subject:"Re\: numbers\?"


On 11/3/2012 8:51 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

The platonic realm is nothing.
Intelligence is nothing.
Life itself is nothing.

1-1 = 0
2-2 = 0
3-3 = 0
...

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/3/2012 8:48 AM, Roger Clough wrote:

Hi Stephen P. King

1 + 1 =2 is a necessary truth, not a fact. It is always true.
A priori. So there are necessary truths such as arithmetical truths
which were here before the contingent world of facts was created.
And will always be.




Hi Roger,

It seems to me that is there are necessary truths that have no 
connection to facts in any way, then they are unknowable. I am just 
reversing that thought to define the relations between a priori and a 
posteriori truths.


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/3/2012 8:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 03 Nov 2012, at 11:46, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/3/2012 5:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

How can anything emerge from something having non properties? Magic?


Dear Bruno,

   No, necessity. The totality of existence, the One, cannot be 
complete and consistent simultaneously,


Why not? The One is not a theory.


   Why does it have to be "a theory"? The concept of the One is a 
fragment of a theory...


You make the same coinfusion again and again. The One is not the same 
as the concept of the One.





Does the One have a Concept of The One as its unique 1p?

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/3/2012 7:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 02 Nov 2012, at 23:20, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Are you familiar with Jaakko Hintikka's ideas? I am using his 
concept of game theoretic semantics to derive truth valuations.


I read this. yes. I don't see relevant at all.
I do appreciate his linking of intention and intension, but it is a 
bit trivial in the comp theory.



Dear Bruno,

   Hintikka's idea is to show how truth values can be coherently 
considered to be the result of a process and not necessarily just 
some a priori valuation. This makes Truth an emergent valuation, just 
as I content all definite properties are emergent from mutual 
agreements between entities.


But how will you define entities? 


By relation to equivalence classes, just as you define observers as 
bundles of computations.



Where and how will the truth of "truth is an emergent valuation" emerge?


When and where agreement between many observers obtains.



What you say does not make sense for me. But if someone else 
understand please help Stephen in conveying the idea.


Any one understand my point?



Properties, in the absence of the possibility of measurement or 
apprehension of some type, do not exist; they are what the 1p project 
onto existence. Nothing more.


Existence of what, of who, where, how?


Properties that are not definite are either non-existence (not 
defined by a theory) or ambiguous or a superposition of all possible 
properties.




It is very bad philosophy to throw doubt on scientific results just by 
using non standard unclear philosophical  definition in a context 
where honest scientist have no problem at all, and use what everybody 
understand to show that there is some problem indeed, and attempt to 
make a formulation of such problems.


I am defining new philosophical ideas. This is not a reharsh of 
hidebound doctrine!





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Re: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

Hi Stephen P. King  

The platonic realm is nothing.
Intelligence is nothing.
Life itself is nothing. 

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/3/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 

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Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-11-02, 23:17:40 
Subject: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm 

On 11/2/2012 8:25 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 
> Either you can have emerging properties of nothing or you can't.  
> Either there is infinite regress or not, whatever is true (and one or  
> the other is), it's not an obstacle. 
Hi Questin, 

 It depends on whether you think of Nothing as merely an absence of  
properties or a complete lack of existence. I believe in the former  
case. I don't have problems with infinite regress as I understand that  
an actual regress requires infinite "stuff" to be real. Explanation that  
push the problem behind a insurmountable curtain are not infinite  
regressive, they are merely evasions of the problem. They are attempt to  
get people to stop asking hard questions. 
 I will not ever stop asking questions as I am not afraid of being  
wrong or foolish. 

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Re: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

Hi Stephen P. King  

1 + 1 =2 is a necessary truth, not a fact. It is always true.
A priori. So there are necessary truths such as arithmetical truths
which were here before the contingent world of facts was created.
And will always be.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/3/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


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Time: 2012-11-02, 18:16:09 
Subject: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm 


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
> You are the one saying that truth is limited to the means of knowing!!! 

 Yes and no, Truth is limited to the *possibility* of knowledge of  
it. In the absence of the possibility of a statement being true (or  
false), there is not such thing as true or false. 


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Stephen 


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Re: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

Hi Stephen P. King  

The Platonic Realm doesn't exactly exist, because
it is non-contradictory truth beyond spacetime.
It is the a priori, the One, from which all things
come. Sometimes I think of it as Cosmic Mind,
Universal Intelligence, which has the attributes of God.

Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/3/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 

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Time: 2012-11-02, 18:12:19 
Subject: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm 

On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
>>>> I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way to  
>>>> physically implement them. 
>>> 
>>> Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation". 
>> 
>> So your thinking about them is not a physical act? 
> 
> Too much ambiguous. Even staying in comp I can answer "yes" and "no". 
> Yes, because my human thinking is locally supported by physical events. 
> No, because the whole couple mind/physical events is supported by  
> platonic arithmetical truth. 
Dear Bruno, 

 Where is the evidence of the existence of a Platonic realm? The  
mere self-consistency of an idea is proof of existence but the idea must  
be understood by a multiplicity of entities with the capacity to  
distinguish truth from falsehood to have any coherence as an idea! We  
cannot just assume that the mere existence of some undefined acts to  
determine the properties of the undefined. Truth and falsity are  
possible properties, they are not ontological aspects of existence. 

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Stephen 

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Re: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

Hi Quentin Anciaux  

Any statement that cannot be contradicted is always true. 
As such these truths are called "a priori". They were
here before the world or you or me was created.
Prime numbers seem to be such.

A posteriori truths are truths of existence called facts.
They may be contradicted, may not be always true
or false. Today it is raining is such.


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
11/3/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


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Time: 2012-11-02, 20:25:00 
Subject: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm 





2012/11/2 Stephen P. King  

On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 

I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way to physically 
implement them. 


Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation". 


? ? So your thinking about them is not a physical act? 


Too much ambiguous. Even staying in comp I can answer "yes" and "no". 
Yes, because my human thinking is locally supported by physical events. 
No, because the whole couple mind/physical events is supported by platonic 
arithmetical truth. 

Dear Bruno, 

? ? Where is the evidence of the existence of a Platonic realm? The mere 
self-consistency of an idea is proof of existence but the idea must be 
understood by a multiplicity of entities with the capacity to distinguish truth 
from falsehood to have any coherence as an idea! We cannot just assume that the 
mere existence of some undefined acts to determine the properties of the 
undefined. Truth and falsity are possible properties, they are not ontological 
aspects of existence. 


Either? you can have emerging properties of nothing or you can't. Either there 
is infinite regress or not, whatever is true (and one or the other is), it's 
not an obstacle. 

Quentin 


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Stephen 



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 03 Nov 2012, at 11:46, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/3/2012 5:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
How can anything emerge from something having non properties?  
Magic?


Dear Bruno,

   No, necessity. The totality of existence, the One, cannot be  
complete and consistent simultaneously,


Why not? The One is not a theory.


   Why does it have to be "a theory"? The concept of the One is a  
fragment of a theory...


You make the same coinfusion again and again. The One is not the same  
as the concept of the One.


Bruno

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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 02 Nov 2012, at 23:20, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Are you familiar with Jaakko Hintikka's ideas? I am using his  
concept of game theoretic semantics to derive truth valuations.


I read this. yes. I don't see relevant at all.
I do appreciate his linking of intention and intension, but it is a  
bit trivial in the comp theory.



Dear Bruno,

   Hintikka's idea is to show how truth values can be coherently  
considered to be the result of a process and not necessarily just  
some a priori valuation. This makes Truth an emergent valuation,  
just as I content all definite properties are emergent from mutual  
agreements between entities.


But how will you define entities? Where and how will the truth of  
"truth is an emergent valuation" emerge?


What you say does not make sense for me. But if someone else  
understand please help Stephen in conveying the idea.





Properties, in the absence of the possibility of measurement or  
apprehension of some type, do not exist; they are what the 1p  
project onto existence. Nothing more.


Existence of what, of who, where, how?

It is very bad philosophy to throw doubt on scientific results just by  
using non standard unclear philosophical  definition in a context  
where honest scientist have no problem at all, and use what everybody  
understand to show that there is some problem indeed, and attempt to  
make a formulation of such problems.


Bruno



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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 02 Nov 2012, at 23:16, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
You are the one saying that truth is limited to the means of  
knowing!!!


   Yes and no, Truth is limited to the *possibility* of knowledge of  
it. In the absence of the possibility of a statement being true (or  
false), there is not such thing as true or false.


I use the standard notion, which are simpler than "possibility" and  
"knowledge". I use only things like "ExP(x) is true if there is a n  
such that P(n)", etc. read a textbook in logic, as you introduce  
metaphysical baggage where logician have been able to discard them.


Bruno


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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 02 Nov 2012, at 23:12, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way  
to physically implement them.


Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation".


   So your thinking about them is not a physical act?


Too much ambiguous. Even staying in comp I can answer "yes" and "no".
Yes, because my human thinking is locally supported by physical  
events.
No, because the whole couple mind/physical events is supported by  
platonic arithmetical truth.

Dear Bruno,

   Where is the evidence of the existence of a Platonic realm?


It is part of the assumption. We postulate arithmetic. I try to avoid  
the use of "platonic" there, as I used the term in Plato sense. In  
that sense Platonia = the greek Noùs, and it is derived from  
arithmetic and comp.


All you need is the belief that 43 is prime independently of "43 is  
prime".





The mere self-consistency of an idea is proof of existence


Already in arithmetic we have the consistence of the existence of a  
prrof of the false, this certainly does not mean that there exist a  
proof of the false. So self-consistency is doubtfully identifiable  
with truth, and still less with existence.




but the idea must be understood by a multiplicity of entities with  
the capacity to distinguish truth from falsehood to have any  
coherence as an idea!


Not at all. 43 is prime might be true, even in absence of universe and  
observer.




We cannot just assume that the mere existence of some undefined acts  
to determine the properties of the undefined. Truth and falsity are  
possible properties, they are not ontological aspects of existence.


Truth is no more a property than existence. It makes no sense.

Bruno


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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/3/2012 5:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


I read Russell. Never found something that non sensical. If the basic 
object have no properties, I don't see how anything can emerge from 
it. You have to explain your point, not to refer to the literature.



Dear Bruno,

Did you notice that I distinguish between "having no properties" 
and "having no particular properties"? The former is undefinable, the 
latter is equivalent to "having all possible properties". The word 
"particular" seems to cause confusion. It is used to bracket one against 
many, like a figure and its ground. It implies a choice...


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/3/2012 5:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

How can anything emerge from something having non properties? Magic?


 Dear Bruno,

No, necessity. The totality of existence, the One, cannot be 
complete and consistent simultaneously,


Why not? The One is not a theory.


Why does it have to be "a theory"? The concept of the One is a 
fragment of a theory...


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Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

On 02 Nov 2012, at 19:35, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 11/2/2012 12:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 01 Nov 2012, at 21:21, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 11/1/2012 11:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
[SPK] Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a
concrete robust physical universe".

Reread step 8. Step 7 and step 8 are the only steps where I
explicitly do assume a primitive physicalreality.

In step 8, it is done for the reductio ad absurdum.

Dear Bruno,

I have cut and pasted your exact words from SANE04 and you
still didn't understand... From: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf

"...what if we don’t grant a concrete robust physical
universe?"

"Actually the 8th present step will explain
that such a move is nevertheless without purpose. This will make
the notion of concrete and
existing universe completely devoid of any explicative power.
It will follow that a much
weaker and usual form of Ockham’s razor can be used to conclude
that not only physics has
been epistemologically reduced to machine psychology, but
that ‘‘matter’’ has been
ontologically reduced to ‘‘mind’’ where mind is defined as the
object study of fundamental

machine psychology."

My claim is that neither physical worlds nor numbers (or any
other object that must supervene on mind) can be ontologically
primitive. Both must emerge from a neutral ground that is neither
and has no particular properties.

How can anything emerge from something having non properties? Magic?

Dear Bruno,

No, necessity. The totality of existence, the One, cannot be
complete and consistent simultaneously,

Why not? The One is not a theory.

thus it must stratify itself into Many. Each of the Many is claimed
to have aspects that when recombined cancel to neutrality.

[SPK] He goes on to argue that Occam's razor would demand that
we reject the very idea of the existence of physical worlds

Only of primitive physical worlds. And you did agree with this. I
just prove this from comp. That's the originality. A bit of
metaphysics is made into a theorem in a theory (comp).

Can we agree that physical worlds emerge somehow from sharable
aspects of multiple sheaves of computations?

This is what I have shown to be a consequence of comp.

I agree.

[SPK] given that he can 'show' how they can be reconstructed or
derived from irreducible - and thus ontologically primitive -
Arithmetic 'objects' {0, 1, +, *} that are "operating" somehow
in an atemporal way. We should be able to make the argument run
without ever appealing to a Platonic realm or any kind of
'realism'. In my thinking, if arithmetic is powerful enough to
be a TOE and run the TOE to generate our world, then that power
should be obvious. My problem is that it looks tooo much like
the 'explanation' of creation that we find in mythology, whether
it is the Ptah of ancient Egypt or the egg of Pangu or whatever
other myth one might like. What makes an explanation framed in
the sophisticated and formal language of modal logic any
different?

I use the self-reference logic, for obvious reason. Again, this
entails the sue of some modal logics, due to a *theorem* by
Solovay. All correct machine whose beliefs extend RA obeys to G
and G*. There is no choice in the matter.

That is not changed or involved by my argument.

[SPK] I agree 10% with your point about 'miracles'.
I am very suspicions of "special explanations' or 'natural
conspiracies'. (This comes from my upbringing as a "Bible-
believing Fundamentalist" and eventual rejection of that
literalist mental straight-jacket.) As I see things, any
condition or situation that can be used to 'explain' some other
conceptually difficult condition or situation should be either
universal in that they apply anywhere and anytime

But even in your theory anywhere and anytime must be defined by
something more primitive, given that you agree that physics
cannot be the fundamental theory, given that the physical reality
is not primitive.

