efferent nerve impluses. And the
environment provides stimulation to those nerves and an
arena within which we act. All that is taken for granted
 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/28/2017 3:47 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 28 August 2017 at 01:49, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 8/27/2017 9:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


I think it is more pleasing when you can build the virtuous
circle of explanations out of simple ideas that we hardly
doubt at the start, like 2 * 12 = 24. And then, the point is
that we have to do that, when we take Mechanism seriously
enough. We are back to Pythagoras, but with the discovery of
the universal machine and its quantum echo, and a
mathematically precise theology, containing physics, making it
testable.


But you're still trying to make arithmetic the really really
primary; whereas from the virtuous circle perspective it is the
product of sapient thought.


​But that explanation wouldn't really be virtuous in the relevant 
sense, would it? Arithmetic, seen merely as the product of thought, 
could hardly at the same time be asserted as the ontological basis of 
that very thought, could it? Unless your notion of the virtuous circle 
is something like Escher's hands drawing each other. Well, in a 
metaphorical sense I guess it could be seen like that.


Exactly.

The arithmetic that is the product of thought is certainly related to 
the arithmetic which ultimately may be assumed to give rise to it. 
That's an idea worth taking seriously, but perhaps not too literally.


Let's remember that 'primary' here means only what must be assumed, 
for the purpose of explanation, rather than derived. That's all. So 
physics, in this mode of explanation, isn't primary because it is to 
be derived or inferred, not asserted; arithmetic, on the other hand, 
is assumed without further justification.


But if the physics is/*necessary*/ for the thought that see units and 
counting and arithmetic, then the physics can be taken as primary.  The 
idea of the virtuous circle is that there is no 'primary'.  One may 
start at any point.






Physics is not a problem. Physicalist metaphysics is a
problem, when we assume Mechanism. But apparently, Mechanism
explains it by showing that if true, the physical reality is
in the head of all universal machine or number, and that can
be tested.


But the universal machine can only have a "head" in a certain kind
of physical world...on which will via evolution inevitably produce
mind.


​Yes indeed and no problem with this. I suspect that the three of us 
may be quite near closing this argumentative circle (heaven 
forfend!)​. Let's remember that the thing starts with the rather 
widespread (though often only implicit) assumption that our mental 
processes ultimately depend on no more than some species of classical 
computation. The practicable feasibility of replacing biological 
brains and/or bodies wholly or in part with particular alternative 
prostheses is not really germane to the argument, but rather stands as 
a proxy for the essential claim of the theory. This primary assumption 
then entails that computation, or rather its irreducible basis in some 
tractable form, stands as our sole ontological assumption and that the 
appearance of a concrete reality will then depend on the development 
of a theory of knowledge based on the generic or universal machine as 
sole agent or subject. This further necessitates that the observable 
or phenomenological aspect of physics falls into the epistemological 
compartment of the theory, and that its unobservable or inferred 
component is treated as an observationally self-selected (and hence 
canonical) subset of the deeper computational ontology. That's it, I 
guess, in a nutshell. The rest is...well, it's interesting to discuss, 
apparently.


David


Brent



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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:49, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/27/2017 9:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


I think it is more pleasing when you can build the virtuous circle  
of explanations out of simple ideas that we hardly doubt at the  
start, like 2 * 12 = 24. And then, the point is that we have to do  
that, when we take Mechanism seriously enough. We are back to  
Pythagoras, but with the discovery of the universal machine and its  
quantum echo, and a mathematically precise theology, containing  
physics, making it testable.


But you're still trying to make arithmetic the really really primary;


It is a consequence of Digital Mechanism. The "creative bomb" is  
inside Arithmetic, and it is a terrible child, born with 8  
incompatible views on reality. (p, Bp, Bp, ...).




whereas from the virtuous circle perspective it is the product of  
sapient thought.



There is no choice, or you put the  difficulties in the (Turing)- 
oracle, and miss/hide that we can do the test.


Sapient thought is in the universal number relations (we *assume*  
mechanism, because it is the working hypothesis).








Physics is not a problem. Physicalist metaphysics is a problem,  
when we assume Mechanism. But apparently, Mechanism explains it by  
showing that if true, the physical reality is in the head of all  
universal machine or number, and that can be tested.


But the universal machine can only have a "head" in a certain kind  
of physical world...


A universal machine can have a "head" in *many* kind of universal  
machine dream, or with respect to many sort of universal entity.


Mechanism assures there is a real "hardware" which is the result of  
the FPI on all computations going through "my state".


That's why we can test the idea. I want just illustrate that we can do  
theology with the scientific attitude/mind.






on which will via evolution inevitably produce mind.



The human terrestrial mind, yes, but my question concerns the origin  
of all this, and the why and how of consciousness. Mathematical logic  
+ computability provides the laws of thought (Boole) and the laws of  
mind (Boolos, ...) and the invariance of consciousness principle  
(which is how I define the weak Mechanist assumption) leads to a  
measure problem on the computations "seen-from-inside". An ontological  
commitment, be it on a God, or a Thing, cannot be used to demotivate  
the search for a solution of that measure problem.


Bruno





Brent

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



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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Aug 2017, at 02:44, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker   
wrote:



On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing  
that the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the  
Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it  
the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +  
Church's Thesis)





Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?

No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people  
tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with  
Church's thesis. To just understand Church's thesis automatically  
assume we believe in some "essentially undecidable theory", and  
this is equiavalent with believing in the right amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the  
mathematics needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".






>From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would  
be helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature  
they are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of  
Digital Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high,  
where my version just ask for the existence of a substitution  
level. My version is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his  
Olympia paper, suggests that if we define mechanism in this way, it  
becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by  
Descartes' Mechanism.


So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it  
exists a combinator which computes it)


(There are many variants of this. You can replace also  
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c+ 
+ program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for  
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms  
makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not only 17 is  
prime, but that this is true independently of me, you, or anyone,  
or anything physical. All mathematicians are arithmetical realist.  
The fight on realism is in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic,  
especially without induction axiom like with RA. Even a quasi ultra- 
finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.



2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital  
physical brain transplant made at some level of description of my  
(generalized) brain.


It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is  
equivalent with accepting that we can use classical teleportation  
as a mean of travel (UDA step 1).


Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving  
without a physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the  
UDA reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter  
to block the immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was  
originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated  
nuerons in the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole  
brain.  But we think with more than our brain.  Our body  
contributes hormones and afferent and efferent nerve impluses. And  
the environment provides stimulation to those nerves and an arena  
within which we act.  All that is taken for granted in answering  
"yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you  
implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced.


The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.

My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I  
assume only the existence of a substitution level (such that your  
conscious experience would remain invariant for a digital  
substitution made at that level).


If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole  
observable physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings,  
with 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and  
real numbers involved. The thought experience become harder to  
imagine, but eventually, it is "the real experience" of the step 7  
which we have to take into account, that is "us" confronted to all  
computations in the arithmetical reality. The arithmetical reality  
emulates all computations, and this includes the matrix above, and  
infinitely any variants. It remains simpler to understand the  
problem with thought experiements involving "high" level, like the  
biochemistry of the body, and understand at step 7 that the  
reasoning does not depend on the level chosen.


To 

Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 28 August 2017 at 01:49, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 8/27/2017 9:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> I think it is more pleasing when you can build the virtuous circle of
>> explanations out of simple ideas that we hardly doubt at the start, like 2
>> * 12 = 24. And then, the point is that we have to do that, when we take
>> Mechanism seriously enough. We are back to Pythagoras, but with the
>> discovery of the universal machine and its quantum echo, and a
>> mathematically precise theology, containing physics, making it testable.
>>
>
> But you're still trying to make arithmetic the really really primary;
> whereas from the virtuous circle perspective it is the product of sapient
> thought.


​But that explanation wouldn't really be virtuous in the relevant sense,
would it? Arithmetic, seen merely as the product of thought, could hardly
at the same time be asserted as the ontological basis of that very thought,
could it? Unless your notion of the virtuous circle is something like
Escher's hands drawing each other. Well, in a metaphorical sense I guess it
could be seen like that. The arithmetic that is the product of thought is
certainly related to the arithmetic which ultimately may be assumed to give
rise to it. That's an idea worth taking seriously, but perhaps not too
literally.

Let's remember that 'primary' here means only what must be assumed, for the
purpose of explanation, rather than derived. That's all. So physics, in
this mode of explanation, isn't primary because it is to be derived or
inferred, not asserted; arithmetic, on the other hand, is assumed without
further justification.

>
>
>
>> Physics is not a problem. Physicalist metaphysics is a problem, when we
>> assume Mechanism. But apparently, Mechanism explains it by showing that if
>> true, the physical reality is in the head of all universal machine or
>> number, and that can be tested.
>>
>
> But the universal machine can only have a "head" in a certain kind of
> physical world...on which will via evolution inevitably produce mind.


​Yes indeed and no problem with this. I suspect that the three of us may be
quite near closing this argumentative circle (heaven forfend!)​. Let's
remember that the thing starts with the rather widespread (though often
only implicit) assumption that our mental processes ultimately depend on no
more than some species of classical computation. The practicable
feasibility of replacing biological brains and/or bodies wholly or in part
with particular alternative prostheses is not really germane to the
argument, but rather stands as a proxy for the essential claim of the
theory. This primary assumption then entails that computation, or rather
its irreducible basis in some tractable form, stands as our sole
ontological assumption and that the appearance of a concrete reality will
then depend on the development of a theory of knowledge based on the
generic or universal machine as sole agent or subject. This further
necessitates that the observable or phenomenological aspect of physics
falls into the epistemological compartment of the theory, and that its
unobservable or inferred component is treated as an observationally
self-selected (and hence canonical) subset of the deeper computational
ontology. That's it, I guess, in a nutshell. The rest is...well, it's
interesting to discuss, apparently.