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/2/2012 8:25 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Either  you can have emerging properties of nothing or you can't. 
Either there is infinite regress or not, whatever is true (and one or 
the other is), it's not an obstacle.

Hi Questin,

It depends on whether you think of Nothing as merely an absence of 
properties or a complete lack of existence. I believe in the former 
case. I don't have problems with infinite regress as I understand that 
an actual regress requires infinite "stuff" to be real. Explanation that 
push the problem behind a insurmountable curtain are not infinite 
regressive, they are merely evasions of the problem. They are attempt to 
get people to stop asking hard questions.
I will not ever stop asking questions as I am not afraid of being 
wrong or foolish.


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Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-11-02 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/11/2 Stephen P. King 

> On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>>  I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way to
> physically implement them.
>

 Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation".

>>>
>>> So your thinking about them is not a physical act?
>>>
>>
>> Too much ambiguous. Even staying in comp I can answer "yes" and "no".
>> Yes, because my human thinking is locally supported by physical events.
>> No, because the whole couple mind/physical events is supported by
>> platonic arithmetical truth.
>>
> Dear Bruno,
>
> Where is the evidence of the existence of a Platonic realm? The mere
> self-consistency of an idea is proof of existence but the idea must be
> understood by a multiplicity of entities with the capacity to distinguish
> truth from falsehood to have any coherence as an idea! We cannot just
> assume that the mere existence of some undefined acts to determine the
> properties of the undefined. Truth and falsity are possible properties,
> they are not ontological aspects of existence.
>

Either  you can have emerging properties of nothing or you can't. Either
there is infinite regress or not, whatever is true (and one or the other
is), it's not an obstacle.

Quentin

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


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Are you familiar with Jaakko Hintikka's ideas? I am using his concept 
of game theoretic semantics to derive truth valuations.


I read this. yes. I don't see relevant at all.
I do appreciate his linking of intention and intension, but it is a 
bit trivial in the comp theory.



Dear Bruno,

Hintikka's idea is to show how truth values can be coherently 
considered to be the result of a process and not necessarily just some a 
priori valuation. This makes Truth an emergent valuation, just as I 
content all definite properties are emergent from mutual agreements 
between entities. Properties, in the absence of the possibility of 
measurement or apprehension of some type, do not exist; they are what 
the 1p project onto existence. Nothing more.


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

You are the one saying that truth is limited to the means of knowing!!!


Yes and no, Truth is limited to the *possibility* of knowledge of 
it. In the absence of the possibility of a statement being true (or 
false), there is not such thing as true or false.



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
bundles of arithmetic statements generate many individual observers 
that in turn "interact" (which I model via a combination of cyclic 
gossiping on graphs and bisimulations) with each other to define a 
common physical world which in turn acts to "implement" the 
arithmetic. It is a loop, an eternal cyclical process that never 
exactly repeats. It is in this infinite loop that I see your UD.


It is not a loop. It is more like a recurring abyss, like the 
Mandelbrot set.


Sure! I like the idea of a recurrent abyss!

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/2/2012 1:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way to 
physically implement them.


Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation".


So your thinking about them is not a physical act?


Too much ambiguous. Even staying in comp I can answer "yes" and "no".
Yes, because my human thinking is locally supported by physical events.
No, because the whole couple mind/physical events is supported by 
platonic arithmetical truth.

Dear Bruno,

Where is the evidence of the existence of a Platonic realm? The 
mere self-consistency of an idea is proof of existence but the idea must 
be understood by a multiplicity of entities with the capacity to 
distinguish truth from falsehood to have any coherence as an idea! We 
cannot just assume that the mere existence of some undefined acts to 
determine the properties of the undefined. Truth and falsity are 
possible properties, they are not ontological aspects of existence.


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/2/2012 12:23 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Nov 2012, at 21:21, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/1/2012 11:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
[SPK] Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a 
concrete robust physical universe".


?

Reread step 8. Step 7 and step 8 are the only steps where I 
explicitly do assume a primitive physical reality.

In step 8, it is done for the reductio ad absurdum.


Dear Bruno,

   I have cut and pasted your exact words from SANE04 and you 
still didn't understand... From: 
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf 



"...what  if we  don’t  grant a concrete robust  physical universe?"
"Actually the 8th present step will  explain
that such a move is nevertheless without purpose. This will make the 
notion of concrete and
existing universe completely devoid of  any  explicative power.  It  
will  follow  that  a  much
weaker and usual form of Ockham’s razor can be used to conclude that 
not only physics has
been  epistemologically reduced  to  machine  psychology, but that  
‘‘matter’’ has  been
ontologically reduced to ‘‘mind’’ where mind is defined  as the  
object study of fundamental

machine psychology."

My claim is that _/*neither physical worlds nor numbers (or any 
other object that must supervene on mind) can be ontologically 
primitive*/_. Both must emerge from a neutral ground that is neither 
and has no particular properties.


How can anything emerge from something having non properties? Magic?


 Dear Bruno,

No, necessity. The totality of existence, the One, cannot be 
complete and consistent simultaneously, thus it must stratify itself 
into Many. Each of the Many is claimed to have aspects that when 
recombined cancel to neutrality.










[SPK] He goes on to argue that Occam's razor would demand that we 
reject the very idea of the existence of physical worlds


Only of primitive physical worlds. And you did agree with this. I 
just prove this from comp. That's the originality. A bit of 
metaphysics is made into a theorem in a theory (comp).


Can we agree that physical worlds emerge somehow from sharable 
aspects of multiple sheaves of computations?


This is what I have shown to be a consequence of comp.


I agree.









[SPK]  given that he can 'show' how they can be reconstructed or 
derived from irreducible - and thus ontologically primitive - 
Arithmetic 'objects' {0, 1, +, *} that are "operating" somehow in 
an atemporal way. We should be able to make the argument run 
without ever appealing to a Platonic realm or any kind of 
'realism'. In my thinking, if arithmetic is powerful enough to be a 
TOE and run the TOE to generate our world, then that power should 
be obvious. My problem is that it looks tooo much like the 
'explanation' of creation that we find in mythology, whether it is 
the Ptah  of ancient 
Egypt or  the egg of Pangu  
or whatever other myth one might like. What makes an explanation 
framed in the sophisticated and formal language of modal logic any 
different?


I use the self-reference logic, for obvious reason. Again, this 
entails the sue of some modal logics, due to a *theorem* by Solovay. 
All correct machine whose beliefs extend RA obeys to G and G*. There 
is no choice in the matter.


That is not changed or involved by my argument.





[SPK] I agree 10% with your point about 'miracles'. I 
am very suspicions of "special explanations' or 'natural 
conspiracies'.  (This comes from my upbringing as a 
"Bible-believing Fundamentalist" and eventual rejection of that 
literalist mental straight-jacket.) As I see things, any condition 
or situation that can be used to 'explain' some other conceptually 
difficult condition or situation should be either universal in that 
they apply anywhere and anytime


But even in your theory anywhere and anytime must be defined by 
something more primitive, given that you agree that physics cannot 
be the fundamental theory, given that the physical reality is not 
primitive.


The concepts of "where" and "when" (positions in a space-time) 
would seem to be rendered meaningless if there is no space-time (or 
observers/measurements to define it), no? OH, BTW, I don't think that 
we disagree that "physics cannot be the fundamental theory". Physics 
requires measurements/observations to be meaningful. Where I agree 
with you is in your considerations of 1p and observer indeterminacy. 
Where you and I disagree is on the question of resources. Resources 
are required for computations to "run" so there has to be the 
availability of resources involved in *any* consideration of 
computations. Ignoring these considerations by only considering 
computations as Platonic objects is wrong, IMHO.
You seem to be OK with computations as purely timeless objects 
(in Platonia) t

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/2/2012 5:29 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Stephen P. King 
mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:


On 11/1/2012 12:23 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:


Don't get me started on reductionism! I don't believe in it
as I don't believe in ontologically primitive objects that
have particular properties.


Then I don't see how you can make an ontological bet. You're at
the table, betting on 24 or whatever, but you won't place your chips.

Hi Cowboy,

Where is the Doctor's Office? I want to make an appointment!
Until its tech is proven, I am taking Dr. McCoy's stance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxKJyeCRVek


Dear Stephen,

That's funny. I'll follow you. But I know that show and all its 
incarnations since my childhood. Bad red herring to evade the bet 
question ;)


The thing about "where is the Doctors office?" is a guarded 
agreement on my saying Yes to the Doctor. So, I do accept the betting.




This fictional universe, and the doctor, accept UDA step 8 eventually, 
as I will demonstrate through examples:


1) The transporter did work in the end, so the original series does 
assume comp in this sense.


2) Kirk is probably not aware of reconstitution delay, when he gets 
back, and they've all learned to live with this weirdness.


3) McCoy, or the doctor, also uses the transporter throughout the 
series. So if you took an appointment and told him that you don't want 
to be transported and cited this video: "Just get up on that platform 
and do it. We all do and it works in this fictional universe. Or are 
you out of your Vulcan mind?"


4) McCoy is simultaneously "occupied" by his soul and Spock's soul in 
"search for Spock" which slowly kills him + makes him act very 
strangely until Spock's soul is given a new body in Vulcan.


=> Dr. McCoy understands after this, that his materialist bias is 
offset by Vulcan's spiritual practice, who are all logicians since 
childhood, and that spirit is transferable and independent of 
particular physical bodies.


5) With the Doctor in "Voyager" extension of the show (who is a pure 
medical doctor hologram/program, but realizes his universality and 
demands his freedom, which the crew eventually grant him) => program, 
strings of code, becomes conscious.


6) And the total denial of physical resources, in line with UDA step 
8, needed for consciousness is here:


The species "Q" in "the next Generation" version of the show, 
completely eliminate the need for physical resources to maintain or 
run them. This species is clearly not limited by physical resources, 
space, or time restraints.


Thus, your portrayal of McCoy's stance is not faithful to the 
fictional universe of that television series, which does support Step 
8 on numerous occasions :)


I agree with a weak version Step 8, one that allows for the 
"appearance of a robust physical universe" but in the way I explained in 
my posts yesterday.




Spacecowboy


Buckaroo? Banzai!

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-11-02 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 01 Nov 2012, at 22:50, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 11/1/2012 12:04 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Nov 2012, at 01:18, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/31/2012 12:45 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 can stop reading as you need to assume the numbers (or anything  
Turing equivalent) to get them.


Dear Bruno,

So it is OK to assume that which I seek to explain?



You can't explain the numbers without assuming the numbers. This  
has been foreseen by Dedekind, and vert well justified by many  
theorem in mathematical logic. Below the number, you are lead to  
version of ultrafinitism, which is senseless in the comp theory.


 Dear Bruno,

I disagree with ultrafinitists, they seem to be the mathematical  
equivalent of "flat-earthers'.










*and* having some particular set of values and meanings.


I just assume

x + 0 = x
x + s(y) = s(x + y)

 x *0 = 0
 x*s(y) = x*y + x

And hope you understand.



I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way  
to physically implement them.


Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation".


So your thinking about them is not a physical act?


Too much ambiguous. Even staying in comp I can answer "yes" and "no".
Yes, because my human thinking is locally supported by physical events.
No, because the whole couple mind/physical events is supported by  
platonic arithmetical truth.






Implementation and physical will be explained from them. A natural  
thing as they are much more complex than the laws above.


Numbers are meaningless in the absence of a means to define  
them. Theories do not free-float.


Truth is free floating, and theories lived through truth, they are  
truth floating, even when false.








In the absence of some common media, even if it is generated by  
sheaves of computations, there simply is no way to understand  
anything.


Why ?


Because there is not way to know of them otherwise.


Our knowing as nothing to do with truth. If an asteroid would have  
destroy Earth before the Oresme bishop dicovered that the harmonic  
series diverge, she would have still diverge, despite no humans would  
know it.




Unless you can communicate with me, I have no way of knowing  
anything about your ideas. Similarly if there is no physical  
implementation of a mathematical statement, there is no meaning to  
claims to "truth" ofsuch statements.


To claim, no. To be true is independent of the claim of the apes.







You must accept non-well foundedness for your result to work, but  
you seem fixated against that.


1004.


Pfft. Nice custom made quip.


You are often escaping answers by inappropriate mathematical  
precision, which meaning contradicts your mathematical super- 
relativism. It is really 1004+contradiction.













A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are  
said truthfully to have the same meaning because there are  
multiple and separable entities that can have the agreement on  
the truth value. In the absence of the ability to judge a  
statement independently of any particular entity capable of  
"understanding" the statement, there is no meaning to the  
concept that the statement is true or false. To insist that a  
statement has a meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological  
condition where no entities capable of judging the meaning, begs  
the question of meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments  
disallow.



Do you agree that during the five seconds just after the Big Bang  
(assuming that theory) there might not have been any possible  
observers. But then the Big Bang has no more sense.


No, I don't. Why? Because that concept of "the five seconds  
just after the Big Bang" is an assumption of a special case or  
pleading. I might as well postulate the existence of Raindow Dash  
to act as the entity to whom the Truth of mathematical statements  
have absolute meaning. To be frank, I thing that the Big Bang  
theory, as usually explained is a steaming pile of rubbish, as it  
asks us to believe that thetotality of all that exists  
sprang into being from Nothing.


I actually agree, by accident, on this. But this is not relevant  
for my point.


It is very relevant to mine.

Imagine that we can show that some solution to GR equantion have  
universe so poor that life cannot exist in there, would you say  
that such universe cannot exist?


If there does not exist a means to "show the solution" there is  
no solution.


Mathematical solipsism.








I believe that the totality of what exists is eternal, having no  
beginning and no end.


I am OK with that. It is close to Platonism. But with comp we can  
restrict this to the arithmetical truth (a highly non computable  
structure, but still conceivable by universal numbers, relatively).


Well, can we work with that agreement?


Come on, you say that you can escape the consequence of comp, you have  
to find the flaw

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-11-02 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 01 Nov 2012, at 21:21, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 11/1/2012 11:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
[SPK] Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a
concrete robust physical universe".

Reread step 8. Step 7 and step 8 are the only steps where I
explicitly do assume a primitive physical reality.

In step 8, it is done for the reductio ad absurdum.

Dear Bruno,

I have cut and pasted your exact words from SANE04 and you
still didn't understand... From: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf

"...what if we don’t grant a concrete robust physical universe?"
"Actually the 8th present step will explain
that such a move is nevertheless without purpose. This will make the
notion of concrete and
existing universe completely devoid of any explicative power.
It will follow that a much
weaker and usual form of Ockham’s razor can be used to conclude that
not only physics has
been epistemologically reduced to machine psychology, but that
‘‘matter’’ has been
ontologically reduced to ‘‘mind’’ where mind is defined as the
object study of fundamental

machine psychology."

How can anything emerge from something having non properties? Magic?

[SPK] He goes on to argue that Occam's razor would demand that we
reject the very idea of the existence of physical worlds

Only of primitive physical worlds. And you did agree with this. I
just prove this from comp. That's the originality. A bit of
metaphysics is made into a theorem in a theory (comp).

Can we agree that physical worlds emerge somehow from sharable
aspects of multiple sheaves of computations?

This is what I have shown to be a consequence of comp.

[SPK] given that he can 'show' how they can be reconstructed or
derived from irreducible - and thus ontologically primitive -
Arithmetic 'objects' {0, 1, +, *} that are "operating" somehow in
an atemporal way. We should be able to make the argument run
without ever appealing to a Platonic realm or any kind of
'realism'. In my thinking, if arithmetic is powerful enough to be
a TOE and run the TOE to generate our world, then that power
should be obvious. My problem is that it looks tooo much like the
'explanation' of creation that we find in mythology, whether it is
the Ptah of ancient Egypt or the egg of Pangu or whatever other
myth one might like. What makes an explanation framed in the
sophisticated and formal language of modal logic any different?

That is not changed or involved by my argument.

[SPK] I agree 10% with your point about 'miracles'. I
am very suspicions of "special explanations' or 'natural
conspiracies'. (This comes from my upbringing as a "Bible-
believing Fundamentalist" and eventual rejection of that
literalist mental straight-jacket.) As I see things, any condition
or situation that can be used to 'explain' some other conceptually
difficult condition or situation should be either universal in
that they apply anywhere and anytime

But even in your theory anywhere and anytime must be defined by
something more primitive, given that you agree that physics cannot
be the fundamental theory, given that the physical reality is not
primitive.

The concepts of "where" and "when" (positions in a space-time)
would seem to be rendered meaningless if there is no space-time (or
observers/measurements to define it), no? OH, BTW, I don't think
that we disagree that "physics cannot be the fundamental theory".
Physics requires measurements/observations to be meaningful. Where I
agree with you is in your considerations of 1p and observer
indeterminacy. Where you and I disagree is on the question of
resources. Resources are required for computations to "run" so there
has to be the availability of resources involved in *any*
consideration of computations. Ignoring these considerations by only
considering computations as Platonic objects is wrong, IMHO.
You seem to be OK with computations as purely timeless objects
(in Platonia) that are such that somehow we finite entities can
create physical objects that can implement (in their dynamical
functions) instances of such, while I claim that computations are
equivalence classes of functions that physical systems can implement
*and* abstract objects. I see these two views as two poles of a
spectrum. There is a lot more detail in my considerations that I do
not have time to go into at this t

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/1/2012 12:23 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:


Don't get me started on reductionism! I don't believe in it as I
don't believe in ontologically primitive objects that have
particular properties.


Then I don't see how you can make an ontological bet. You're at the 
table, betting on 24 or whatever, but you won't place your chips.

Hi Cowboy,

Where is the Doctor's Office? I want to make an appointment! Until 
its tech is proven, I am taking Dr. McCoy's stance: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxKJyeCRVek


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/1/2012 12:04 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 01 Nov 2012, at 01:18, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/31/2012 12:45 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
 can stop reading as you need to assume the numbers (or anything 
Turing equivalent) to get them.


Dear Bruno,

So it is OK to assume that which I seek to explain?



You can't explain the numbers without assuming the numbers. This has 
been foreseen by Dedekind, and vert well justified by many theorem in 
mathematical logic. Below the number, you are lead to version of 
ultrafinitism, which is senseless in the comp theory.


 Dear Bruno,

I disagree with ultrafinitists, they seem to be the mathematical 
equivalent of "flat-earthers'.










*and* having some particular set of values and meanings.


I just assume

x + 0 = x
x + s(y) = s(x + y)

 x *0 = 0
 x*s(y) = x*y + x

And hope you understand.



I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way to 
physically implement them.


Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation".


So your thinking about them is not a physical act?

Implementation and physical will be explained from them. A natural 
thing as they are much more complex than the laws above.


Numbers are meaningless in the absence of a means to define them. 
Theories do not free-float.




In the absence of some common media, even if it is generated by 
sheaves of computations, there simply is no way to understand anything.


Why ?


Because there is not way to know of them otherwise. Unless you can 
communicate with me, I have no way of knowing anything about your ideas. 
Similarly if there is no physical implementation of a mathematical 
statement, there is no meaning to claims to "truth" of such statements.




You must accept non-well foundedness for your result to work, but you 
seem fixated against that.


1004.


Pfft. Nice custom made quip.








A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said 
truthfully to have the same meaning because there are multiple and 
separable entities that can have the agreement on the truth value. 
In the absence of the ability to judge a statement independently of 
any particular entity capable of "understanding" the statement, 
there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or 
false. To insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or 
false) in an ontological condition where no entities capable of 
judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!

   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.



Do you agree that during the five seconds just after the Big Bang 
(assuming that theory) there might not have been any possible 
observers. But then the Big Bang has no more sense.


No, I don't. Why? Because that concept of "the five seconds just 
after the Big Bang" is an assumption of a special case or pleading. I 
might as well postulate the existence of Raindow Dash 
 
to act as the entity to whom the Truth of mathematical statements 
have absolute meaning. To be frank, I thing that the Big Bang theory, 
as usually explained is a steaming pile of rubbish, as it asks us to 
believe that the totality of all that exists sprang into being from 
Nothing.


I actually agree, by accident, on this. But this is not relevant for 
my point.


It is very relevant to mine.

Imagine that we can show that some solution to GR equantion have 
universe so poor that life cannot exist in there, would you say that 
such universe cannot exist?


If there does not exist a means to "show the solution" there is no 
solution.




I believe that the totality of what exists is eternal, having no 
beginning and no end.


I am OK with that. It is close to Platonism. But with comp we can 
restrict this to the arithmetical truth (a highly non computable 
structure, but still conceivable by universal numbers, relatively).


Well, can we work with that agreement?



What we infer from our observations of Hubble expansion is just an 
effect that follows, ultimately, from our finiteness.


Including time and space. So we do agree again.


Good!







I think Brent is right, and Quentin. You confuse 1+1=2 with human 
expression for pointing on that proposition. You obviously needs 
human to understand those " "1+1=2" ", but the content of "1+1=2" 
has simply no relation at all with the human, or with a physical 
universe.


No, none of you have yet to be able to understand my 
counter-argument. It is not complicated. We cannot assume to have 
something when the means for its existence is not allowed. My claim 
is that/*meaningfulness */supervenes on the possibility of 
interaction of *many* entities and is independent of any *one* (or 
some lesser finite subset) of that Many.


But arithmetical truth is full of entities, even full of galaxies 
themselves ful

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/1/2012 11:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
[SPK] Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a 
concrete robust physical universe".


?

Reread step 8. Step 7 and step 8 are the only steps where I explicitly 
do assume a primitive physical reality.

In step 8, it is done for the reductio ad absurdum.


Dear Bruno,

   I have cut and pasted your exact words from SANE04 and you still 
didn't understand... From: 
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf 



"...what  if we  don't  grant a concrete robust  physical universe?"
"Actually the 8th present step will  explain
that such a move is nevertheless without purpose. This will make the 
notion of concrete and
existing universe completely devoid of  any  explicative  power. It  
will  follow  that  a  much
weaker and usual form of Ockham's razor can be used to conclude that not 
only physics has
been  epistemologically reduced  to  machine  psychology, but that 
''matter'' has  been
ontologically reduced to ''mind'' where mind is defined  as the object 
study of fundamental

machine psychology."

My claim is that _/*neither physical worlds nor numbers (or any 
other object that must supervene on mind) can be ontologically 
primitive*/_. Both must emerge from a neutral ground that is neither and 
has no particular properties.





[SPK] He goes on to argue that Occam's razor would demand that we 
reject the very idea of the existence of physical worlds


Only of primitive physical worlds. And you did agree with this. I just 
prove this from comp. That's the originality. A bit of metaphysics is 
made into a theorem in a theory (comp).


Can we agree that physical worlds emerge somehow from sharable 
aspects of multiple sheaves of computations?





[SPK]  given that he can 'show' how they can be reconstructed or 
derived from irreducible - and thus ontologically primitive - 
Arithmetic 'objects' {0, 1, +, *} that are "operating" somehow in an 
atemporal way. We should be able to make the argument run without 
ever appealing to a Platonic realm or any kind of 'realism'. In my 
thinking, if arithmetic is powerful enough to be a TOE and run the 
TOE to generate our world, then that power should be obvious. My 
problem is that it looks tooo much like the 'explanation' of creation 
that we find in mythology, whether it is the Ptah 
 of ancient Egypt or  the 
egg of Pangu  or whatever 
other myth one might like. What makes an explanation framed in the 
sophisticated and formal language of modal logic any different?


I use the self-reference logic, for obvious reason. Again, this 
entails the sue of some modal logics, due to a *theorem* by Solovay. 
All correct machine whose beliefs extend RA obeys to G and G*. There 
is no choice in the matter.


That is not changed or involved by my argument.





[SPK] I agree 10% with your point about 'miracles'. I am 
very suspicions of "special explanations' or 'natural conspiracies'.  
(This comes from my upbringing as a "Bible-believing Fundamentalist" 
and eventual rejection of that literalist mental straight-jacket.) As 
I see things, any condition or situation that can be used to 
'explain' some other conceptually difficult condition or situation 
should be either universal in that they apply anywhere and anytime


But even in your theory anywhere and anytime must be defined by 
something more primitive, given that you agree that physics cannot be 
the fundamental theory, given that the physical reality is not primitive.


The concepts of "where" and "when" (positions in a space-time) 
would seem to be rendered meaningless if there is no space-time (or 
observers/measurements to define it), no? OH, BTW, I don't think that we 
disagree that "physics cannot be the fundamental theory". Physics 
requires measurements/observations to be meaningful. Where I agree with 
you is in your considerations of 1p and observer indeterminacy. Where 
you and I disagree is on the question of resources. Resources are 
required for computations to "run" so there has to be the availability 
of resources involved in *any* consideration of computations. Ignoring 
these considerations by only considering computations as Platonic 
objects is wrong, IMHO.
You seem to be OK with computations as purely timeless objects (in 
Platonia) that are such that somehow we finite entities can create 
physical objects that can implement (in their dynamical functions) 
instances of such, while I claim that computations are equivalence 
classes of functions that physical systems can implement *and* abstract 
objects. I see these two views as two poles of a spectrum. There is a 
lot more detail in my considerations that I do not have time to go into 
at this time...


My Theory of comp: Sheaves of Computations/arithmetic - define -> 
partic

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 01 Nov 2012, at 14:25, Stephen P. King wrote:


   But I agree with comp up to the strong version of step 8!



But then you have to find the flaw in step 8. as step 8 is done in  
comp, without adding any assumptions, of course.




I accept comp with a weak version of step 8 or, I think  
equivalently, a weak version of computational universality: A  
computation is universal if it is not dependent on any one  
particular physical system.


This is called functional, not universal. It has nothing to do with  
Turing universality.




This implies, to me, that there is at least one physical system that  
such a universal computation can be said to actually run on!


I don't see this.





This goes against the Parmenidean/Platonistic idea of computation as  
static objects in eternity that are completely independent of  
physical stuff!


Sorry but, by definition, computations are static objects in  
arithmetic (or in fortanic, Lispic, combinatoric, lambdaic, etc  
There are a lot of equivalent ontological choices here.).


The physicist have not (yet) found a definition of computation which  
does not use that mathematical definition. This exists, though, has  
*many* physical systems are in principle Turing universal. But Turing  
universal is a mathematical, even arithmetical, (even in the strong  
logician sense).


Bruno



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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 01 Nov 2012, at 06:19, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/31/2012 6:58 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:  (actually it was Bruno)



Enumerate the programs computing functions fro N to N, (or the  
equivalent notion according to your chosen system). let us call  
those functions:  phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, ...  (the phi_i)

Let B be a fixed bijection from N x N to N. So B(x,y) is a number.

The number u is universal if phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y). And the  
equality means really that either both phi_u(B(x,y)) and  phi_x(y)  
are defined (number) and that they are equal, OR they are both  
undefined.


In phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y), x is called the program, and y the  
data. u is the computer. u i said to emulate the program  
(machine, ...) x on the input y.


So u could be any number, depending on how you enumerated the  
functions and what bijection is used?


Any number. I am not sure, the enumeration has to be given by an  
algorithm.


But yes, the notion of computation, universality, etc. are intensional  
notion, and makes sense only relatively to the other number. That is  
why a often add "relative" before number.