David

>
> Brent
>
> --
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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 28 August 2017 at 01:44, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:
>
> On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>>
>>>

 On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

>
> On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>> I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing that
>>> the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the Mechanist
>>> hypothesis.
>>>
>>
>> Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it
>> the same as computationalism?
>>
>
> Yes.
>
> Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +
> Church's Thesis)
>
>
>
>
> Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?
>>
>
> No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).
>
> I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people
> tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's
> thesis. To just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we believe
> in some "essentially undecidable theory", and this is equiavalent with
> believing in the right amount of arithmetic.
> I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the mathematics
> needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".
>
>
>
>
>
> >From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would be
>> helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.
>>
>
> I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they
> are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital
> Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my version
> just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My version is the
> weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, suggests that if
> we define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot
> defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.
>
> So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is
>
> 1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it exists
> a combinator which computes it)
>
> (There are many variants of this. You can replace also
> "combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++
> program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for
> "Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms makes
> "absolute sense", which means basically that not only 17 is prime, but 
> that
> this is true independently of me, you, or anyone, or anything physical. 
> All
> mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in
> Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, especially without induction axiom
> like with RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.
>
>
> 2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital physical
> brain transplant made at some level of description of my (generalized)
> brain.
>
> It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is equivalent
> with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as a mean of travel
> (UDA step 1).
>
> Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without a
> physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA reasoning:
> showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to block the
> immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.
>

 That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was
 originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons in
 the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole brain.  But we think
 with more than our brain.  Our body contributes hormones and afferent and
 efferent nerve impluses. And the environment provides stimulation to those
 nerves and an arena within which we act.  All that is taken for granted in
 answering "yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you
 implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced.

>>>
>>> The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.
>>>
>>> My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume
>>> only the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious
>>> experience would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at that
>>> level).
>>>
>>> If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole observable
>>> physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with
>>> 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and real numbers
>>> involved. The thought 

Re: Is math real?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

No chance of a pre- embedded proggie, in the universe that makes things that 
think, and self reference?



-Original Message-
From: Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, Aug 27, 2017 8:49 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?



On 8/27/2017 9:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> I think it is more pleasing when you can build the virtuous circle of 
> explanations out of simple ideas that we hardly doubt at the start, 
> like 2 * 12 = 24. And then, the point is that we have to do that, when 
> we take Mechanism seriously enough. We are back to Pythagoras, but 
> with the discovery of the universal machine and its quantum echo, and 
> a mathematically precise theology, containing physics, making it 
> testable.

But you're still trying to make arithmetic the really really primary; 
whereas from the virtuous circle perspective it is the product of 
sapient thought.

>
> Physics is not a problem. Physicalist metaphysics is a problem, when 
> we assume Mechanism. But apparently, Mechanism explains it by showing 
> that if true, the physical reality is in the head of all universal 
> machine or number, and that can be tested.

But the universal machine can only have a "head" in a certain kind of 
physical world...on which will via evolution inevitably produce mind.

Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/27/2017 9:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


I think it is more pleasing when you can build the virtuous circle of 
explanations out of simple ideas that we hardly doubt at the start, 
like 2 * 12 = 24. And then, the point is that we have to do that, when 
we take Mechanism seriously enough. We are back to Pythagoras, but 
with the discovery of the universal machine and its quantum echo, and 
a mathematically precise theology, containing physics, making it 
testable.


But you're still trying to make arithmetic the really really primary; 
whereas from the virtuous circle perspective it is the product of 
sapient thought.




Physics is not a problem. Physicalist metaphysics is a problem, when 
we assume Mechanism. But apparently, Mechanism explains it by showing 
that if true, the physical reality is in the head of all universal 
machine or number, and that can be tested.


But the universal machine can only have a "head" in a certain kind of 
physical world...on which will via evolution inevitably produce mind.


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/27/2017 10:50 AM, David Nyman wrote:
On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:



On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I am not someone proposing any new theory. I
am someone showing that the current
materialist metaphysics just can't work with
the Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist
hyposthesis? Is it the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism =
(Yes-Doctor + Church's Thesis)




Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying
arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because
many people tend to put to much into it, and is
actually redundant with Church's thesis. To just
understand Church's thesis automatically assume we
believe in some "essentially undecidable theory", and
this is equiavalent with believing in the right amount
of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of
the mathematics needed to derive physics from
"machine's theology".





>From your use, these all seem slightly different
to me.  It would be helpful to some firm
definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the
literature they are usually stronger. Putnam's
functionalism is a version of Digital Mechanism which
assumes a substitition level rather high, where my
version just ask for the existence of a substitution
level. My version is the weaker form possible, and
Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, suggests that if we
define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a
bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by Descartes'
Mechanism.

So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is
computable iff it exists a combinator which computes it)

    (There are many variants of this. You can replace
also "combinator" by "game of life pattern", or
"fortran program" or "c++ program", or "quantum
computer" etc.). Note that this asks for "Arithmetical
realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms
makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not
only 17 is prime, but that this is true independently
of me, you, or anyone, or anything physical. All
mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The fight on
realism is in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic,
especially without induction axiom like with RA. Even
a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.


2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a
digital physical brain transplant made at some level
of description of my (generalized) brain.

It asserts the existence of that substitution level,
and is equivalent with accepting that we can use
classical teleportation as a mean of travel (UDA step 1).

Important Remark: that definition does not ask for
surviving without a physical brain/machine. That is
indeed the object of the UDA reasoning: showing that
we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to block the
immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.
Yes-doctor was originally presented as substituting some
digitally simulated nuerons in the brain.  But then it was
generalized to the whole brain.  But we think with more
than our brain.  Our body contributes hormones and
afferent and efferent nerve impluses. And the environment
provides stimulation to those nerves and an arena within
which we act.  All that is taken for granted in answering
"yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me
that you implicitly suppose all of 

Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 25 August 2017 at 21:51, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>
>> On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>

 On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:


>
> On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing that
>> the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the Mechanist
>> hypothesis.
>>
>
> Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it
> the same as computationalism?
>

 Yes.

 Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +
 Church's Thesis)




 Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?
>

 No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

 I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people tend
 to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's thesis. To
 just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we believe in some
 "essentially undecidable theory", and this is equiavalent with believing in
 the right amount of arithmetic.
 I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the mathematics
 needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".





 From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would be
> helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.
>

 I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they
 are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital
 Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my version
 just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My version is the
 weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, suggests that if
 we define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot
 defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.

 So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

 1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it exists
 a combinator which computes it)

 (There are many variants of this. You can replace also "combinator"
 by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++ program", or
 "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for "Arithmetical realism"
 which is only the believe that the RA axioms makes "absolute sense", which
 means basically that not only 17 is prime, but that this is true
 independently of me, you, or anyone, or anything physical. All
 mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in
 Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, especially without induction axiom
 like with RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.


 2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital physical
 brain transplant made at some level of description of my (generalized)
 brain.

 It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is equivalent
 with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as a mean of travel
 (UDA step 1).

 Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without a
 physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA reasoning:
 showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to block the
 immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.

>>>
>>> That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was
>>> originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons in
>>> the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole brain.  But we think
>>> with more than our brain.  Our body contributes hormones and afferent and
>>> efferent nerve impluses. And the environment provides stimulation to those
>>> nerves and an arena within which we act.  All that is taken for granted in
>>> answering "yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you
>>> implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced.
>>>
>>
>> The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.
>>
>> My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume only
>> the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious experience
>> would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at that level).
>>
>> If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole observable
>> physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with
>> 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and real numbers
>> involved. The thought experience become harder to imagine, but eventually,
>> it is "the real experience" of the step 7 which we have to take into
>> account, that is "us" confronted to all computations in the arithmetical
>> reality. The arithmetical reality emulates all 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 25 Aug 2017, at 22:51, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing  
that the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with  
the Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is  
it the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +  
Church's Thesis)






Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many  
people tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant  
with Church's thesis. To just understand Church's thesis  
automatically assume we believe in some "essentially undecidable  
theory", and this is equiavalent with believing in the right  
amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the  
mathematics needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".






From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It  
would be helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature  
they are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of  
Digital Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high,  
where my version just ask for the existence of a substitution  
level. My version is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in  
his Olympia paper, suggests that if we define mechanism in this  
way, it becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot defined "rationalism"  
by Descartes' Mechanism.


So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it  
exists a combinator which computes it)


(There are many variants of this. You can replace also  
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c 
++ program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for  
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA  
axioms makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not  
only 17 is prime, but that this is true independently of me, you,  
or anyone, or anything physical. All mathematicians are  
arithmetical realist. The fight on realism is in Analysis or set  
theory, not arithmetic, especially without induction axiom like  
with RA. Even a quasi ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.



2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital  
physical brain transplant made at some level of description of my  
(generalized) brain.


It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is  
equivalent with accepting that we can use classical teleportation  
as a mean of travel (UDA step 1).


Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving  
without a physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of  
the UDA reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary- 
Matter to block the immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was  
originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated  
nuerons in the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole  
brain.  But we think with more than our brain.  Our body  
contributes hormones and afferent and efferent nerve impluses. And  
the environment provides stimulation to those nerves and an arena  
within which we act.  All that is taken for granted in answering  
"yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you  
implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced.


The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.

My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I  
assume only the existence of a substitution level (such that your  
conscious experience would remain invariant for a digital  
substitution made at that level).


If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole  
observable physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings,  
with 10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and  
real numbers involved. The thought experience become harder to  
imagine, but eventually, it is "the real experience" of the step 7  
which we have to take into account, that is "us" confronted to all  
computations in the arithmetical reality. The arithmetical reality  
emulates all computations, and this includes the matrix above, and  
infinitely any variants. It remains simpler to understand the  
problem with thought experiements involving "high" level, like the  
biochemistry of the body, and understand at step 7 that the  
reasoning does not depend on the level chosen.


To kill the consequences of computationalism is not easy. Even  
lowering down the level to "infinitely low" 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/25/2017 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing 
that the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the 
Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it 
the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor + 
Church's Thesis)






Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people 
tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's 
thesis. To just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we 
believe in some "essentially undecidable theory", and this is 
equiavalent with believing in the right amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the 
mathematics needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".






From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would 
be helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they 
are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital 
Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my 
version just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My 
version is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia 
paper, suggests that if we define mechanism in this way, it becomes 
trivial, a bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by Descartes' 
Mechanism.


So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it 
exists a combinator which computes it)


    (There are many variants of this. You can replace also 
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++ 
program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for 
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms 
makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not only 17 is 
prime, but that this is true independently of me, you, or anyone, or 
anything physical. All mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The 
fight on realism is in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, 
especially without induction axiom like with RA. Even a quasi 
ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.



2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital 
physical brain transplant made at some level of description of my 
(generalized) brain.


It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is 
equivalent with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as 
a mean of travel (UDA step 1).


Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without 
a physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA 
reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to 
block the immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was 
originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons 
in the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole brain.  But 
we think with more than our brain.  Our body contributes hormones and 
afferent and efferent nerve impluses. And the environment provides 
stimulation to those nerves and an arena within which we act.  All 
that is taken for granted in answering "yes doctor" or 
teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you implicitly suppose 
all of this is also digitally replaced.


The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.

My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume 
only the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious 
experience would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at 
that level).


If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole 
observable physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with 
10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and real 
numbers involved. The thought experience become harder to imagine, but 
eventually, it is "the real experience" of the step 7 which we have to 
take into account, that is "us" confronted to all computations in the 
arithmetical reality. The arithmetical reality emulates all 
computations, and this includes the matrix above, and infinitely any 
variants. It remains simpler to understand the problem with thought 
experiements involving "high" level, like the biochemistry of the 
body, and understand at step 7 that the reasoning does not depend on 
the level chosen.


To kill the consequences of computationalism is not easy. Even 
lowering down the level to "infinitely low" level, like using all 
decimals of the reals involved would not guaranty the singularization 
used in the 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 24 Aug 2017, at 20:57, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing  
that the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the  
Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is  
it the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +  
Church's Thesis)






Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people  
tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with  
Church's thesis. To just understand Church's thesis automatically  
assume we believe in some "essentially undecidable theory", and  
this is equiavalent with believing in the right amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the  
mathematics needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".






From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would  
be helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature  
they are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of  
Digital Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high,  
where my version just ask for the existence of a substitution  
level. My version is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his  
Olympia paper, suggests that if we define mechanism in this way, it  
becomes trivial, a bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by  
Descartes' Mechanism.


So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it  
exists a combinator which computes it)


(There are many variants of this. You can replace also  
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c+ 
+ program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for  
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms  
makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not only 17 is  
prime, but that this is true independently of me, you, or anyone,  
or anything physical. All mathematicians are arithmetical realist.  
The fight on realism is in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic,  
especially without induction axiom like with RA. Even a quasi ultra- 
finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.



2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital  
physical brain transplant made at some level of description of my  
(generalized) brain.


It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is  
equivalent with accepting that we can use classical teleportation  
as a mean of travel (UDA step 1).


Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving  
without a physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the  
UDA reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter  
to block the immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was  
originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated  
nuerons in the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole  
brain.  But we think with more than our brain.  Our body contributes  
hormones and afferent and efferent nerve impluses.  And the  
environment provides stimulation to those nerves and an arena within  
which we act.  All that is taken for granted in answering "yes  
doctor" or teletransporting.  So it appears to me that you  
implicitly suppose all of this is also digitally replaced.


The reasoning does not depend on the substitution level.

My version of mechanism is much weaker than all the others. I assume  
only the existence of a substitution level (such that your conscious  
experience would remain invariant for a digital substitution made at  
that level).


If you want, you can take the Heinsenberg matrix of the whole  
observable physical reality, at the level of the (super)-strings, with  
10^(10^(10^1000)) decimals exact for the complex numbers and real  
numbers involved. The thought experience become harder to imagine, but  
eventually, it is "the real experience" of the step 7 which we have to  
take into account, that is "us" confronted to all computations in the  
arithmetical reality. The arithmetical reality emulates all  
computations, and this includes the matrix above, and infinitely any  
variants. It remains simpler to understand the problem with thought  
experiements involving "high" level, like the biochemistry of the  
body, and understand at step 7 that the reasoning does not depend on  
the level chosen.


To kill the consequences of computationalism is not easy. Even  
lowering down the level to "infinitely low" level, like using all  
decimals of the reals involved would not guaranty the singularization  
used 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/24/2017 1:20 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing that 
the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the 
Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis? Is it 
the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor + 
Church's Thesis)






Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people 
tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's 
thesis. To just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we 
believe in some "essentially undecidable theory", and this is 
equiavalent with believing in the right amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the mathematics 
needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".






From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would be 
helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they 
are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital 
Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my 
version just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My version 
is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper, 
suggests that if we define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial, 
a bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.


So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it exists 
a combinator which computes it)


    (There are many variants of this. You can replace also 
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++ 
program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for 
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms 
makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not only 17 is 
prime, but that this is true independently of me, you, or anyone, or 
anything physical. All mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The 
fight on realism is in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic, 
especially without induction axiom like with RA. Even a quasi 
ultra-finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.



2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital physical 
brain transplant made at some level of description of my (generalized) 
brain.


It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is equivalent 
with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as a mean of 
travel (UDA step 1).


Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without a 
physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA 
reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to 
block the immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


That's where I think some imprecision sneaks in.  Yes-doctor was 
originally presented as substituting some digitally simulated nuerons in 
the brain.  But then it was generalized to the whole brain.  But we 
think with more than our brain.  Our body contributes hormones and 
afferent and efferent nerve impluses.  And the environment provides 
stimulation to those nerves and an arena within which we act.  All that 
is taken for granted in answering "yes doctor" or teletransporting.  So 
it appears to me that you implicitly suppose all of this is also 
digitally replaced.


Brent



Primary or primitive means "in need to be necessarily assumed" or "non 
derivable from anything else (up to some provable equivalence)".


Ask any precision if needed.

Bruno








Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 23 Aug 2017, at 20:43, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing  
that the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the  
Mechanist hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis?  Is it  
the same as computationalism?


Yes.

Computationalism = Digital Mechanism = Mechanism = (Yes-Doctor +  
Church's Thesis)






Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying arithmetic?


No, it is (yes-doctor + Church's Thesis).

I do not add since long "Arithmetical Realism" because many people  
tend to put to much into it, and is actually redundant with Church's  
thesis. To just understand Church's thesis automatically assume we  
believe in some "essentially undecidable theory", and this is  
equiavalent with believing in the right amount of arithmetic.
I will write a post on the detailed starting point of the mathematics  
needed to derive physics from "machine's theology".






From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It would be  
helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


I use them as completely equivalent, although in the literature they  
are usually stronger. Putnam's functionalism is a version of Digital  
Mechanism which assumes a substitition level rather high, where my  
version just ask for the existence of a substitution level. My version  
is the weaker form possible, and Maudlin, in his Olympia paper,  
suggests that if we define mechanism in this way, it becomes trivial,  
a bit like Diderot defined "rationalism" by Descartes' Mechanism.


So a firm definition of Mechanism (in my weak sense) is

1) Church's Thesis (a function from N to N is computable iff it exists  
a combinator which computes it)


(There are many variants of this. You can replace also  
"combinator" by "game of life pattern", or "fortran program" or "c++  
program", or "quantum computer" etc.). Note that this asks for  
"Arithmetical realism" which is only the believe that the RA axioms  
makes "absolute sense", which means basically that not only 17 is  
prime, but that this is true independently of me, you, or anyone, or  
anything physical. All mathematicians are arithmetical realist. The  
fight on realism is in Analysis or set theory, not arithmetic,  
especially without induction axiom like with RA. Even a quasi ultra- 
finitist like Nelson agrees with RA.



2) Yes-Doctor (= my consciousness is invariant for a digital physical  
brain transplant made at some level of description of my (generalized)  
brain.


It asserts the existence of that substitution level, and is equivalent  
with accepting that we can use classical teleportation as a mean of  
travel (UDA step 1).


Important Remark: that definition does not ask for surviving without a  
physical brain/machine. That is indeed the object of the UDA  
reasoning: showing that we cannot invoke God, or Primary-Matter to  
block the immaterialist consequence of Digital Mechanism.


Primary or primitive means "in need to be necessarily assumed" or "non  
derivable from anything else (up to some provable equivalence)".


Ask any precision if needed.

Bruno








Brent

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



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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/23/2017 2:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am not someone proposing any new theory. I am someone showing that 
the current materialist metaphysics just can't work with the Mechanist 
hypothesis.


Refresh my understanding.  What it the mechanist hyposthesis?  Is it the 
same as computationalism?  Or is it the same as yes-doctor plus reifying 
arithmetic?  From your use, these all seem slightly different to me.  It 
would be helpful to some firm definitions - not just usage.


Brent

--
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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 23 Aug 2017, at 16:31, Philip Benjamin wrote:


[Philip Benjamin]
Metaphysics is not physics.


I think we all agree on this here. Of course, physics can become the  
main branch of metaphysics if we make some physicalist or naturalist  
assumption.


Similarly, computer science or arithmetic can become the main branch  
of metaphysics, or theology, when we use the relevant assumption.





It is not only a categorical error to comingle them, but an obvious  
mathematical absurdity.


Sure, it depends on the metaphysical or theological assumptions.