This should be obvious. The doctor who scan your brain will also have  
some flexibility in the encoding of your current local and relative  
state.

I doubt it can encode it with the number 4, though.
You might say, that 4 is for the fourth compact disk on the shell  
doctor, but then 4 is no more an encoding, but only a pointer to an  
encoding.


Bruno



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 01 Nov 2012, at 05:27, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/31/2012 11:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


I don't see why denying mathematical realism would entail saying  
no to the doctor.


It implies not saying "yes" qua computatio. It implies NOT  
understanding what Church thesis is about, as to show it consistent  
you need the diagonalization, which use the excluded middle  
principle.

You can still say "yes", but only by using some magic.



The doctor isn't proposing to replace part of you brain with a  
piece of Platonia, he has a real physical device to implant.


This is not related. That will follow step 8.

Here, you have to be arithmetical realist to get an idea of what a  
computer is, and how it functions, as the physical one will  
approximate it, well enough, it is hoped.


Of course you can say "yes" to the doctor, just because you trust  
him. But comp is not "saying yes" to the doctor. Comp is the  
doctrine that saying yes will indeed work, once the artificial  
brain is a *computer*. The definition of computer makes no sense  
with arithmetical realism.


?? If I'm a materialist I could say yes because I think the  
artificial brain produces the same input/output signals.


But you need to be arithmetical realist to define what you mean by  
"same input-output".
Arithmetical realism is not a big deal. It means that you believe that  
2+2=5 OR 2+2≠5.







  I don't see why I would have believe in Platonia.


Comp use only arithmetical platonia, and that is just a poetical  
expression to say that you believe that 17 is prime independently of  
the existence of the Higgs boson.



I may believe that only some computations are instantiated and there  
are no infinities.


OK, but again, that is different. That's the move toward physical  
ultrafinitism. You can keep comp, up to step seven, and we are back on  
the fact that step 8 (the movie-graph argument) makes such move  
senseless.


But note that to just define the term computation, you need to be  
arithmetical realist. But if there were no step 8, indeed, you might  
have succeed in saving a form of materialism.  I still miss what you  
don't understand in the step 8. you did not comment my recent answer  
on this.
Maybe you could try to elaborate on your intuition. Why and how does a  
primitive matter change something in a computation or in the  
consciousness associated to it, and this in a Turing emulable manner?


Bruno


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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-11-01 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

Hi Stephen,

On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 2:25 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

>  On 11/1/2012 6:54 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 1:42 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
>>  On 10/31/2012 6:14 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 7:59 PM, Stephen P. King 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>[SPK]
>>>
 One problem that I have discovered (I thank Brent for bringing this
 up!) is that in our reasoning we set up constructions - such as the person
 on the desert island - that blur the very distinction that I am trying to
 frame. We should never assume temporal situations to argue for relations
 that are atemporal unless we are prepared to show the morphisms between the
 two situations.


>>> Isn't this already physical framework when you seem to be arguing for
>>> time as primitive ("n incompatible with comp to begin with, after which you
>>> seek to carve out a distinction, when you've already mixed at the base?
>>>
>>>
>>>My argument is that it is impossible to 'derive" Becoming from
>> Being, but we can derive Being from Becoming. So why not work with the
>> latter idea? I am trying to get Bruno to admit, among other things, that he
>> has to assume a non-well founded logic for his result to work.;-)
>>
>>
> I see less and less how you'd be able to do that, as I said, by making
> process/linear time primitive in comp, and by assuming physical universe
> with so many statements. Quantum Logic is part of the picture (see SANE
> 2004).
>
>
> Hi Cowboy,
>
> I think of it this way: Change is fundamental (ala 
> Heraclitusand
> Bergson ) and Being is its
> automorphism .
>

If you believe and hold on to that, then its clear why UDA isn't a
candidate for TOE for you at this point. As for myself; I remain mute on
that and open. But the dark mystical sayings, that are fun, I'll grant you,
á la Heraclitus, or weird Bergsonian logic on change and duration with say
the rubber band example, which I am principally open to, feel a bit worn
and make room for much more unexplainable magic than UDA in TOE terms imho.

Is that a bit more clear? "Linear time" (why 'linear'? Is there such a
> thing as non-linear time? Cyclic time is still linear, AFAIK...) is, IMHO,
> change + a measure. Without a measure of change, there is no time; there is
> just change.
>

Then the clock deserves worship; but not from me. By linear time, I mean
our picture of it before weirdness in QM and even Relativity Theory already.


> If we take relativity seriously, we might even claim that there is no
> difference between change minus measure and staticness... I should mention
> that any change that has no measure associated with it is "zeroth" order
> change.
> Without the means to compare two different things to each other, does
> it make any sense to be able to make coherent statements about some change
> in one relative to the other. If there is just one thing, how do we know
> anything about its possible change(s) unless we are looking at it and
> gauging (measuring) its change against some thing else that has some
> measure associated - but our observation of it violates the stipulation of
> "if there is just one thing".
>
>
Not if our picture "just one thing" is partial and print and memory
capacity of 1p is restrained, forcing an amnesia of the "just one thing"
that APPEARS to constantly change.


> The idea that somehow the observer is irrelevant in physics and
> philosophy is, IMHO, one of the worse errors ever. Sure, we need to
> minimize and even eliminate observer bias and preferred reference framing,
> but eliminating the observer and replacing it with some ambiguous 'view
> from nowhere' is undiluted hogwash. This is where "realist" chafe me, they
> act as if the universe of objects is out there and has definite properties
> in the complete absence of any clear explanation for how those properties
> came to be defined in the first place. OK, OK, I will stop ranting...
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>>  Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a concrete
>>> robust physical universe". He goes on to argue that Occam's razor would
>>> demand that we reject the very idea of the existence of physical worlds
>>> given that he can 'show' how they can be reconstructed or derived from
>>> irreducible - and thus ontologically primitive - Arithmetic 'objects' {0,
>>> 1, +, *} that are "operating" somehow in an atemporal way.
>>>
>>
>> UDA does not contradict itself here. Restraints on processing power, on
>> memory and print capacities, implying time as some illusion emanating from
>> eternal primitives, don't exist when framed non-constructively, more like
>> sets of assignments, rather than operations in your sense, by which you
>> seem to mean "physically primitive operations" on par with ontologica

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 01 Nov 2012, at 01:18, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/31/2012 12:45 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 18:39, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of  
theorems apply only to the concepts of numbers and their  
constructions, not to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them  
for some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals  
one plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to  
assert that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend  
on some numbers or subject having to discover it, or prove it.


Bruno

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



Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an  
ontological primitive


Then I can stop reading as you need to assume the numbers (or  
anything Turing equivalent) to get them.


Dear Bruno,

So it is OK to assume that which I seek to explain?



You can't explain the numbers without assuming the numbers. This has  
been foreseen by Dedekind, and vert well justified by many theorem in  
mathematical logic. Below the number, you are lead to version of  
ultrafinitism, which is senseless in the comp theory.








*and* having some particular set of values and meanings.


I just assume

x + 0 = x
x + s(y) = s(x + y)

 x *0 = 0
 x*s(y) = x*y + x

And hope you understand.



I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way  
to physically implement them.


Those notion have nothing to do with "physical implementation".
Implementation and physical will be explained from them. A natural  
thing as they are much more complex than the laws above.






In the absence of some common media, even if it is generated by  
sheaves of computations, there simply isno way to understand  
anything.


Why ?




You must accept non-well foundedness for your result to work, but  
you seem fixated against that.


1004.







A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said  
truthfully to have the same meaning because there are multiple and  
separable entities that can have the agreement on the truth value.  
In the absence of the ability to judge a statement independently  
of any particular entity capable of "understanding" the statement,  
there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or  
false. To insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or  
false) in an ontological condition where no entities capable of  
judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments  
disallow.



Do you agree that during the five seconds just after the Big Bang  
(assuming that theory) there might not have been any possible  
observers. But then the Big Bang has no more sense.


No, I don't. Why? Because that concept of "the five seconds just  
after the Big Bang" is an assumption of a special case or pleading.  
I might as well postulate the existence of Raindow Dash to act as  
the entity to whom the Truth of mathematical statements have  
absolute meaning. To be frank, I thing that the Big Bang theory, as  
usually explained is a steaming pile of rubbish, as it asks us to  
believe that the totality of all that exists sprang into being from  
Nothing.


I actually agree, by accident, on this. But this is not relevant for  
my point. Imagine that we can show that some solution to GR equantion  
have universe so poor that life cannot exist in there, would you say  
that such universe cannot exist?




I believe that the totality of what exists is eternal, having no  
beginning and no end.


I am OK with that. It is close to Platonism. But with comp we can  
restrict this to the arithmetical truth (a highly non computable  
structure, but still conceivable by universal numbers, relatively).




What we infer from our observations of Hubble expansion is just an  
effect that follows, ultimately, from our finiteness.


Including time and space. So we do agree again.







I think Brent is right, and Quentin. You confuse 1+1=2 with human  
expression for pointing on that proposition. You obviously needs  
human to understand those " "1+1=2" ", but the content of "1+1=2"  
has simply no relation at all with the human, or with a physical  
universe.


No, none of you have yet to be able to understand my counter- 
argument. It is not complicated. We cannot assume to have something  
when the means for its existence is not allowed. My claim is that  
meaningfulness supervenes on the possibility of interaction of  
*many* entities and is independent of any *one* (or some lesser  
finite subset) of that Many.


But arithmetical truth is full of

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

On 01 Nov 2012, at 00:58, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/31/2012 12:22 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 30 Oct 2012, at 18:29, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
No? If they do not have something equivalent to concepts, how
can they dream?

Yes, the universal numbers can have concept.

Dear Bruno,

Let's start over. Please plain in detail what is a universal
number and how it (and not ordinary numbers) have concepts or 1p.

I will give more detail on FOAR, soon or later. But let me explains
quickly.

Fix your favorite Turing universal system. It can be a programming
language, a universal Turing machine, or a sigma_1 complete theory,
or even a computer.

Dear Bruno,

That 'fixing" occurs at our level only. We are free (relatively)
to fix our axiomatic objects from the wide variety that have been
proven to exist within the Mathematical universe of concepts or, if
we are clever, we can invent new concepts and work with them; but we
cannot do things in our logic that are self-contradictory unless we
make sure that the contradictions are not allowed to be pathological.

OK. No problem.

Enumerate the programs computing functions fro N to N, (or the
equivalent notion according to your chosen system). let us call
those functions: phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, ... (the phi_i)

Let B be a fixed bijection from N x N to N. So B(x,y) is a number.

The number u is universal if phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y). And the
equality means really that either both phi_u(B(x,y)) and phi_x(y)
are defined (number) and that they are equal, OR they are both
undefined.

In phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y), x is called the program, and y the
data. u is the computer. u i said to emulate the program
(machine, ...) x on the input y.

OK, but this does not answer my question. What is the ontological
level mechanism that distinguishes the u and the x and the y from
each other?

The one you have chosen above. But let continue to use elementary
arithmetic, as everyone learn it in school. So the answer is:
elementary arithmetic.

What I am trying to explain to you that ontological level objects
cannot have any logical mechanism that requires temporarily unless
you are assuming some form of Becoming as an ontological primitive.
Platonism, as far as I know, disallows this.

Indeed. becoming, like the whole physicalness, emerges from inside. It
is 1p (plural).

Bruno

Comp is the thesis that I can survive with a physical digital
computer in place of the physical brain, as far as it emulates me
close enough.

Comp gives a special role to computer (physical incarnation of a
universal number). The comp idea is that computer can supports
thinking and consciousness, and makes them capable of manifestation
relatively to other universal structure (physical universes if that
exists, people, etc.). This should answer your question.

The lobian machines are only universal numbers, having the
knowledge that they are universal.
I can prove to any patient human that he/she is Löbian (I cannot
prove that he/she is sound or correct, note).

The UDA results is that whatever you mean by physical for making
comp meaningful, that physicalness has to emerge entirely and only,
from a 'competition' between all universal numbers. There is no
need to go out of arithmetic, and "worst", there is no possible use
of going out of arithmetic, once betting on comp.

By arithmetic I mean arithmetical truth, or the standard model of
arithmetic, I don't mean a theory. I mean the whole set of true
arithmetical propositions, or of their Gödel numbers.

Bruno

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Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 31 Oct 2012, at 19:59, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/30/2012 7:36 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 11:39 PM, Stephen P. King > wrote:

On 10/30/2012 5:39 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 2:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 5:15 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 1:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


 Dear Brent,

What is it that distinguishes between tokens and  
propositions?


Tokens are the physical elements (e.g. letters, words, sounds)  
that are used to represent a proposition in a particular language.


What determines the map between the letters, words, sounds  
and the content of propositions?


The proposition is the abstracted meaning which is independent  
of particular language.


Does this independence do so far as to disallow for an  
arbitrary physical entity to know of it? Independence of  
abstractions from particular individuals is not independence from  
all.


  So "Zwei est ein und ein." are tokens expressing the same  
proposition as "Two equals one plus one." which is that 2=1+1.


That


Which 'that' do you refer to, the tokens or the proposition.

is true only because multiple persons came to believe that it is  
true


You previously agreed that one person alone could come to know  
that 2=1+1 or 17 is prime and express it symbolically, i.e. in  
tokens.  So multiple persons are only necessary in order for the  
tokens to be used for communicating from one to another; which is  
the case whether the thing communicated is true or false.


  Reread this:


In 10/30/2012 5:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of  
symbols "17 is prime" is an indicator of some particular  
mathematical object and one of its particular properties, then  
how does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all?


I agree with that.  But you're talking about the tokens "17 is  
prime" not the concept that 17 is prime.  Could not a person who  
grew up alone on an island realize that 17 has no divisors, and  
he could even invent a private language in which he could write  
down Peano's axioms.


Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for  
abstract questions? Why the reference to single individuals? Did  
you not understand that I am claiming that meaningfulness requires  
at least the possibility of interaction between many entities such  
that each can evaluate the truth value of a proposition and thus  
can truthfully claim to have knowledge of true statements?
A person that grew and died on a desert island may have  
discovered for itself that 17 objects cannot be divided into equal  
subsets, but our statements about that are mere figemnts of our  
imagination as we could know nothing objective and non-imaginative  
at all about that person. We are imagining ourselves to have  
powers that we simply do not have. We are not omniscient voyeurs  
of Reality and there is not anything that is.


How is an imaginary entity come to aquire a real 1p or actual  
real properties? It might if that imaginary entity is deemed to  
have 1p content within some narrative. But outside of that  
narrative, it does not even exist! Languaging more about this is  
getting us nowhere.






Brent

and acted to cause it to be true. Remove one person from the  
multiplicity and the meaning still is there. Remove all of them  
and the meaning vanishes.






This needs a cowboy's few cents:

Every bet on ontological primitive is, despite the infinite models  
and conjectures we can weave from them, just that: a bet.


If this is stated clearly and honestly then it's cool, no matter if  
it turns out an error, as we've eliminated something at least.


But this is unfortunately rarer than to pound people with "real,  
reality, authentic" vs "imaginary, artificial" in discourse where  
axioms are not shared: if somebody can demarcate this boundary  
clearly for all discourse, then I fail to see/understand how  
anybody could do this outside of being high with a smile on their  
face and comic implication. My intelligence is limited insofar as I  
cannot understand, how this is not some form of needless force, in  
face of our vast ignorance.


Meaning is not some magical quality bestowed upon the discoverer of  
a set of relations. That's everybody's flavor of semantics working  
there.


As for "human"; if this is close to philosophical humanism  
semantically, then it's safe to say that, paired with standard  
model of physics, it's nice epistemologies with a lot of bs for its  
close association to ideological atheism; particularly the  
assertion "no supernatural miracle shit" when asserting singularity  
as big bang is just that: another miracle; when the rules of the  
humanist bet said "no miracles".


m

Dear Cowboy,

One question. Was the general outline that I was trying to  
explain make any sense to you? Without being obvious about it, I a

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/1/2012 6:54 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 1:42 AM, Stephen P. King > wrote:


On 10/31/2012 6:14 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 7:59 PM, Stephen P. King
mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:





  [SPK]

One problem that I have discovered (I thank Brent for
bringing this up!) is that in our reasoning we set up
constructions - such as the person on the desert island
- that blur the very distinction that I am trying to
frame. We should never assume temporal situations to
argue for relations that are atemporal unless we are
prepared to show the morphisms between the two situations.


Isn't this already physical framework when you seem to be
arguing for time as primitive ("n incompatible with comp to
begin with, after which you seek to carve out a distinction,
when you've already mixed at the base?



My argument is that it is impossible to 'derive" Becoming from
Being, but we can derive Being from Becoming. So why not work with
the latter idea? I am trying to get Bruno to admit, among other
things, that he has to assume a non-well founded logic for his
result to work.;-)


I see less and less how you'd be able to do that, as I said, by making 
process/linear time primitive in comp, and by assuming physical 
universe with so many statements. Quantum Logic is part of the picture 
(see SANE 2004).


Hi Cowboy,

I think of it this way: Change is fundamental (ala Heraclitus 
 and Bergson 
) and Being is its 
automorphism . Is that a bit 
more clear? "Linear time" (why 'linear'? Is there such a thing as 
non-linear time? Cyclic time is still linear, AFAIK...) is, IMHO, change 
+ a measure. Without a measure of change, there is no time; there is 
just change. If we take relativity seriously, we might even claim that 
there is no difference between change minus measure and staticness... I 
should mention that any change that has no measure associated with it is 
"zeroth" order change.
Without the means to compare two different things to each other, 
does it make any sense to be able to make coherent statements about some 
change in one relative to the other. If there is just one thing, how do 
we know anything about its possible change(s) unless we are looking at 
it and gauging (measuring) its change against some thing else that has 
some measure associated - but our observation of it violates the 
stipulation of "if there is just one thing".


The idea that somehow the observer is irrelevant in physics and 
philosophy is, IMHO, one of the worse errors ever. Sure, we need to 
minimize and even eliminate observer bias and preferred reference 
framing, but eliminating the observer and replacing it with some 
ambiguous 'view from nowhere' is undiluted hogwash. This is where 
"realist" chafe me, they act as if the universe of objects is out there 
and has definite properties in the complete absence of any clear 
explanation for how those properties came to be defined in the first 
place. OK, OK, I will stop ranting...





Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a
concrete robust physical universe". He goes on to argue that
Occam's razor would demand that we reject the very idea of
the existence of physical worlds given that he can 'show' how
they can be reconstructed or derived from irreducible - and
thus ontologically primitive - Arithmetic 'objects' {0, 1, +,
*} that are "operating" somehow in an atemporal way.


UDA does not contradict itself here. Restraints on processing
power, on memory and print capacities, implying time as some
illusion emanating from eternal primitives, don't exist when
framed non-constructively, more like sets of assignments, rather
than operations in your sense, by which you seem to mean
"physically primitive operations" on par with ontologically
primitive arrow of time. Isn't this like cracking open the
axioms, and then complaining that the building has cracks in it?


There are simply a pile of concepts that are just assumed
without explanation in any discussion of philosophy/logic/math. My
point is that a theory must be have the capacity of being
communicable ab initio for it to even be considered. When I am
confronted with a theory or a "result" or an argument that seems
to disallow for communicability I am going to baulk at it!


And the possibility that you are baulking at your preconceptions 
rather than engaging the theory has never happened to you? Happens to 
me all the time.


OK, got any ideas what these might be other than those I have

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-11-01 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 1:42 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

>  On 10/31/2012 6:14 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 7:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
>
>>
>>  Dear Cowboy,
>>
>> One question. Was the general outline that I was trying to explain
>> make any sense to you? Without being obvious about it, I am trying to
>> finely parse the difference between the logic of temporal systems and the
>> logic of atemporal systems - such as the Platonic Realm - such that I might
>> show that reasonings that are correct in one are not necessarily correct in
>> the other.
>>
>
> This was not obvious to me, and going over the posts, I see how you're
> leaning that way... but why not just say that, then? Don't get me wrong, I
> love Joycean labyrinths as much as the next guy, but if the topic is on
> some level tending towards sincerity, then I don't see the benefit "in not
> being obvious". Then again, I'm a Captain Obvious type. Should get the
> shirt.
>
>
> Hi Cowboy,
>
> I am dyslexic, this colors/flavors everything I write
>
>
>
>
>> One problem that I have discovered (I thank Brent for bringing this up!)
>> is that in our reasoning we set up constructions - such as the person on
>> the desert island - that blur the very distinction that I am trying to
>> frame. We should never assume temporal situations to argue for relations
>> that are atemporal unless we are prepared to show the morphisms between the
>> two situations.
>>
>>
> Isn't this already physical framework when you seem to be arguing for time
> as primitive ("n incompatible with comp to begin with, after which you seek
> to carve out a distinction, when you've already mixed at the base?
>
>
> My argument is that it is impossible to 'derive" Becoming from Being,
> but we can derive Being from Becoming. So why not work with the latter
> idea? I am trying to get Bruno to admit, among other things, that he has to
> assume a non-well founded logic for his result to work.;-)
>
>
I see less and less how you'd be able to do that, as I said, by making
process/linear time primitive in comp, and by assuming physical universe
with so many statements. Quantum Logic is part of the picture (see SANE
2004).


>
>
>
>>  Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a concrete
>> robust physical universe". He goes on to argue that Occam's razor would
>> demand that we reject the very idea of the existence of physical worlds
>> given that he can 'show' how they can be reconstructed or derived from
>> irreducible - and thus ontologically primitive - Arithmetic 'objects' {0,
>> 1, +, *} that are "operating" somehow in an atemporal way.
>>
>
> UDA does not contradict itself here. Restraints on processing power, on
> memory and print capacities, implying time as some illusion emanating from
> eternal primitives, don't exist when framed non-constructively, more like
> sets of assignments, rather than operations in your sense, by which you
> seem to mean "physically primitive operations" on par with ontologically
> primitive arrow of time. Isn't this like cracking open the axioms, and then
> complaining that the building has cracks in it?
>
>
> There are simply a pile of concepts that are just assumed without
> explanation in any discussion of philosophy/logic/math. My point is that a
> theory must be have the capacity of being communicable ab initio for it to
> even be considered. When I am confronted with a theory or a "result" or an
> argument that seems to disallow for communicability I am going to baulk at
> it!
>
>
And the possibility that you are baulking at your preconceptions rather
than engaging the theory has never happened to you? Happens to me all the
time.


>
>
>
>
>> We should be able to make the argument run without ever appealing to a
>> Platonic realm or any kind of 'realism'.
>>
>
> It's hard for me to see bets being made without some cash/investment/gap
> of faith on the table.
>
>
> Sure.
>
>
Then it would be easy for you to directly address the question: why assume
non-comp and then complain about comp's implications of time and physics
arising from dream interaction of universal numbers, therefore being not
primary or existing primitively?

>
>
>
>> In my thinking, if arithmetic is powerful enough to be a TOE and run the
>> TOE to generate our world, then that power should be obvious. My problem is
>> that it looks tooo much like the 'explanation' of creation that we find in
>> mythology, whether it is the 
>> Ptahof ancient Egypt or  the egg
>> of Pangu  or whatever other myth
>> one might like. What makes an explanation framed in the sophisticated and
>> formal language of modal logic any different?
>>
>>
> Nothing, at its base. Appearances and looks can deceive, as numbers can
> too.
>
>
> Would this not make that deception something in our understanding and
> not the fault of numbers? After all, numbers

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 11/1/2012 1:19 AM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/31/2012 6:58 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


Enumerate the programs computing functions fro N to N, (or the 
equivalent notion according to your chosen system). let us call those 
functions:  phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, ...  (the phi_i)

Let B be a fixed bijection from N x N to N. So B(x,y) is a number.

The number u is universal if phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y). And the 
equality means really that either both phi_u(B(x,y)) and phi_x(y) are 
defined (number) and that they are equal, OR they are both undefined.


In phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y), x is called the program, and y the data. 
u is the computer. u i said to emulate the program (machine, ...) x 
on the input y. 


So u could be any number, depending on how you enumerated the 
functions and what bijection is used?


Brent
--

Oh, BTW, Bruno wrote the above ... not me.

--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-31 Thread meekerdb


On 10/31/2012 6:58 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


Enumerate the programs computing functions fro N to N, (or the equivalent notion 
according to your chosen system). let us call those functions:  phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, 
...  (the phi_i)

Let B be a fixed bijection from N x N to N. So B(x,y) is a number.

The number u is universal if phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y). And the equality means really 
that either both phi_u(B(x,y)) and  phi_x(y) are defined (number) and that they are 
equal, OR they are both undefined.


In phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y), x is called the program, and y the data. u is the computer. 
u i said to emulate the program (machine, ...) x on the input y. 


So u could be any number, depending on how you enumerated the functions and what bijection 
is used?


Brent

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-31 Thread meekerdb


On 10/31/2012 11:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I don't see why denying mathematical realism would entail saying no to the 
doctor.


It implies not saying "yes" qua computatio. It implies NOT understanding what Church 
thesis is about, as to show it consistent you need the diagonalization, which use the 
excluded middle principle.

You can still say "yes", but only by using some magic.



The doctor isn't proposing to replace part of you brain with a piece of Platonia, he 
has a real physical device to implant.


This is not related. That will follow step 8.

Here, you have to be arithmetical realist to get an idea of what a computer is, and how 
it functions, as the physical one will approximate it, well enough, it is hoped.


Of course you can say "yes" to the doctor, just because you trust him. But comp is not 
"saying yes" to the doctor. Comp is the doctrine that saying yes will indeed work, once 
the artificial brain is a *computer*. The definition of computer makes no sense with 
arithmetical realism.


?? If I'm a materialist I could say yes because I think the artificial brain produces the 
same input/output signals.  I don't see why I would have believe in Platonia.  I may 
believe that only some computations are instantiated and there are no infinities.


Brent

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/31/2012 6:14 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 7:59 PM, Stephen P. King 
mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:



Dear Cowboy,

One question. Was the general outline that I was trying to
explain make any sense to you? Without being obvious about it, I
am trying to finely parse the difference between the logic of
temporal systems and the logic of atemporal systems - such as the
Platonic Realm - such that I might show that reasonings that are
correct in one are not necessarily correct in the other.


This was not obvious to me, and going over the posts, I see how you're 
leaning that way... but why not just say that, then? Don't get me 
wrong, I love Joycean labyrinths as much as the next guy, but if the 
topic is on some level tending towards sincerity, then I don't see the 
benefit "in not being obvious". Then again, I'm a Captain Obvious 
type. Should get the shirt.


Hi Cowboy,

I am dyslexic, this colors/flavors everything I write


One problem that I have discovered (I thank Brent for bringing
this up!) is that in our reasoning we set up constructions - such
as the person on the desert island - that blur the very
distinction that I am trying to frame. We should never assume
temporal situations to argue for relations that are atemporal
unless we are prepared to show the morphisms between the two
situations.


Isn't this already physical framework when you seem to be arguing for 
time as primitive ("n incompatible with comp to begin with, after 
which you seek to carve out a distinction, when you've already mixed 
at the base?