Taoist Niels Bohr and his Taoist associates were in a mighty haste  
to reject the de Broglie wave-likeness and force New Age waviness in  
order to establish Yin/Yang mystic duality (paganism in  
customaryQueen's English) as science by equating it with an  
imagined  particle-wave duality, to an unsuspecting and gullible  
audience (excluding the eminent Einstein who vigorously opposed it,  
referring the brilliant physicist Bohr as a Talmudic Philosopher--  
“talmudistische philosoph"). It was the killing of a  Civilization  
which at least some, if not all, of the Bohr's school of metaphysics  
had really wanted. The rejection of Einstein here opened up the  
sinister way for the WAMP (Western Acade-Media Paganism) to have the  
formidable power they exercise today over governments, universities,  
bureaucracies and political parties. People have no choice but to  
toe the line of the monstrous WAMP!! Or else, get EXPELLED, to quote  
Ben Stein.



I agree. Bohr was not so good in metaphysics, but keep in mind that  
metaphysics/theology has not yet come back at the academy of science,  
so it is normal. I agree that Einstein was far more sincere on this.
Now, although I appreciete very much de Broglie, and consider him as  
very sincere and honest (after retirement though), the Bohm-De Broglie  
"pilote wave" idea seems to have as much "New Age" crappy  
exploitations. Again, it is normal when philosophy is still often used  
to prevent rationality instead of encouraging it.









Philip Benjamin
Note: Academedia (acade-media): The monstrous double headed hybrid  
of a small minority of all academics including seminarians and a  
large majority of all media including the Hollywood, with no- 
question-asked Marxist-like authoritarianism as their modus  
operandi. Based on the works of Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Ben Stein,  
Victor Mordecai, ex-Marxist David Horowitz


Upon decoupling, the unenergized (unregenerated), non-entropic bio  
dark-matter bodies co-created at the moment of conception will be  
lost in their abodes of the dark-matter realms (black holes), by  
their own willful choice. Adapted from "Ten Implications of Bio Dark- 
Matter Chemistry" and "Spiritual Body or Physical Spirit" by Philip  
Benjamin PhD MSc MA






OK. Don't worry. Nobody talk like this here.

Bruno







From: everything-list@googlegroups.com <everything-list@googlegroups.com 
> on behalf of Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>

Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 4:47 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Is math real?


On 21 Aug 2017, at 14:43, Philip Benjamin wrote:


[Philip Benjamin]
There is a difference between mathematical proposition and  
mathematical operation.


OK. "2+2  =  2 * 2" is a mathematical proposition. "+" and "*"  
denotes operations.





For example, quantum theory is a mathematical proposition,


Hmm... OK. It is a theory. It is a list of assumptions, or their  
conjunction, about a reality, itself assumed (at the metalevel in  
physics, and at the base level in some physicalist metaphysics).






but Quantum interpretation such as "Collapse", "Many Worlds" etc.


The collapse is one more assumption.

 "many-worlds" is when we don't do that collapse assumption.

In fact "many-world", with the logician's weak sense of "world" is a  
mathematical consequence of QM without collapse, and assuming a  
collapse makes the SWE false, or not applicable to the observer in QM 
+collapse theory (a good reason to be suspicious about the collapse).







is philosophy/religion deserving no mathematical operation.


?  (this does not make sense to me).




Genetics can be subjected to mathematical operation,


?   (I guess we are not using "operation" in the same sense. What do  
you mean by "operation"? You mean perhaps "analysis". Then OK here,  
but I do not see why philosophy/religion would not be subjected to  
mathematical analysis. That is possible in some theory, but not in  
another theory---and indeed, I illustrate that once we assume the  
mechanist hypothesis in the cognitive sciences, then we do have the  
mean to use mathematics in metaphysics/religion.





but Common Descent is a philosophical speculation beyond mathematics.


I prefer to not separate philosophy 

Re: Is math real?

[Philip Benjamin]

[Philip Benjamin]

Metaphysics is not physics. It is not only a categorical error to comingle 
them, but an obvious mathematical absurdity. Taoist Niels Bohr and his Taoist 
associates were in a mighty haste to reject the de Broglie wave-likeness and 
force New Age waviness in order to establish Yin/Yang mystic duality (paganism 
in customary Queen's English) as science by equating it with an imagined  
particle-wave duality, to an unsuspecting and gullible audience (excluding the 
eminent Einstein who vigorously opposed it, referring the brilliant physicist 
Bohr as a Talmudic Philosopher-- “talmudistische philosoph"). It was the 
killing of a  Civilization which at least some, if not all, of the Bohr's 
school of metaphysics had really wanted. The rejection of Einstein here opened 
up the sinister way for the WAMP (Western Acade-Media Paganism) to have the 
formidable power they exercise today over governments, universities, 
bureaucracies and political parties. People have no choice but to toe the line 
of the monstrous WAMP!! Or else, get EXPELLED, to quote Ben Stein.

Philip Benjamin

Note: Academedia (acade-media): The monstrous double headed hybrid of a small 
minority of all academics including seminarians and a large majority of all 
media including the Hollywood, with no-question-asked Marxist-like 
authoritarianism as their modus operandi. Based on the works of Rabbi Daniel 
Lapin, Ben Stein, Victor Mordecai, ex-Marxist David Horowitz

Upon decoupling, the unenergized (unregenerated), non-entropic bio dark-matter 
bodies co-created at the moment of conception will be lost in their abodes of 
the dark-matter realms (black holes), by their own willful choice. Adapted from 
"Ten Implications of Bio Dark-Matter Chemistry" and "Spiritual Body or Physical 
Spirit" by Philip Benjamin PhD MSc MA




From: everything-list@googlegroups.com <everything-list@googlegroups.com> on 
behalf of Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 4:47 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Is math real?


On 21 Aug 2017, at 14:43, Philip Benjamin wrote:

[Philip Benjamin]
There is a difference between mathematical proposition and mathematical 
operation.

OK. "2+2  =  2 * 2" is a mathematical proposition. "+" and "*" denotes 
operations.



For example, quantum theory is a mathematical proposition,

Hmm... OK. It is a theory. It is a list of assumptions, or their conjunction, 
about a reality, itself assumed (at the metalevel in physics, and at the base 
level in some physicalist metaphysics).




but Quantum interpretation such as "Collapse", "Many Worlds" etc.

The collapse is one more assumption.

 "many-worlds" is when we don't do that collapse assumption.

In fact "many-world", with the logician's weak sense of "world" is a 
mathematical consequence of QM without collapse, and assuming a collapse makes 
the SWE false, or not applicable to the observer in QM+collapse theory (a good 
reason to be suspicious about the collapse).





is philosophy/religion deserving no mathematical operation.

?  (this does not make sense to me).



Genetics can be subjected to mathematical operation,

?   (I guess we are not using "operation" in the same sense. What do you mean 
by "operation"? You mean perhaps "analysis". Then OK here, but I do not see why 
philosophy/religion would not be subjected to mathematical analysis. That is 
possible in some theory, but not in another theory---and indeed, I illustrate 
that once we assume the mechanist hypothesis in the cognitive sciences, then we 
do have the mean to use mathematics in metaphysics/religion.



but Common Descent is a philosophical speculation beyond mathematics.

I prefer to not separate philosophy from science. That separation is too much 
often used to allow absence of rigor in philosophy, and that is a very bad 
habit. Same for theology, metaphysics. I limit myself to hypothesis making a 
mathematical treatment operational, leading to testable conclusions.

I don't really believe in something called "science", but I do believe in 
scientific attitude, and this is independent of the domain of investigation.



So is the evidential Natural Selection. It can be subjected to mathematical 
analysis, but the un-evidential trans-speciation is philosophy beyond 
mathematics.

It will depend on your fundamental theory/assumption, I would say.

Bruno Marchal





Philip Benjamin



From: everything-list@googlegroups.com<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com> 
<everything-list@googlegroups.com<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> on 
behalf of Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be<mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 4:50 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com<mailto:everyt

Re: Is math real?

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

It is a fair speculation to put forth that the universe of gases, rocks, and 
ice, gravity, from mathematics? It is not that its all a simulation, but like 
Venus emerging from Zeus's skull, came into existence. Possible? Stupid? Not 
even wrong?



-Original Message-
From: Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Aug 22, 2017 2:57 pm
Subject: Re: Is math real?





On 8/22/2017 1:16 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:


  
On 8/21/2017 4:19AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

  
The problemwith everythingism is that one doesn't experience
everything.
  
  
  Indeed. But that is a very general problem, and you could say 
 "the problem with physicalism is that we don't experience  primary 
matter, nor the whole physical reality.  


But that's not a problem for physicalism.
  
  
  Then it is not a problem for any "everything theory". Physicalism  
included. Or explain better why it would be a problem for  "everythingism". 
   

It's a problem for your version of everythingism, because you claimto 
invert psychology and physics, i.e. to derive physics from frompsychology.  
But psychology only includes what is experienced.  Sothis entails that 
everything is experienced or derived fromexperience.

Brent
  
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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/22/2017 1:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 8/21/2017 4:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience 
everything.


Indeed. But that is a very general problem, and you could say "the 
problem with physicalism is that we don't experience primary matter, 
nor the whole physical reality.


But that's not a problem for physicalism.


Then it is not a problem for any "everything theory". Physicalism 
included. Or explain better why it would be a problem for 
"everythingism". 


It's a problem for your version of everythingism, because you claim to 
invert psychology and physics, i.e. to derive physics from from 
psychology.  But psychology only includes what is experienced.  So this 
entails that everything is experienced or derived from experience.


Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Aug 2017, at 21:04, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/21/2017 4:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience  
everything.


Indeed. But that is a very general problem, and you could say "the  
problem with physicalism is that we don't experience primary  
matter, nor the whole physical reality.


But that's not a problem for physicalism.


Then it is not a problem for any "everything theory". Physicalism  
included. Or explain better why it would be a problem for  
"everythingism".



It doesn't predict that we experience primary matter or the whole of  
physical reality.


Nor does any "everything theory".



It models us as localized and limited and reality as a process, not  
a totality.


At a price of invoking non Turing emulable physical selection by a  
"god" (Primary Matter).


No problem with this, unless you keep this in the mechanist context.  
You have a very similar problem with QM. Either QM applies to the  
observer, et you have the many-worlds, or QM is just false for some  
many-body problem.




On 8/21/2017 4:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Before Gödel, most mathematician, like Hilbert, were hoping that  
with the finite and the symbolic we could justify the consistency  
of the use of the infinities, but after Gödel we know that even  
with the infinities we cannot circumscribe and justify the  
consistency of the finite and the symbolic.


All the more reason to classify them as fiction - not part of the  
really real.


OK. But then Mechanism has to be assumed false, or you too would  
not exist (and I hope you believe that you exist, in a way or  
another).




Consistency is a attribute of propositions and logic.


Not really. It is an attribute of theories or "talking" machines, or  
"propositions emitter".




Whether there are infinities that cannot be circumscribed has no  
relevance to my existence or whether consciousness can be realized  
by a computer.


It is the finite behavior of machine that we cannot circumscribed, and  
besides, the 1p distribution requires an infinite non computable set  
of continuation, so we have to explain why the physical reality seems  
so much computable (the white rabbit problem, the measure problem due  
to the "global" first person indeterminacy). So let us pursue the  
testing and see.



===

Well, only if you happen to be God, perhaps.

The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience  
everything.


How would you know?


By direct inexperience...and I'm not God either.



How could we know by inexperience?


Do you know you are not experiencing being in Washington  
now?...that's how.


OK, but this is done through the experience of being somewhere else.  
Knowledge comes always from some experience.





I think you can *only* believe in something by some experience (of  
inexperience) leading you to postulate something different from  
yourself, but that is not something you can experience. It can only  
be a belief.


That is why "primary matter" is an hypothesis in metaphysics, not  
in physics.


So is "primary arithmetic".



Not at all. The whole point of the UD Argument is that arithmetic (or  
Turing equivalent) has to be primary. It is a consequence of Digital  
Mechanism, which *is* an hypothesis in theology or metaphysics. But  
the theology is in the "yes doctor", not in "primary arithmetic". Only  
arithmetic is assumed here, (to define computation), not its  
primariness, which results from the existence of computations in  
arithmetic, and the inability to select the computations in a  
different way than by the FPI (when we assume computationalism).


Bruno





Brent

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



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Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/21/2017 5:43 AM, Philip Benjamin wrote:


[*Philip Benjamin*]

There is a difference between mathematical proposition and 
mathematical operation. For example, quantum theory is a mathematical 
proposition




It includes more than mathematical propositions.  It includes 
interpretations of the mathematics that relates it to operations and 
observations in the physical world.


, but Quantum interpretation such as "Collapse", "Many Worlds" etc. is 
philosophy/religion deserving no mathematical operation.




What does it mean to "deserve a mathematical operation"?  Is it like 
having your matrix removed?


Brent

Genetics can be subjected to mathematical operation, but Common 
Descent is a philosophical speculation beyond mathematics. So is the 
/evidential Natural Selection. /It can be subjected to mathematical 
analysis, but the /un-evidential trans-speciation /is philosophy 
beyond mathematics.


*Philip Benjamin*




*From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com 
<everything-list@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Bruno Marchal 
<marc...@ulb.ac.be>

*Sent:* Sunday, August 20, 2017 4:50 PM
*To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* Re: Is math real?

On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:31, Philip Benjamin wrote:


[*Philip Benjamin*]
This is the wrong question, "not even wrong"!! The right question is 
"are the THINGS/SUBJECTS which mathematics deal with real?



OK, we agree I think, but fundamentally, it is not even that, at least 
when we apply mathematics (in the natural science, or in metaphysics; 
theology, ...).


It is "do you agree with this or that mathematical proposition". 
(followed by "agreement" on definitions).


Now some mathematical proposition does not ask much, like most theorem 
in first order arithmetic (when the proof are not too long).


Some propositions ask us more, like when using set theory, or set 
theory + the choice axiom.


Some proposition asks for so much that we will never stop searching a 
proof, like Riemann hypothesis, which we know refutable in very 
elementary arithmetic in case it would be false.


But the question "is math real" is often answered in the negative by 
the conventionalist (like Goethe, Perhaps Bergson, and the early 
positivist in math).  In my opinion, this is not defensible, from a 
mathematical logical viewpoint, even before Gödel's theorem, and still 
much more non-defensible after.


See my other post to David for some precision. The mathematical real 
is very vast, and it is normal some part are more doubtful than other 
parts. Some part are real, but only phenomenologically so, like with 
physics when we assume computationalism, as I explained often here.



Bruno






Best regards
*Philip Benjamin*


*From:*everything-list@googlegroups.com 
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com><everything-list@googlegroups.com 
<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> on behalf of David Nyman 
<david.ny...@gmail.com <mailto:david.ny...@gmail.com>>

*Sent:*Sunday, August 20, 2017 3:24 PM
*To:*everything-list
*Subject:*Re: Is math real?


On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal" <marc...@ulb.ac.be 
<mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:



On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:


On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal<marc...@ulb.ac.be
<mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>>wrote:


On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:


He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.



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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>



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For more op

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/21/2017 4:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 21 Aug 2017, at 01:21, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/20/2017 4:02 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 20 Aug 2017 23:16, "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 8/20/2017 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal" > wrote:


On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:


On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal
> wrote:


On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:


He points at a mug and says that 'representations'
(meaning numbers) aren't to be confused with things
themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of
a number.

LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard)
arithmetical reality with a theory of the
arithmetical reality. Yet after Gödel we know that no
theories at all can represent or encompass the whole
of the arithmetical reality.

It is not much different that confusing a telescope
and a star, or a microscope and a bacteria, or a
finger and a moon, or a number and a numeral
("chiffre" in french).
But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such
distinction are very important. In Gödel's proof, we
need to distinguish a mathematical being, like the
number s(0), the representation of the number s(0),
which is the sequence of the symbol "s", "(", "0",
")" (and that is not a number, but a word), and the
representation of the representation of a number,
which, when we represent things in arithmetic will be
something like
2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some
s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s( (0)...). (very long!).



But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?


A mug. I guess.


​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A
materialist would say that it is a structured collection
of atoms, but a mechanist has to say something like "a
common pattern pointed at by some normal (in Gauss sense)
machine sharing some long (deep) histories. Something like
that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually.
I like his enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he
doesn't seem to appreciate his implicit assumptions, or indeed
that he is in fact expressing a particular metaphysical
position. Is math real? I mean, really real? Trouble is,
people assume that the answer is obvious, whether they think
it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree. The beauty of the
Church's thesis, is that it entails by "theoremata" the
existence of the emulation of all computations in elementary
arithmetic.

(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt
that we can take a primary physical reality for granted: it is
the dream argument with a vengeance).

The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that
2+0= 2, and a bit of logic.

I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can
become science, but I do claim that if we assume mechanism,
then by Church's thesis, philosophy and theology becomes a
science, even in the usual empiricist sense.

There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is
ultra-non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the
whole truth (including physics) is "in your head and nowhere
else". ("you" = any universal machine). But that is what makes
the machine theology testable, by comparing the physics in the
head of any (sound) universal machine with what we actually
observed.


Are you claiming that there is a one-to-one map between true
statements in mathematics and what I experience??


Well, only if you happen to be God, perhaps.

The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience
everything.


How would you know?


By direct inexperience...and I'm not God either.



How could we know by_inexperience_?


Do you know you are not experiencing being in Washington now?...that's how.

I think you can *only* believe in something by some experience (of 
inexperience) leading you to postulate something different from 
yourself, but that is not something you can experience. It can only be 
a belief.


That is why "primary matter" is an hypothesis in metaphysics, not in 
physics.


So is "primary arithmetic".

Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Aug 2017, at 14:43, Philip Benjamin wrote:


[Philip Benjamin]
There is a difference between mathematical proposition and  
mathematical operation.


OK. "2+2  =  2 * 2" is a mathematical proposition. "+" and "*" denotes  
operations.





For example, quantum theory is a mathematical proposition,


Hmm... OK. It is a theory. It is a list of assumptions, or their  
conjunction, about a reality, itself assumed (at the metalevel in  
physics, and at the base level in some physicalist metaphysics).






but Quantum interpretation such as "Collapse", "Many Worlds" etc.


The collapse is one more assumption.

 "many-worlds" is when we don't do that collapse assumption.

In fact "many-world", with the logician's weak sense of "world" is a  
mathematical consequence of QM without collapse, and assuming a  
collapse makes the SWE false, or not applicable to the observer in QM 
+collapse theory (a good reason to be suspicious about the collapse).







is philosophy/religion deserving no mathematical operation.


?  (this does not make sense to me).




Genetics can be subjected to mathematical operation,


?   (I guess we are not using "operation" in the same sense. What do  
you mean by "operation"? You mean perhaps "analysis". Then OK here,  
but I do not see why philosophy/religion would not be subjected to  
mathematical analysis. That is possible in some theory, but not in  
another theory---and indeed, I illustrate that once we assume the  
mechanist hypothesis in the cognitive sciences, then we do have the  
mean to use mathematics in metaphysics/religion.





but Common Descent is a philosophical speculation beyond mathematics.


I prefer to not separate philosophy from science. That separation is  
too much often used to allow absence of rigor in philosophy, and that  
is a very bad habit. Same for theology, metaphysics. I limit myself to  
hypothesis making a mathematical treatment operational, leading to  
testable conclusions.


I don't really believe in something called "science", but I do believe  
in scientific attitude, and this is independent of the domain of  
investigation.




So is the evidential Natural Selection. It can be subjected to  
mathematical analysis, but the un-evidential trans-speciation is  
philosophy beyond mathematics.


It will depend on your fundamental theory/assumption, I would say.

Bruno Marchal






Philip Benjamin


From: everything-list@googlegroups.com <everything-list@googlegroups.com 
> on behalf of Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>

Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 4:50 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Is math real?


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:31, Philip Benjamin wrote:


[Philip Benjamin]
This is the wrong question, "not even wrong"!! The right question  
is "are the THINGS/SUBJECTS which mathematics deal with real?