My argument is that it is impossible to 'derive" Becoming from 
Being, but we can derive Being from Becoming. So why not work with the 
latter idea? I am trying to get Bruno to admit, among other things, that 
he has to assume a non-well founded logic for his result to work.;-)



Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a
concrete robust physical universe". He goes on to argue that
Occam's razor would demand that we reject the very idea of the
existence of physical worlds given that he can 'show' how they can
be reconstructed or derived from irreducible - and thus
ontologically primitive - Arithmetic 'objects' {0, 1, +, *} that
are "operating" somehow in an atemporal way.


UDA does not contradict itself here. Restraints on processing power, 
on memory and print capacities, implying time as some illusion 
emanating from eternal primitives, don't exist when framed 
non-constructively, more like sets of assignments, rather than 
operations in your sense, by which you seem to mean "physically 
primitive operations" on par with ontologically primitive arrow of 
time. Isn't this like cracking open the axioms, and then complaining 
that the building has cracks in it?


There are simply a pile of concepts that are just assumed without 
explanation in any discussion of philosophy/logic/math. My point is that 
a theory must be have the capacity of being communicable ab initio for 
it to even be considered. When I am confronted with a theory or a 
"result" or an argument that seems to disallow for communicability I am 
going to baulk at it!




We should be able to make the argument run without ever appealing
to a Platonic realm or any kind of 'realism'.


It's hard for me to see bets being made without some 
cash/investment/gap of faith on the table.


Sure.


In my thinking, if arithmetic is powerful enough to be a TOE and
run the TOE to generate our world, then that power should be
obvious. My problem is that it looks tooo much like the
'explanation' of creation that we find in mythology, whether it is
the Ptah  of ancient
Egypt or  the egg of Pangu
 or whatever other myth
one might like. What makes an explanation framed in the
sophisticated and formal language of modal logic any different?


Nothing, at its base. Appearances and looks can deceive, as numbers 
can too.


Would this not make that deception something in our understanding 
and not the fault of numbers? After all, numbers are supposedly the 
least ambiguous of entities!



I agree 10% with your point about 'miracles'. I am
very suspicions of "special explanations' or 'natural conspiracies'.


Same here. My point with humanism + natural sciences, including 
standard model, is that you have to be straight about your wager: 
there's my magic primitive right there, warts and all.


Its deceiving to, on the one hand assert "no miracles" whatsoever, and 
then ask for it at the instant of Big Bang. "Human" in this sense is 
both deceptive through error and useful for power.


I think that we are too eager for explanations and are willing to 
play fast and lose with concepts so long as we can hand wave problems away.

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/31/2012 12:45 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 18:39, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems 
apply only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, 
not to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for 
some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals 
one plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert 
that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some 
numbers or subject having to discover it, or prove it.


Bruno

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



Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an 
ontological primitive


Then I can stop reading as you need to assume the numbers (or anything 
Turing equivalent) to get them.


Dear Bruno,

So it is OK to assume that which I seek to explain?




*and* having some particular set of values and meanings.


I just assume

x + 0 = x
x + s(y) = s(x + y)

 x *0 = 0
 x*s(y) = x*y + x

And hope you understand.



I can understand these symbols because there is at least a way to 
physically implement them. In the absence of some common media, even if 
it is generated by sheaves of computations, there simply is no way to 
understand anything. You must accept non-well foundedness for your 
result to work, but you seem fixated against that.




A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said 
truthfully to have the same meaning because there are multiple and 
separable entities that can have the agreement on the truth value. In 
the absence of the ability to judge a statement independently of any 
particular entity capable of "understanding" the statement, there is 
no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or false. To 
insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or false) in an 
ontological condition where no entities capable of judging the 
meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!

   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.



Do you agree that during the five seconds just after the Big Bang 
(assuming that theory) there might not have been any possible 
observers. But then the Big Bang has no more sense.


No, I don't. Why? Because that concept of "the five seconds just 
after the Big Bang" is an assumption of a special case or pleading. I 
might as well postulate the existence of Raindow Dash 
 
to act as the entity to whom the Truth of mathematical statements have 
absolute meaning. To be frank, I thing that the Big Bang theory, as 
usually explained is a steaming pile of rubbish, as it asks us to 
believe that the totality of all that exists sprang into being from 
Nothing. I believe that the totality of what exists is eternal, having 
no beginning and no end. What we infer from our observations of Hubble 
expansion is just an effect that follows, ultimately, from our finiteness.




I think Brent is right, and Quentin. You confuse 1+1=2 with human 
expression for pointing on that proposition. You obviously needs human 
to understand those " "1+1=2" ", but the content of "1+1=2" has simply 
no relation at all with the human, or with a physical universe.


No, none of you have yet to be able to understand my 
counter-argument. It is not complicated. We cannot assume to have 
something when the means for its existence is not allowed. My claim is 
that/*meaningfulness */supervenes on the possibility of interaction of 
*many* entities and is independent of any *one* (or some lesser finite 
subset) of that Many.




I asked you some time ago if you agree with the use of the excluded 
middle in arithmetic. It asserts that for any arithmetical proposition 
P, even highly non computably verifiable, you can accept as new 
arithmetical truth the proposition asserting that P v ~P. Which 
intuitive meaning that the proposition is unambiguously either true, 
or false, despite you have no idea if it is P or ~P which is the true 
one. To accept this means that you accept that such truth are 
independent of the means to prove or verify them.


We must us the principle to excluded middle to reason, but this 
does not make the principle something external and independent of us. 
This is a red herring, Bruno. It is not addressing my claim at all. You 
seem to be stuck on the idea that only one entity can have or not have 
some property or power and cannot reason about the possibility that 
*many* may be required to solve some problems. A plurality is not a 
multipl

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/31/2012 12:22 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 18:29, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/30/2012 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
No? If they do not have something equivalent to concepts, how can 
they dream?


Yes, the universal numbers can have concept.

Dear Bruno,

   Let's start over. Please plain in detail what is a universal 
number and how it (and not ordinary numbers) have concepts or 1p.


I will give more detail on FOAR, soon or later. But let me explains 
quickly.


Fix your favorite Turing universal system. It can be a programming 
language, a universal Turing machine, or a sigma_1 complete theory, or 
even a computer.


Dear Bruno,

That 'fixing" occurs at our level only. We are free (relatively) to 
fix our axiomatic objects from the wide variety that have been proven to 
exist within the Mathematical universe of concepts or, if we are clever, 
we can invent new concepts and work with them; but we cannot do things 
in our logic that are self-contradictory unless we make sure that the 
contradictions are not allowed to be pathological.




Enumerate the programs computing functions fro N to N, (or the 
equivalent notion according to your chosen system). let us call those 
functions:  phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, ...  (the phi_i)

Let B be a fixed bijection from N x N to N. So B(x,y) is a number.

The number u is universal if phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y). And the 
equality means really that either both phi_u(B(x,y)) and  phi_x(y) are 
defined (number) and that they are equal, OR they are both undefined.


In phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y), x is called the program, and y the data. 
u is the computer. u i said to emulate the program (machine, ...) x on 
the input y.




OK, but this does not answer my question. What is the ontological 
level mechanism that distinguishes the u and the x and the y from each 
other? What I am trying to explain to you that ontological level objects 
cannot have any logical mechanism that requires temporarily unless you 
are assuming some form of Becoming as an ontological primitive. 
Platonism, as far as I know, disallows this.




Comp is the thesis that I can survive with a physical digital computer 
in place of the physical brain, as far as it emulates me close enough.


Comp gives a special role to computer (physical incarnation of a 
universal number). The comp idea is that computer can supports 
thinking and consciousness, and makes them capable of manifestation 
relatively to other universal structure (physical universes if that 
exists, people, etc.). This should answer your question.


The lobian machines are only universal numbers, having the knowledge 
that they are universal.
I can prove to any patient human that he/she is Löbian (I cannot prove 
that he/she is sound or correct, note).


The UDA results is that whatever you mean by physical for making comp 
meaningful, that physicalness has to emerge entirely and only, from a 
'competition' between all universal numbers. There is no need to go 
out of arithmetic, and "worst", there is no possible use of going out 
of arithmetic, once betting on comp.


By arithmetic I mean arithmetical truth, or the standard model of 
arithmetic, I don't mean a theory. I mean the whole set of true 
arithmetical propositions, or of their Gödel numbers.


Bruno





--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-31 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 7:59 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

>
> Dear Cowboy,
>
> One question. Was the general outline that I was trying to explain
> make any sense to you? Without being obvious about it, I am trying to
> finely parse the difference between the logic of temporal systems and the
> logic of atemporal systems - such as the Platonic Realm - such that I might
> show that reasonings that are correct in one are not necessarily correct in
> the other.
>

This was not obvious to me, and going over the posts, I see how you're
leaning that way... but why not just say that, then? Don't get me wrong, I
love Joycean labyrinths as much as the next guy, but if the topic is on
some level tending towards sincerity, then I don't see the benefit "in not
being obvious". Then again, I'm a Captain Obvious type. Should get the
shirt.

> One problem that I have discovered (I thank Brent for bringing this up!)
> is that in our reasoning we set up constructions - such as the person on
> the desert island - that blur the very distinction that I am trying to
> frame. We should never assume temporal situations to argue for relations
> that are atemporal unless we are prepared to show the morphisms between the
> two situations.
>
>
Isn't this already physical framework when you seem to be arguing for time
as primitive ("n incompatible with comp to begin with, after which you seek
to carve out a distinction, when you've already mixed at the base?

> Bruno would have us, in step 8 of UDA, to "not assume a concrete
> robust physical universe". He goes on to argue that Occam's razor would
> demand that we reject the very idea of the existence of physical worlds
> given that he can 'show' how they can be reconstructed or derived from
> irreducible - and thus ontologically primitive - Arithmetic 'objects' {0,
> 1, +, *} that are "operating" somehow in an atemporal way.
>

UDA does not contradict itself here. Restraints on processing power, on
memory and print capacities, implying time as some illusion emanating from
eternal primitives, don't exist when framed non-constructively, more like
sets of assignments, rather than operations in your sense, by which you
seem to mean "physically primitive operations" on par with ontologically
primitive arrow of time. Isn't this like cracking open the axioms, and then
complaining that the building has cracks in it?

> We should be able to make the argument run without ever appealing to a
> Platonic realm or any kind of 'realism'.
>

It's hard for me to see bets being made without some cash/investment/gap of
faith on the table.

> In my thinking, if arithmetic is powerful enough to be a TOE and run the
> TOE to generate our world, then that power should be obvious. My problem is
> that it looks tooo much like the 'explanation' of creation that we find in
> mythology, whether it is the 
> Ptahof ancient Egypt or  the egg
> of Pangu  or whatever other myth
> one might like. What makes an explanation framed in the sophisticated and
> formal language of modal logic any different?
>
>
Nothing, at its base. Appearances and looks can deceive, as numbers can too.

>  I agree 10% with your point about 'miracles'. I am very
> suspicions of "special explanations' or 'natural conspiracies'.
>

Same here. My point with humanism + natural sciences, including standard
model, is that you have to be straight about your wager: there's my magic
primitive right there, warts and all.

Its deceiving to, on the one hand assert "no miracles" whatsoever, and then
ask for it at the instant of Big Bang. "Human" in this sense is both
deceptive through error and useful for power.

>   (This comes from my upbringing as a "Bible-believing Fundamentalist" and
> eventual rejection of that literalist mental straight-jacket.) As I see
> things, any condition or situation that can be used to 'explain' some other
> conceptually difficult condition or situation should be either universal in
> that they apply anywhere and anytime or are such that there must be a
> particular configuration of events for them to occur. This principle (?)
> applies to everything, be it the Big Bang initial state/singularity or
> consciousness.
>
> One point about the Big Bang. It seems to me that if we are
> considering conditions in our current physical universe that involve
> sufficiently small scales and/or high enough energies that there should be
> the equivalent to the Big Bang initial conditions, thus the Big Bang should
> be considered as an ongoing process even now and not some epochally special
> event.
>

You argue both comp ("universal, anywhere, eternal") and physically
primitive universe ("current physical universe", "ongoing process" etc).
That's why I ask above why you burn your money before you put it on the
(comp) table and claim the game is rigged? Just because "eternal is
foundation", doesn't imply that process isn't po

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 7:36 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 11:39 PM, Stephen P. King 
mailto:stephe...@charter.net>> wrote:


On 10/30/2012 5:39 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 2:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 5:15 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 1:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


 Dear Brent,

What is it that distinguishes between tokens and
propositions?


Tokens are the physical elements (e.g. letters, words, sounds)
that are used to represent a proposition in a particular language.


What determines the map between the letters, words, sounds
and the content of propositions?


The proposition is the abstracted meaning which is independent
of particular language.


Does this independence do so far as to disallow for an
arbitrary physical entity to know of it? Independence of
abstractions from particular individuals is not independence
from all.


  So "Zwei est ein und ein." are tokens expressing the same
proposition as "Two equals one plus one." which is that 2=1+1. 


That


Which 'that' do you refer to, the tokens or the proposition.


is true only because multiple persons came to believe that it is
true


You previously agreed that one person alone could come to know
that 2=1+1 or 17 is prime and express it symbolically, i.e. in
tokens.  So multiple persons are only necessary in order for the
tokens to be used for communicating from one to another; which is
the case whether the thing communicated is true or false.


  Reread this:


In 10/30/2012 5:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:

[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of
symbols "17 is prime" is an indicator of some particular
mathematical object and one of its particular properties, then
how does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all? 


I agree with that.  But you're talking about the tokens "17 is
prime" not the concept that 17 is prime.  Could not a person who
grew up alone on an island realize that 17 has no divisors, and
he could even invent a private language in which he could write
down Peano's axioms.