OK, we agree I think, but fundamentally, it is not even that, at  
least when we apply mathematics (in the natural science, or in  
metaphysics; theology, ...).


It is "do you agree with this or that mathematical proposition".  
(followed by "agreement" on definitions).


Now some mathematical proposition does not ask much, like most  
theorem in first order arithmetic (when the proof are not too long).


Some propositions ask us more, like when using set theory, or set  
theory + the choice axiom.


Some proposition asks for so much that we will never stop searching  
a proof, like Riemann hypothesis, which we know refutable in very  
elementary arithmetic in case it would be false.


But the question "is math real" is often answered in the negative by  
the conventionalist (like Goethe, Perhaps Bergson, and the early  
positivist in math).  In my opinion, this is not defensible, from a  
mathematical logical viewpoint, even before Gödel's theorem, and  
still much more non-defensible after.


See my other post to David for some precision. The mathematical real  
is very vast, and it is normal some part are more doubtful than  
other parts. Some part are real, but only phenomenologically so,  
like with physics when we assume computationalism, as I explained  
often here.



Bruno






Best regards
Philip Benjamin

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com <everything-list@googlegroups.com 
> on behalf of David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 3:24 PM
To: everything-list
Subject: Re: Is math real?



On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal" <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:


On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:

He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning  
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible repres

Re: Is math real?

[Philip Benjamin]

[Philip Benjamin]

There is a difference between mathematical proposition and mathematical 
operation. For example, quantum theory is a mathematical proposition, but 
Quantum interpretation such as "Collapse", "Many Worlds" etc. is 
philosophy/religion deserving no mathematical operation. Genetics can be 
subjected to mathematical operation, but Common Descent is a philosophical 
speculation beyond mathematics. So is the evidential Natural Selection. It can 
be subjected to mathematical analysis, but the un-evidential trans-speciation 
is philosophy beyond mathematics.

Philip Benjamin



From: everything-list@googlegroups.com <everything-list@googlegroups.com> on 
behalf of Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 4:50 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Is math real?


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:31, Philip Benjamin wrote:

[Philip Benjamin]
This is the wrong question, "not even wrong"!! The right question is "are the 
THINGS/SUBJECTS which mathematics deal with real?


OK, we agree I think, but fundamentally, it is not even that, at least when we 
apply mathematics (in the natural science, or in metaphysics; theology, ...).

It is "do you agree with this or that mathematical proposition". (followed by 
"agreement" on definitions).

Now some mathematical proposition does not ask much, like most theorem in first 
order arithmetic (when the proof are not too long).

Some propositions ask us more, like when using set theory, or set theory + the 
choice axiom.

Some proposition asks for so much that we will never stop searching a proof, 
like Riemann hypothesis, which we know refutable in very elementary arithmetic 
in case it would be false.

But the question "is math real" is often answered in the negative by the 
conventionalist (like Goethe, Perhaps Bergson, and the early positivist in 
math).  In my opinion, this is not defensible, from a mathematical logical 
viewpoint, even before Gödel's theorem, and still much more non-defensible 
after.

See my other post to David for some precision. The mathematical real is very 
vast, and it is normal some part are more doubtful than other parts. Some part 
are real, but only phenomenologically so, like with physics when we assume 
computationalism, as I explained often here.


Bruno





Best regards
Philip Benjamin


From: everything-list@googlegroups.com<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com> 
<everything-list@googlegroups.com<mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com>> on 
behalf of David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com<mailto:david.ny...@gmail.com>>
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 3:24 PM
To: everything-list
Subject: Re: Is math real?



On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal" 
<marc...@ulb.ac.be<mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:

On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:

On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal 
<marc...@ulb.ac.be<mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be>> wrote:

On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:

He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning numbers) aren't to 
be confused with things themselves.


He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.



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




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Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Aug 2017, at 01:21, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/20/2017 4:02 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 20 Aug 2017 23:16, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:


On 8/20/2017 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"   
wrote:


On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:

On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:

He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning  
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.

LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard) arithmetical  
reality with a theory of the arithmetical reality. Yet after  
Gödel we know that no theories at all can represent or encompass  
the whole of the arithmetical reality.


It is not much different that confusing a telescope and a star,  
or a microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and a moon, or a  
number and a numeral ("chiffre" in french).
But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such distinction  
are very important. In Gödel's proof, we need to distinguish a  
mathematical being, like the number s(0), the representation of  
the number s(0), which is the sequence of the symbol "s", "(",  
"0", ")" (and that is not a number, but a word), and the  
representation of the representation of a number, which, when we  
represent things in arithmetic will be something like
2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some  
s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s( (0)...). (very long!).




But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?


A mug. I guess.

​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A materialist  
would say that it is a structured collection of atoms, but a  
mechanist has to say something like "a common pattern pointed at  
by some normal (in Gauss sense) machine sharing some long (deep)  
histories. Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I  
like his enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he doesn't  
seem to appreciate his implicit assumptions, or indeed that he is  
in fact expressing a particular metaphysical position. Is math  
real? I mean, really real? Trouble is, people assume that the  
answer is obvious, whether they think it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree. The beauty of the Church's  
thesis, is that it entails by "theoremata" the existence of the  
emulation of all computations in elementary arithmetic.


(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that  
we can take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the  
dream argument with a vengeance).


The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0=  
2, and a bit of logic.


I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can become  
science, but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then by  
Church's thesis, philosophy and theology becomes a science, even  
in the usual empiricist sense.


There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is  
ultra-non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the  
whole truth (including physics) is "in your head and nowhere  
else". ("you" = any universal machine). But that is what makes the  
machine theology testable, by comparing the physics in the head of  
any (sound) universal machine with what we actually observed.


Are you claiming that there is a one-to-one map between true  
statements in mathematics and what I experience??


Well, only if you happen to be God, perhaps.

The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience  
everything.


How would you know?


By direct inexperience...and I'm not God either.



How could we know by inexperience? I think you can *only* believe in  
something by some experience (of inexperience) leading you to  
postulate something different from yourself, but that is not something  
you can experience. It can only be a belief.


That is why "primary matter" is an hypothesis in metaphysics, not in  
physics.


Bruno





Brent

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For more 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Aug 2017, at 01:02, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 23:16, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:


On 8/20/2017 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:

On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:

On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:

He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning  
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.

LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard) arithmetical  
reality with a theory of the arithmetical reality. Yet after  
Gödel we know that no theories at all can represent or encompass  
the whole of the arithmetical reality.


It is not much different that confusing a telescope and a star,  
or a microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and a moon, or a  
number and a numeral ("chiffre" in french).
But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such distinction are  
very important. In Gödel's proof, we need to distinguish a  
mathematical being, like the number s(0), the representation of  
the number s(0), which is the sequence of the symbol "s", "(",  
"0", ")" (and that is not a number, but a word), and the  
representation of the representation of a  
number,  which, when we  
represent things in arithmetic will be something like
2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some  
s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s( (0)...). (very long!).




But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?


A mug. I guess.

​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A materialist  
would say that it is a structured collection of atoms, but a  
mechanist has to say something like "a common pattern pointed at  
by some normal (in Gauss sense) machine sharing some long (deep)  
histories. Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I  
like his enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he doesn't  
seem to appreciate his implicit assumptions, or indeed that he is  
in fact expressing a particular metaphysical position. Is math  
real? I mean, really real? Trouble is, people assume that the  
answer is obvious, whether they think it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree. The beauty of the Church's  
thesis, is that it entails by "theoremata" the existence of the  
emulation of all computations in elementary arithmetic.


(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that we  
can take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the dream  
argument with a vengeance).


The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0= 2,  
and a bit of logic.


I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can become  
science, but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then by  
Church's thesis, philosophy and theology becomes a science, even in  
the usual empiricist sense.


There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is ultra- 
non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the whole truth  
(including physics) is "in your head and nowhere else". ("you" =  
any universal machine). But that is what makes the machine theology  
testable, by comparing the  physics in the head of any  
(sound) universal machine with what we actually observed.


Are you claiming that there is a one-to-one map between true  
statements in mathematics and what I experience??


Well, only if you happen to be God, perhaps.


Exactly!





The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience  
everything.


How would you know?


Good question. Of course, with computationalism, we might not been  
able to experience everything here and now, but it is not obvious for  
the infinite term.


Bruno





David




Math is real? Which math? I doubt that sincere people doubt  
arithmetic, and I have never heard of parents who would have taken  
their kids out of a school for the reason that hey have been taught  
that 2+2=4; neither in the Western nor Eastern worlds.


I doubt the infinity of standard arithmetic.




Now, for limit and real numbers it is much less obvious. here  
intutionist and classical philosophy diverge. With Mechanism, it is  
better to considered analysis (and eventually physics) as universal  
machine mind tools. Gödel's incompleteness justifies partially why  
the machine needs to invent infinities to better figure out  
themselves. Before Gödel, most mathematician, like Hilbert, were  
hoping that with the finite and the symbolic we could justify the  
consistency of the use of the infinities, but after Gödel we know  
that even with the infinities we cannot circumscribe and justify  
the consistency of the finite and the symbolic.


All the more reason to classify them as fiction - not part of the  
really real.


Brent


The root 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Aug 2017, at 00:16, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 8/20/2017 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:

On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:

On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:

He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning  
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.

LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard) arithmetical  
reality with a theory of the arithmetical reality. Yet after  
Gödel we know that no theories at all can represent or encompass  
the whole of the arithmetical reality.


It is not much different that confusing a telescope and a star,  
or a microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and a moon, or a  
number and a numeral ("chiffre" in french).
But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such distinction are  
very important. In Gödel's proof, we need to distinguish a  
mathematical being, like the number s(0), the representation of  
the number s(0), which is the sequence of the symbol "s", "(",  
"0", ")" (and that is not a number,  
but  a word), and the  
representation of the representation of a number, which, when we  
represent  things in  
arithmetic will be something like
2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some  
s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s( (0)...). (very long!).