/*   Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for
abstract questions? Why the reference to single individuals? Did
you not understand that I am claiming that meaningfulness
requires at least the possibility of interaction between many
entities such that each can evaluate the truth value of a
proposition and thus can truthfully claim to have knowledge of
true statements? *//*
*/
/*A person that grew and died on a desert island may have
discovered for itself that 17 objects cannot be divided into
equal subsets, but our statements about that are mere figemnts of
our imagination as we could know nothing objective and
non-imaginative at all about that person. We are imagining
ourselves to have powers that we simply do not have. We are not
omniscient voyeurs of Reality and there is not anything that is. */


How is an imaginary entity come to aquire a real 1p or actual
real properties? It might if that imaginary entity is deemed to
have 1p content within some narrative. But outside of that
narrative, it does not even exist! Languaging more about this is
getting us nowhere.





Brent


and acted to cause it to be true. Remove one person from the
multiplicity and the meaning still is there. Remove all of them
and the meaning vanishes.





This needs a cowboy's few cents:

Every bet on ontological primitive is, despite the infinite models and 
conjectures we can weave from them, just that: a bet.


If this is stated clearly and honestly then it's cool, no matter if it 
turns out an error, as we've eliminated something at least.


But this is unfortunately rarer than to pound people with "real, 
reality, authentic" vs "imaginary, artificial" in discourse where 
axioms are not shared: if somebody can demarcate this boundary clearly 
for all discourse, then I fail to see/understand how anybody could do 
this outside of being high with a smile on their face and comic 
implication. My intelligence is limited insofar as I cannot 
understand, how this is not some form of needless force, in face of 
our vast ignorance.


Meaning is not some magical quality bestowed upon the discoverer of a 
set of relations. That's everybody's flavor of semantics working there.


As for "human"; if this is close to philosophical humanism 
semantically, then it's safe to say that, paired with standard model 
of physics, it's nice epistemologies with a lot of bs for its close 
association to ideological atheism; particularly the assertion "no 
supernatural miracle shit" when asserting singularity as big bang is 
just that: another miracle; when the rules of the humanist bet said 
"no m

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 30 Oct 2012, at 19:58, meekerdb wrote:
If there were no humans, no human level consciousness, would it  
still be true that Holmes assistant is Watson?


If there are no humans, Conan Doyle would not have created the Holmes  
and Watson characters, to which the use of the names refer, and the  
question would be meaningless.


But in our branch of reality, it is true that Holmes assistant is  
Watson (and not Crick, for example).


I a quiz, you would lose the point if you answer "Crick" to the  
question "what's the name of Holmes assistant?".


Holmes and Watson are sufficiently famous that we get the point such  
names denote characters of some of the novels written by Doyle.


Even if the earth is destroyed, and no humans survive, it will remain  
true that Watson was the assistant of Holmes, (in Conan  Doyle's  
fiction) even if nobody care. Some alien might rediscovered that fact  
when studying the humanity debris with some efficient tools.


Bruno



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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 30 Oct 2012, at 19:52, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 10:43 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:




2012/10/30 Stephen P. King 
On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of  
theorems apply only to the concepts of numbers and their  
constructions, not to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for  
some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals  
one plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to  
assert that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend  
on some numbers or subject having to discover it, or prove it.


Bruno

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



Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an  
ontological primitive *and* having some particular set of values  
and meanings. A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus  
one, are said truthfully to have the same meaning because there are  
multiple and separable entities that can have the agreement on the  
truth value. In the absence of the ability to judge a statement  
independently of any particular entity capable of "understanding"  
the statement, there is no meaning to the concept that the  
statement is true or false. To insist that a statement has a  
meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological condition where no  
entities capable of judging the meaning, begs the question of  
meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments  
disallow.


Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you  
deny meaning to '17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to it  
its meaning... then you're simply negating arithmetical realism and  
with it computationalism (ie: consciousness is emulable qua  
computatio).


I don't see why denying mathematical realism would entail saying no  
to the doctor.


It implies not saying "yes" qua computatio. It implies NOT  
understanding what Church thesis is about, as to show it consistent  
you need the diagonalization, which use the excluded middle principle.

You can still say "yes", but only by using some magic.



The doctor isn't proposing to replace part of you brain with a piece  
of Platonia, he has a real physical device to implant.


This is not related. That will follow step 8.

Here, you have to be arithmetical realist to get an idea of what a  
computer is, and how it functions, as the physical one will  
approximate it, well enough, it is hoped.


Of course you can say "yes" to the doctor, just because you trust him.  
But comp is not "saying yes" to the doctor. Comp is the doctrine that  
saying yes will indeed work, once the artificial brain is a  
*computer*. The definition of computer makes no sense with  
arithmetical realism.


Bruno

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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm



On 30 Oct 2012, at 18:39, Stephen P. King wrote:


On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of  
theorems apply only to the concepts of numbers and their  
constructions, not to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for  
some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals  
one plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert  
that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some  
numbers or subject having to discover it, or prove it.


Bruno

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



Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an  
ontological primitive


Then I can stop reading as you need to assume the numbers (or anything  
Turing equivalent) to get them.







*and* having some particular set of values and meanings.


I just assume

x + 0 = x
x + s(y) = s(x + y)

 x *0 = 0
 x*s(y) = x*y + x

And hope you understand.






A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said  
truthfully to have the same meaning because there are multiple and  
separable entities that can have the agreement on the truth value.  
In the absence of the ability to judge a statement independently of  
any particular entity capable of "understanding" the statement,  
there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or  
false. To insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or  
false) in an ontological condition where no entities capable of  
judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments  
disallow.



Do you agree that during the five seconds just after the Big Bang  
(assuming that theory) there might not have been any possible  
observers. But then the Big Bang has no more sense.


I think Brent is right, and Quentin. You confuse 1+1=2 with human  
expression for pointing on that proposition. You obviously needs human  
to understand those " "1+1=2" ", but the content of "1+1=2" has simply  
no relation at all with the human, or with a physical universe.


I asked you some time ago if you agree with the use of the excluded  
middle in arithmetic. It asserts that for any arithmetical proposition  
P, even highly non computably verifiable, you can accept as new  
arithmetical truth the proposition asserting that P v ~P. Which  
intuitive meaning that the proposition is unambiguously either true,  
or false, despite you have no idea if it is P or ~P which is the true  
one. To accept this means that you accept that such truth are  
independent of the means to prove or verify them.


Even intuitionist (who are sort of mathematical solipsist) accept, for  
P arithmetical, the proposition
 ~ ~ (P v ~P), which makes them already realist in the sense used in  
comp.


Bruno



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



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Re: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-31 Thread Roger Clough

Hi meekerdb  

I think the = sign allows a concept to be predicated, such
as  2 = 1+1 where 1+1 is the predicate. A concept
and a predicate form a proposition, and you need
a proposition to judge whether something is true or false. 


Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 
10/31/2012  
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen 


- Receiving the following content -  
From: meekerdb  
Receiver: everything-list  
Time: 2012-10-30, 14:50:24 
Subject: Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm 


On 10/30/2012 10:39 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:  
On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 



On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote: 


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:  
My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems apply only to 
the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers themselves. 



Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some 
machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense. 

So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one plus one." 
does. 



Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.  
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert that the 
truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or subject 
having to discover it, or prove it. 


Bruno 


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




Dear Bruno, 

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological 
primitive *and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A statement, 
such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said truthfully to have the 
same meaning because there are multiple and separable entities that can have 
the agreement on the truth value. In the absence of the ability to judge a 
statement independently of any particular entity capable of "understanding" the 
statement, 

I think you are confusing the tokens "2 = 1+1" with the proposition 2 = 1+1.  
The former requires someone who understands the notation to interpret it, but 
the latter is the interpretation, i.e. the concept.  A concept has meaning by 
definition, otherwise we say we cannot conceptualize it, e.g. klognee flarbles 
myrable, and so there is nothing to assign a truth value to. 


there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or false. To 
insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological 
condition where no entities capable of judging the meaning, begs the question 
of meaningfulness! 


That sounds like idealism, but whatever it is sll theories that will explain 
the world to us are going to have to apply to times and places where there are 
no humans.  So I guess the question is whether 2=1+1 means to you what it means 
to the rest of us.  If it does it can be part of our explanation. 

Brent 


   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow. 

--  
Onward! 

Stephen 
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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

On 30 Oct 2012, at 18:29, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
No? If they do not have something equivalent to concepts, how can
they dream?

Yes, the universal numbers can have concept.

Dear Bruno,

Let's start over. Please plain in detail what is a universal
number and how it (and not ordinary numbers) have concepts or 1p.

I will give more detail on FOAR, soon or later. But let me explains
quickly.

Fix your favorite Turing universal system. It can be a programming
language, a universal Turing machine, or a sigma_1 complete theory, or
even a computer.

Enumerate the programs computing functions fro N to N, (or the
equivalent notion according to your chosen system). let us call those
functions: phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, ... (the phi_i)

Let B be a fixed bijection from N x N to N. So B(x,y) is a number.

The number u is universal if phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y). And the
equality means really that either both phi_u(B(x,y)) and phi_x(y) are
defined (number) and that they are equal, OR they are both undefined.

In phi_u(B(x,y)) = phi_x(y), x is called the program, and y the data.
u is the computer. u i said to emulate the program (machine, ...) x on
the input y.

Comp is the thesis that I can survive with a physical digital computer
in place of the physical brain, as far as it emulates me close enough.

The lobian machines are only universal numbers, having the knowledge
that they are universal.
I can prove to any patient human that he/she is Löbian (I cannot prove
that he/she is sound or correct, note).

The UDA results is that whatever you mean by physical for making comp
meaningful, that physicalness has to emerge entirely and only, from a
'competition' between all universal numbers. There is no need to go
out of arithmetic, and "worst", there is no possible use of going out
of arithmetic, once betting on comp.

By arithmetic I mean arithmetical truth, or the standard model of
arithmetic, I don't mean a theory. I mean the whole set of true
arithmetical propositions, or of their Gödel numbers.

Bruno

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Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 5:39 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 2:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 5:15 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 1:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


 Dear Brent,

What is it that distinguishes between tokens and propositions?


Tokens are the physical elements (e.g. letters, words, sounds) that 
are used to represent a proposition in a particular language.


What determines the map between the letters, words, sounds and 
the content of propositions?


The proposition is the abstracted meaning which is independent of 
particular language.


Does this independence do so far as to disallow for an arbitrary 
physical entity to know of it? Independence of abstractions from 
particular individuals is not independence from all.


  So "Zwei est ein und ein." are tokens expressing the same 
proposition as "Two equals one plus one." which is that 2=1+1. 


That


Which 'that' do you refer to, the tokens or the proposition.


is true only because multiple persons came to believe that it is true


You previously agreed that one person alone could come to know that 
2=1+1 or 17 is prime and express it symbolically, i.e. in tokens.  So 
multiple persons are only necessary in order for the tokens to be used 
for communicating from one to another; which is the case whether the 
thing communicated is true or false.


  Reread this:


In 10/30/2012 5:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of 
symbols "17 is prime" is an indicator of some particular 
mathematical object and one of its particular properties, then how 
does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all? 


I agree with that.  But you're talking about the tokens "17 is prime" 
not the concept that 17 is prime.  Could not a person who grew up 
alone on an island realize that 17 has no divisors, and he could even 
invent a private language in which he could write down Peano's axioms.


/*   Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for abstract 
questions? Why the reference to single individuals? Did you not 
understand that I am claiming that meaningfulness requires at least 
the possibility of interaction between many entities such that each 
can evaluate the truth value of a proposition and thus can truthfully 
claim to have knowledge of true statements? *//*
*//*A person that grew and died on a desert island may have 
discovered for itself that 17 objects cannot be divided into equal 
subsets, but our statements about that are mere figemnts of our 
imagination as we could know nothing objective and non-imaginative at 
all about that person. We are imagining ourselves to have powers that 
we simply do not have. We are not omniscient voyeurs of Reality and 
there is not anything that is. */


How is an imaginary entity come to aquire a real 1p or actual real 
properties? It might if that imaginary entity is deemed to have 1p 
content within some narrative. But outside of that narrative, it does 
not even exist! Languaging more about this is getting us nowhere.





Brent

and acted to cause it to be true. Remove one person from the 
multiplicity and the meaning still is there. Remove all of them and 
the meaning vanishes.







--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 2:31 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 5:21 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 2:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of symbols "17 is prime" 
is an indicator of some particular mathematical object and one of its particular 
properties, then how does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all? 


I agree with that.  But you're talking about the tokens "17 is prime" not the concept 
that 17 is prime.  Could not a person who grew up alone on an island realize that 17 
has no divisors, and he could even invent a private language in which he could write 
down Peano's axioms.


Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for abstract questions? Why 
the reference to single individuals? Did you not understand that I am claiming that 
meaningfulness requires at least the possibility of interaction between many entities 
such that each can evaluate the truth value of a proposition and thus can truthfully 
claim to have knowledge of true statements?
A person that grew and died on a desert island may have discovered for itself that 
17 objects cannot be divided into equal subsets, 


So no additional entities are needed for a person know that 17 is prime and to express 
it symbollically.  You seem to contradict what you just wrote in the prior paragraph.


Rubbish. You are projecting your concept of "17 is prime" onto an imaginary entity 
and discussing the idea of that entity with me, that makes 3 people - not one; even if 
one - the person on the island - of them is just in your and my mind.


And another dozen people may be reading this.  What different does that make to the 
question of whether one person alone can know a mathematical truth?  You seem to agree 
that he can and yet deny it is meaningful at the same time.


Brent

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 2:27 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 5:15 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 1:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


 Dear Brent,

What is it that distinguishes between tokens and propositions?


Tokens are the physical elements (e.g. letters, words, sounds) that are used to 
represent a proposition in a particular language.


What determines the map between the letters, words, sounds and the content of 
propositions?