But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?


A mug. I guess.

​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A materialist  
would say that it is a structured collection of atoms, but a  
mechanist has to say something like "a common pattern pointed at  
by some normal (in Gauss sense) machine sharing some long (deep)  
histories. Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I  
like his enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he doesn't  
seem to appreciate his implicit assumptions, or indeed that he is  
in fact expressing a particular metaphysical position. Is math  
real? I mean, really real? Trouble is, people assume that the  
answer is obvious, whether they think it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree. The beauty of the Church's  
thesis, is that it entails by "theoremata" the existence of the  
emulation of all computations in elementary arithmetic.


(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that we  
can take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the dream  
argument with a vengeance).


The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0= 2,  
and a bit of logic.


I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can become  
science, but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then by  
Church's thesis, philosophy and theology becomes a science, even in  
the usual empiricist sense.


There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is ultra- 
non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the whole truth  
(including physics) is "in your head and nowhere else". ("you" =  
any universal machine). But that is what makes the machine theology  
testable, by comparing the physics in the head of any (sound)  
universal machine with what we actually observed.


Are you claiming that there is a one-to-one map between true  
statements in mathematics and what I experience??


Not at all. I am saying that the laws of physics can be found by  
introspection. Introspection lead to the opposite of what you say: we  
can only experience (1p) a tiny fraction of the physical reality and  
of the psychological reality and all what is "in the head" in the 1p  
view is far bigger than the head itself (in this metaphorical image).  
Only the "outer God" might see, or be defined, by the "whole  
(arithmetical) truth".





The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience  
everything.


Indeed. But that is a very general problem, and you could say "the  
problem with physicalism is that we don't experience primary matter,  
nor the whole physical reality. After Gödel, we know that even for the  
arithmetical reality, even an immortal being can only scratch it  
infinitesimally. Reality is big.







Math is real? Which math? I doubt that sincere people doubt  
arithmetic, and I have never heard of parents who would have taken  
their kids out of a school for the reason that hey have been taught  
that 2+2=4; neither in the Western nor Eastern worlds.


I doubt the infinity of standard arithmetic.


Good. That is why I do not assume it. Only 0, 1, 2, ... all the  
objects assumed to exist are finite. Mechanism is a Finitism. Like  
Plotinus' God, Infinity does not belongs to the beings. It is  
responsible (only) of the existence of the (finite) being. This does  
not prevent us to use 

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/20/2017 4:02 PM, David Nyman wrote:



On 20 Aug 2017 23:16, "Brent Meeker" > wrote:




On 8/20/2017 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal" > wrote:


On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:


On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal
> wrote:


On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:


He points at a mug and says that 'representations'
(meaning numbers) aren't to be confused with things
themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a
number.

LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard)
arithmetical reality with a theory of the arithmetical
reality. Yet after Gödel we know that no theories at
all can represent or encompass the whole of the
arithmetical reality.

It is not much different that confusing a telescope and
a star, or a microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and
a moon, or a number and a numeral ("chiffre" in french).
But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such
distinction are very important. In Gödel's proof, we
need to distinguish a mathematical being, like the
number s(0), the representation of the number s(0),
which is the sequence of the symbol "s", "(", "0", ")"
(and that is not a number, but a word), and the
representation of the representation of a number,
which, when we represent things in arithmetic will be
something like
2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some
s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s( (0)...). (very long!).



But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?


A mug. I guess.


​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A
materialist would say that it is a structured collection of
atoms, but a mechanist has to say something like "a common
pattern pointed at by some normal (in Gauss sense) machine
sharing some long (deep) histories. Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I
like his enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he
doesn't seem to appreciate his implicit assumptions, or indeed
that he is in fact expressing a particular metaphysical
position. Is math real? I mean, really real? Trouble is, people
assume that the answer is obvious, whether they think it's yes
or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree. The beauty of the
Church's thesis, is that it entails by "theoremata" the existence
of the emulation of all computations in elementary arithmetic.

(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that
we can take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the
dream argument with a vengeance).

The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0=
2, and a bit of logic.

I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can
become science, but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then
by Church's thesis, philosophy and theology becomes a science,
even in the usual empiricist sense.

There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is
ultra-non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the
whole truth (including physics) is "in your head and nowhere
else". ("you" = any universal machine). But that is what makes
the machine theology testable, by comparing the physics in the
head of any (sound) universal machine with what we actually observed.


Are you claiming that there is a one-to-one map between true
statements in mathematics and what I experience??


Well, only if you happen to be God, perhaps.

The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience
everything.


How would you know?


By direct inexperience...and I'm not God either.

Brent

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Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 20 Aug 2017 23:16, "Brent Meeker"  wrote:



On 8/20/2017 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:



On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:


On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:

On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:
>
> He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning numbers)
> aren't to be confused with things themselves.
>
>
>
> He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.
>
> LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard) arithmetical reality with a
> theory of the arithmetical reality. Yet after Gödel we know that no
> theories at all can represent or encompass the whole of the arithmetical
> reality.
>
> It is not much different that confusing a telescope and a star, or a
> microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and a moon, or a number and a
> numeral ("chiffre" in french).
> But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such distinction are very
> important. In Gödel's proof, we need to distinguish a mathematical being,
> like the number s(0), the representation of the number s(0), which is the
> sequence of the symbol "s", "(", "0", ")" (and that is not a number, but a
> word), and the representation of the representation of a number, which,
> when we represent things in arithmetic will be something like
> 2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(
> (0)...). (very long!).
>
>
> But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?
>
>
> A mug. I guess.
>

​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A materialist would say
that it is a structured collection of atoms, but a mechanist has to say
something like "a common pattern pointed at by some normal (in Gauss sense)
machine sharing some long (deep) histories. Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I like his
enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he doesn't seem to appreciate
his implicit assumptions, or indeed that he is in fact expressing a
particular metaphysical position. Is math real? I mean, really real?
Trouble is, people assume that the answer is obvious, whether they think
it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree. The beauty of the Church's thesis,
is that it entails by "theoremata" the existence of the emulation of all
computations in elementary arithmetic.

(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that we can
take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the dream argument with
a vengeance).

The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0= 2, and a
bit of logic.

I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can become science,
but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then by Church's thesis,
philosophy and theology becomes a science, even in the usual empiricist
sense.

There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is
ultra-non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the whole truth
(including physics) is "in your head and nowhere else". ("you" = any
universal machine). But that is what makes the machine theology testable,
by comparing the physics in the head of any (sound) universal machine with
what we actually observed.


Are you claiming that there is a one-to-one map between true statements in
mathematics and what I experience??


Well, only if you happen to be God, perhaps.

The problem with everythingism is that one doesn't experience everything.


How would you know?

David




Math is real? Which math? I doubt that sincere people doubt arithmetic, and
I have never heard of parents who would have taken their kids out of a
school for the reason that hey have been taught that 2+2=4; neither in the
Western nor Eastern worlds.


I doubt the infinity of standard arithmetic.



Now, for limit and real numbers it is much less obvious. here intutionist
and classical philosophy diverge. With Mechanism, it is better to
considered analysis (and eventually physics) as universal machine mind
tools. Gödel's incompleteness justifies partially why the machine needs to
invent infinities to better figure out themselves. Before Gödel, most
mathematician, like Hilbert, were hoping that with the finite and the
symbolic we could justify the consistency of the use of the infinities, but
after Gödel we know that even with the infinities we cannot circumscribe
and justify the consistency of the finite and the symbolic.


All the more reason to classify them as fiction - not part of the really
real.

Brent


The root of the undecidability is the Turing-universality. With the
conceptual discovery of the universal machine, we got the tools to
understand that we have no idea what they are. Nor what they are capable of
doing. A universal machine can defeat all effective theory about itself,
and it knows already that its soul (first person) is not a machine.

Re: Is math real?

[Brent Meeker]

On 8/20/2017 9:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal" > wrote:



On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:


On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal > wrote:


On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:


He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.

LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard) arithmetical
reality with a theory of the arithmetical reality. Yet after
Gödel we know that no theories at all can represent or
encompass the whole of the arithmetical reality.

It is not much different that confusing a telescope and a
star, or a microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and a
moon, or a number and a numeral ("chiffre" in french).
But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such
distinction are very important. In Gödel's proof, we need to
distinguish a mathematical being, like the number s(0), the
representation of the number s(0), which is the sequence of
the symbol "s", "(", "0", ")" (and that is not a number, but
a word), and the representation of the representation of a
number, which, when we represent things in arithmetic will
be something like
2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some
s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s( (0)...). (very long!).



But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?


A mug. I guess.


​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A materialist
would say that it is a structured collection of atoms, but a
mechanist has to say something like "a common pattern pointed at
by some normal (in Gauss sense) machine sharing some long (deep)
histories. Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I like 
his enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he doesn't seem to 
appreciate his implicit assumptions, or indeed that he is in fact 
expressing a particular metaphysical position. Is math real? I mean, 
really real? Trouble is, people assume that the answer is obvious, 
whether they think it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree. The beauty of the Church's 
thesis, is that it entails by "theoremata" the existence of the 
emulation of all computations in elementary arithmetic.


(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that we 
can take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the dream 
argument with a vengeance).


The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0= 2, 
and a bit of logic.


I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can become 
science, but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then by Church's 
thesis, philosophy and theology becomes a science, even in the usual 
empiricist sense.


There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is 
ultra-non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the whole 
truth (including physics) is "in your head and nowhere else". ("you" = 
any universal machine). But that is what makes the machine theology 
testable, by comparing the physics in the head of any (sound) 
universal machine with what we actually observed.


Are you claiming that there is a one-to-one map between true statements 
in mathematics and what I experience??  The problem with everythingism 
is that one doesn't experience everything.




Math is real? Which math? I doubt that sincere people doubt 
arithmetic, and I have never heard of parents who would have taken 
their kids out of a school for the reason that hey have been taught 
that 2+2=4; neither in the Western nor Eastern worlds.


I doubt the infinity of standard arithmetic.



Now, for limit and real numbers it is much less obvious. here 
intutionist and classical philosophy diverge. With Mechanism, it is 
better to considered analysis (and eventually physics) as universal 
machine mind tools. Gödel's incompleteness justifies partially why the 
machine needs to invent infinities to better figure out themselves. 
Before Gödel, most mathematician, like Hilbert, were hoping that with 
the finite and the symbolic we could justify the consistency of the 
use of the infinities, but after Gödel we know that even with the 
infinities we cannot circumscribe and justify the consistency of the 
finite and the symbolic.


All the more reason to classify them as fiction - not part of the really 
real.


Brent

The root of the undecidability is the Turing-universality. With the 
conceptual discovery of the universal machine, we got the tools to 
understand that we have no idea what they are. Nor what they are 
capable of doing. A universal 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Aug 2017, at 19:38, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 17:23, "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:

On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:




On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:

On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:


On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:

He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning  
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.

LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard) arithmetical  
reality with a theory of the arithmetical reality. Yet after Gödel  
we know that no theories at all can represent or encompass the  
whole of the arithmetical reality.


It is not much different that confusing a telescope and a star, or  
a microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and a moon, or a number  
and a numeral ("chiffre" in french).
But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such distinction are  
very important. In Gödel's proof, we need to distinguish a  
mathematical being, like the number s(0), the representation of  
the number s(0), which is the sequence of the symbol "s", "(",  
"0", ")" (and that is not a number, but a word), and the  
representation of the representation of a number, which, when we  
represent things in arithmetic will be something like
2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some  
s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s( (0)...). (very long!).




But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?


A mug. I guess.

​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A materialist would  
say that it is a structured collection of atoms, but a mechanist  
has to say something like "a common pattern pointed at by some  
normal (in Gauss sense) machine sharing some long (deep) histories.  
Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I  
like his enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he doesn't  
seem to appreciate his implicit assumptions, or indeed that he is  
in fact expressing a particular metaphysical position. Is math  
real? I mean, really real? Trouble is, people assume that the  
answer is obvious, whether they think it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree.

It's taken me years to appreciate this fully. The funny thing is  
that when you say this to people they often object that this is the  
case only in mathematics or logic, not in the 'real' world. But  
actually we can never avoid the fact that we are always reasoning in  
terms of the assumptions of some theory or other, whether it's  
explicit or not (usually not). So we need to agree on what we agree,  
indeed.


The beauty of the Church's thesis, is that it entails by  
"theoremata" the existence of the emulation of all computations in  
elementary arithmetic.


We can indeed agree to agree on that.


(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that we  
can take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the dream  
argument with a vengeance).


Indeed.


The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0= 2,  
and a bit of logic.


Difficult to disagree with.


I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can become  
science, but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then by  
Church's thesis, philosophy and theology becomes a science, even in  
the usual empiricist sense.


About time too.


There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is ultra- 
non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the whole truth  
(including physics) is "in your head and nowhere else". ("you" = any  
universal machine). But that is what makes the machine theology  
testable, by comparing the physics in the head of any (sound)  
universal machine with what we actually observed.


Easier said than done though.


Well, strictly speaking, it is done for the propositional level. The  
difficulty is more in finding people capable and knowing and being  
serious in logic, metaphysics, and physics.


Logicians hates metaphysics (and there are historical reason from that).
Physicists misunderstand logic (not just Penrose).
And metaphysicians run away from logic and physics, in the best case  
where they do not mystify them.


Today, we can smash protons at quasi-the speed of light, but to  
confine a logician, a metaphysician and a physicist near the  
blackboard might require much more work and ingenuity!






Math is real? Which math? I doubt that sincere people doubt  
arithmetic, and I have never heard of parents who would have taken  
their kids out of a school for the reason that hey have been taught  
that 2+2=4; neither in the Western nor Eastern worlds.


Possibly in Airstrip One.


Now, for limit and real numbers it is much less obvious. here  
intutionist and classical philosophy diverge. With Mechanism, it is  
better to considered analysis (and eventually 

Re: Is math real?

[David Nyman]

On 20 Aug 2017 17:23, "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:


On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:24, David Nyman wrote:



On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal"  wrote:


On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:

On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:
>
> He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning numbers)
> aren't to be confused with things themselves.
>
>
>
> He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.
>
> LIke many people confuse the (usual, standard) arithmetical reality with a
> theory of the arithmetical reality. Yet after Gödel we know that no
> theories at all can represent or encompass the whole of the arithmetical
> reality.
>
> It is not much different that confusing a telescope and a star, or a
> microscope and a bacteria, or a finger and a moon, or a number and a
> numeral ("chiffre" in french).
> But in math, it is quite frequent. In logic, such distinction are very
> important. In Gödel's proof, we need to distinguish a mathematical being,
> like the number s(0), the representation of the number s(0), which is the
> sequence of the symbol "s", "(", "0", ")" (and that is not a number, but a
> word), and the representation of the representation of a number, which,
> when we represent things in arithmetic will be something like
> 2^3 * 3^4 * 5^5 *7^6, which will be some s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(s(
> (0)...). (very long!).
>
>
> But what is the 'thing itself' at which he points?
>
>
> A mug. I guess.
>

​Just so.


The question will be "what is a mug in itself". A materialist would say
that it is a structured collection of atoms, but a mechanist has to say
something like "a common pattern pointed at by some normal (in Gauss sense)
machine sharing some long (deep) histories. Something like that.


Yeah, something like that. I enjoyed Frenkel's talk actually. I like his
enthusiasm for mathematics. It's funny though he doesn't seem to appreciate
his implicit assumptions, or indeed that he is in fact expressing a
particular metaphysical position. Is math real? I mean, really real?
Trouble is, people assume that the answer is obvious, whether they think
it's yes or no.


We need only to agree on what we agree.


It's taken me years to appreciate this fully. The funny thing is that when
you say this to people they often object that this is the case only in
mathematics or logic, not in the 'real' world. But actually we can never
avoid the fact that we are always reasoning in terms of the assumptions of
some theory or other, whether it's explicit or not (usually not). So we
need to agree on what we agree, indeed.

The beauty of the Church's thesis, is that it entails by "theoremata" the
existence of the emulation of all computations in elementary arithmetic.


We can indeed agree to agree on that.


(Just that fact, and computationalism, should make us doubt that we can
take a primary physical reality for granted: it is the dream argument with
a vengeance).


Indeed.


The question is not "is math real", but do you believe that 2+0= 2, and a
bit of logic.


Difficult to disagree with.


I do not claim that the whole of philosophy or theology can become science,
but I do claim that if we assume mechanism, then by Church's thesis,
philosophy and theology becomes a science, even in the usual empiricist
sense.


About time too.


There is something funny here. The theology of the machine is
ultra-non-empiricist, as the mystical machine claims that the whole truth
(including physics) is "in your head and nowhere else". ("you" = any
universal machine). But that is what makes the machine theology testable,
by comparing the physics in the head of any (sound) universal machine with
what we actually observed.


Easier said than done though.


Math is real? Which math? I doubt that sincere people doubt arithmetic, and
I have never heard of parents who would have taken their kids out of a
school for the reason that hey have been taught that 2+2=4; neither in the
Western nor Eastern worlds.


Possibly in Airstrip One.


Now, for limit and real numbers it is much less obvious. here intutionist
and classical philosophy diverge. With Mechanism, it is better to
considered analysis (and eventually physics) as universal machine mind
tools. Gödel's incompleteness justifies partially why the machine needs to
invent infinities to better figure out themselves. Before Gödel, most
mathematician, like Hilbert, were hoping that with the finite and the
symbolic we could justify the consistency of the use of the infinities, but
after Gödel we know that even with the infinities we cannot circumscribe
and justify the consistency of the finite and the symbolic. The root of the
undecidability is the Turing-universality. With the conceptual discovery of
the universal machine, we got the tools to understand that we have no idea
what they are. Nor what they are capable of doing. A universal 

Re: Is math real?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Aug 2017, at 17:31, Philip Benjamin wrote:


[Philip Benjamin]
This is the wrong question, "not even wrong"!! The right question is  
"are the THINGS/SUBJECTS which mathematics deal with real?



OK, we agree I think, but fundamentally, it is not even that, at least  
when we apply mathematics (in the natural science, or in metaphysics;  
theology, ...).


It is "do you agree with this or that mathematical proposition".  
(followed by "agreement" on definitions).


Now some mathematical proposition does not ask much, like most theorem  
in first order arithmetic (when the proof are not too long).


Some propositions ask us more, like when using set theory, or set  
theory + the choice axiom.


Some proposition asks for so much that we will never stop searching a  
proof, like Riemann hypothesis, which we know refutable in very  
elementary arithmetic in case it would be false.


But the question "is math real" is often answered in the negative by  
the conventionalist (like Goethe, Perhaps Bergson, and the early  
positivist in math).  In my opinion, this is not defensible, from a  
mathematical logical viewpoint, even before Gödel's theorem, and still  
much more non-defensible after.


See my other post to David for some precision. The mathematical real  
is very vast, and it is normal some part are more doubtful than other  
parts. Some part are real, but only phenomenologically so, like with  
physics when we assume computationalism, as I explained often here.



Bruno






Best regards
Philip Benjamin

From: everything-list@googlegroups.com <everything-list@googlegroups.com 
> on behalf of David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 3:24 PM
To: everything-list
Subject: Re: Is math real?



On 20 Aug 2017 2:46 p.m., "Bruno Marchal" <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 19 Aug 2017, at 01:21, David Nyman wrote:


On 18 August 2017 at 18:13, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 18 Aug 2017, at 15:39, David Nyman wrote:

He points at a mug and says that 'representations' (meaning  
numbers) aren't to be confused with things themselves.



He confuses a number and a possible representation of a number.




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