The proposition is the abstracted meaning which is independent of particular 
language.


Does this independence do so far as to disallow for an arbitrary physical entity to 
know of it? Independence of abstractions from particular individuals is not independence 
from all.


  So "Zwei est ein und ein." are tokens expressing the same proposition as "Two equals 
one plus one." which is that 2=1+1. 


That


Which 'that' do you refer to, the tokens or the proposition.


is true only because multiple persons came to believe that it is true


You previously agreed that one person alone could come to know that 2=1+1 or 17 is prime 
and express it symbolically, i.e. in tokens.  So multiple persons are only necessary in 
order for the tokens to be used for communicating from one to another; which is the case 
whether the thing communicated is true or false.


Brent

and acted to cause it to be true. Remove one person from the multiplicity and the 
meaning still is there. Remove all of them and the meaning vanishes.




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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 5:21 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 2:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of 
symbols "17 is prime" is an indicator of some particular 
mathematical object and one of its particular properties, then how 
does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all? 


I agree with that.  But you're talking about the tokens "17 is 
prime" not the concept that 17 is prime.  Could not a person who 
grew up alone on an island realize that 17 has no divisors, and he 
could even invent a private language in which he could write down 
Peano's axioms.


Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for abstract 
questions? Why the reference to single individuals? Did you not 
understand that I am claiming that meaningfulness requires at least 
the possibility of interaction between many entities such that each 
can evaluate the truth value of a proposition and thus can truthfully 
claim to have knowledge of true statements?
A person that grew and died on a desert island may have 
discovered for itself that 17 objects cannot be divided into equal 
subsets, 


So no additional entities are needed for a person know that 17 is 
prime and to express it symbollically.  You seem to contradict what 
you just wrote in the prior paragraph.


Rubbish. You are projecting your concept of "17 is prime" onto an 
imaginary entity and discussing the idea of that entity with me, that 
makes 3 people - not one; even if one - the person on the island - of 
them is just in your and my mind.





Brent



but our statements about that are mere figemnts of our imagination as 
we could know nothing objective and non-imaginative at all about that 
person. We are imagining ourselves to have powers that we simply do 
not have. We are not omniscient voyeurs of Reality and there is not 
anything that is.







--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 5:15 PM, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 1:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:


 Dear Brent,

What is it that distinguishes between tokens and propositions?


Tokens are the physical elements (e.g. letters, words, sounds) that 
are used to represent a proposition in a particular language.


What determines the map between the letters, words, sounds and the 
content of propositions?


The proposition is the abstracted meaning which is independent of 
particular language.


Does this independence do so far as to disallow for an arbitrary 
physical entity to know of it? Independence of abstractions from 
particular individuals is not independence from all.


  So "Zwei est ein und ein." are tokens expressing the same 
proposition as "Two equals one plus one." which is that 2=1+1. 


That is true only because multiple persons came to believe that it 
is true and acted to cause it to be true. Remove one person from the 
multiplicity and the meaning still is there. Remove all of them and the 
meaning vanishes.


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Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 2:03 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of symbols "17 is prime" is 
an indicator of some particular mathematical object and one of its particular 
properties, then how does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all? 


I agree with that.  But you're talking about the tokens "17 is prime" not the concept 
that 17 is prime.  Could not a person who grew up alone on an island realize that 17 
has no divisors, and he could even invent a private language in which he could write 
down Peano's axioms.


Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for abstract questions? Why the 
reference to single individuals? Did you not understand that I am claiming that 
meaningfulness requires at least the possibility of interaction between many entities 
such that each can evaluate the truth value of a proposition and thus can truthfully 
claim to have knowledge of true statements?
A person that grew and died on a desert island may have discovered for itself that 
17 objects cannot be divided into equal subsets, 


So no additional entities are needed for a person know that 17 is prime and to express it 
symbollically.  You seem to contradict what you just wrote in the prior paragraph.


Brent



but our statements about that are mere figemnts of our imagination as we could know 
nothing objective and non-imaginative at all about that person. We are imagining 
ourselves to have powers that we simply do not have. We are not omniscient voyeurs of 
Reality and there is not anything that is.




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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 1:53 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 2:50 PM, meekerdb wrote:
I think you are confusing the tokens "2 = 1+1" with the proposition 2 = 1+1.  The 
former requires someone who understands the notation to interpret it, but the latter is 
the interpretation, i.e. the concept.  A concept has meaning by definition, otherwise 
we say we cannot conceptualize it, e.g. klognee flarbles myrable, and so there is 
nothing to assign a truth value to.


 Dear Brent,

What is it that distinguishes between tokens and propositions?


Tokens are the physical elements (e.g. letters, words, sounds) that are used to represent 
a proposition in a particular language.  The proposition is the abstracted meaning which 
is independent of particular language.  So "Zwei est ein und ein." are tokens expressing 
the same proposition as "Two equals one plus one." which is that 2=1+1.


Brent





there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or false. To insist that 
a statement has a meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological condition where no 
entities capable of judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!


That sounds like idealism, but whatever it is sll theories that will explain the world 
to us are going to have to apply to times and places where there are no humans.  So I 
guess the question is whether 2=1+1 means to you what it means to the rest of us.  If 
it does it can be part of our explanation.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
"In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or 
reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise 
immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility 
of knowing any mind-independent thing. ... As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes 
further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit.[2] Idealism thus 
rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind. An 
extreme version of this idealism can exist in the philosophical notion of solipsism."


Does that seem like what I am claiming? NO! That is the wiki definition of Idealism, 
and I agree with that definition and its implications and I reject idealism.




Brent





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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 3:05 PM, meekerdb wrote:
[SPK] Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of symbols 
"17 is prime" is an indicator of some particular mathematical object 
and one of its particular properties, then how does "17 is prime" 
come to mean anything at all? 


I agree with that.  But you're talking about the tokens "17 is prime" 
not the concept that 17 is prime.  Could not a person who grew up 
alone on an island realize that 17 has no divisors, and he could even 
invent a private language in which he could write down Peano's axioms.


Why are you using such trivial and parochial framing for abstract 
questions? Why the reference to single individuals? Did you not 
understand that I am claiming that meaningfulness requires at least the 
possibility of interaction between many entities such that each can 
evaluate the truth value of a proposition and thus can truthfully claim 
to have knowledge of true statements?
A person that grew and died on a desert island may have discovered 
for itself that 17 objects cannot be divided into equal subsets, but our 
statements about that are mere figemnts of our imagination as we could 
know nothing objective and non-imaginative at all about that person. We 
are imagining ourselves to have powers that we simply do not have. We 
are not omniscient voyeurs of Reality and there is not anything that is.


--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 2:58 PM, meekerdb wrote:
If there were no humans, no human level consciousness, would it still 
be true that Holmes assistant is Watson?


Brent


If there there where no humans and no human level consciousness, 
what meaning would the sentence "It is true that Holmes assistant is 
Watson" have? It would be an empty syllogism at best for some non-human 
with non-human consciousness to evaluate.


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Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 2:50 PM, meekerdb wrote:
I think you are confusing the tokens "2 = 1+1" with the proposition 2 
= 1+1.  The former requires someone who understands the notation to 
interpret it, but the latter is the interpretation, i.e. the concept.  
A concept has meaning by definition, otherwise we say we cannot 
conceptualize it, e.g. klognee flarbles myrable, and so there is 
nothing to assign a truth value to.


 Dear Brent,

What is it that distinguishes between tokens and propositions?



there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or 
false. To insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or 
false) in an ontological condition where no entities capable of 
judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!


That sounds like idealism, but whatever it is sll theories that will 
explain the world to us are going to have to apply to times and places 
where there are no humans.  So I guess the question is whether 2=1+1 
means to you what it means to the rest of us.  If it does it can be 
part of our explanation.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
"In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that 
reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally 
constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism 
manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any 
mind-independent thing. ... As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes 
further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit.[2] 
Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to 
ascribe priority to the mind. An extreme version of this idealism can 
exist in the philosophical notion of solipsism."


Does that seem like what I am claiming? NO! That is the wiki 
definition of Idealism, and I agree with that definition and its 
implications and I reject idealism.




Brent



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Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 2:27 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King >


On 10/30/2012 2:00 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

My argument is that concepts of truth and
provability of theorems apply only to the concepts
of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers
themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences
representing them for some machine/numbers. If not,
comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing? "Two" has no truth value, but
"Two equals one plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using
this to assert that the truth of, say  "Two equals one
plus one." depend on some numbers or subject having to
discover it, or prove it.

Bruno

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




Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being
an ontological primitive *and* having some particular
set of values and meanings. A statement, such as 2 = 1+1
or two equals one plus one, are said truthfully to have
the same meaning because there are multiple and
separable entities that can have the agreement on the
truth value. In the absence of the ability to judge a
statement independently of any particular entity capable
of "understanding" the statement, there is no meaning to
the concept that the statement is true or false. To
insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or
false) in an ontological condition where no entities
capable of judging the meaning, begs the question of
meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your
arguments disallow.


Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about...
If you deny meaning to '17 is prime' absent an entity which
gives to it its meaning... then you're simply negating
arithmetical realism and with it computationalism (ie:
consciousness is emulable qua computatio).

Quentin


Hi Quentin,

Well, therefore I must reject arithmetical realism as
"unreal" by definition! Individual entities are incapable of
"giving meaning" to things, be they puppies or prime numbers.
It requires an *agreement between many entities* to have
meaningfulness. I claim that it takes at least three entities...

 If objects that are proposed to be "real" are not
observable by anyone then they don't exist! Where am I going
off the rails? I think that the problem here is that the
distinction between "not observable by any particular entity"
and "not observable by any entity" are being confused. I am
reminded of Einstein's silly quip about the Moon still
existing even if he was not looking at it. The poor old
fellow neglected to notice that he was not the only entity
that was capable of being affected by the presence or
non-presence of the Moon!

You might have seen my definition of Reality. Do you
recall it?



So in your view, no humans (no consciouness) implies... 17 is
prime or not is not meaningful ? Only consciousness gives meaning
to thing... yet it seems absurd that truth value would disappear
without consciousness.

Quentin


Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of
symbols "17 is prime" is an indicator of some particular
mathematical object and one of its particular properties, then how
does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all? Can you stop
subconsciously assuming an invisible observer whose sole job is to
observe everything from infinity? It seems that you cannot if what
I am writing is mysterious to you!
How is it not absurd that meaningfulness exists in the absence
of anyone that can apprehend it? Please note that I am not
considering the absence of any one entity; I am considering the
absence of all possible entities in the degenerativeness or
vanishing of meaningfulness. I am asking "Why is it OK to think
that meaningfulness exists in the absence of any means to
determine it?".


Well what you're explaining just feels like the

Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

On 10/30/2012 11:22 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 2:00 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems apply
only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers
themselves.

Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some
machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.

So your are agreeing? "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one
plus
one." does.

Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert
that the
truth of, say "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or
subject
having to discover it, or prove it.

Bruno

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

Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological
primitive *and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A
statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said
truthfully to
have the same meaning because there are multiple and separable entities
that
can have the agreement on the truth value. In the absence of the
ability to
judge a statement independently of any particular entity capable of
"understanding" the statement, there is no meaning to the concept that
the
statement is true or false. To insist that a statement has a meaning
and is
true (or false) in an ontological condition where no entities capable of
judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!
You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.

Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you deny
meaning to
'17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to it its meaning... then you're
simply
negating arithmetical realism and with it computationalism (ie:
consciousness is
emulable qua computatio).

Quentin

Hi Quentin,

Well, therefore I must reject arithmetical realism as "unreal" by
definition!
Individual entities are incapable of "giving meaning" to things, be they
puppies or
prime numbers. It requires an *agreement between many entities* to have
meaningfulness. I claim that it takes at least three entities...

If objects that are proposed to be "real" are not observable by anyone
then
they don't exist! Where am I going off the rails? I think that the problem
here is
that the distinction between "not observable by any particular entity" and
"not
observable by any entity" are being confused. I am reminded of Einstein's
silly
quip about the Moon still existing even if he was not looking at it. The
poor old
fellow neglected to notice that he was not the only entity that was capable
of
being affected by the presence or non-presence of the Moon!

You might have seen my definition of Reality. Do you recall it?

So in your view, no humans (no consciouness) implies... 17 is prime or not is not
meaningful ? Only consciousness gives meaning to thing... yet it seems absurd that
truth value would disappear without consciousness.

Quentin

Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of symbols "17 is prime" is an
indicator of some particular mathematical object and one of its particular properties,
then how does "17 is prime" come to mean anything at all?

I agree with that. But you're talking about the tokens "17 is prime" not the concept that
17 is prime. Could not a person who grew up alone on an island realize that 17 has no
divisors, and he could even invent a private language in which he could write down Peano's
axioms.

Brent

Can you stop subconsciously assuming an invisible observer whose sole job is to observe
everything from infinity? It seems that you cannot if what I am writing is mysterious to
you!
How is it not absurd that meaningfulness exists in the absence of anyone that can
apprehend it? Please note that I am not considering the absence of any one entity; I am
considering the absence of all possible entities in the degenerativeness or vanishing of
meaningfulness. I am asking "Why is it OK to think that meaningfulness exists in the
absence of any means to determine it?".

--
Onward!

Stephen
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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 11:00 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems apply
only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers
themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some
machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one 
plus
one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert 
that the
truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or 
subject
having to discover it, or prove it.

Bruno

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



Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological
primitive *and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A 
statement,
such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said truthfully to have 
the
same meaning because there are multiple and separable entities that can 
have
the agreement on the truth value. In the absence of the ability to 
judge a
statement independently of any particular entity capable of 
"understanding" the
statement, there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is 
true or
false. To insist that a statement has a meaning and is true (or false) 
in an
ontological condition where no entities capable of judging the meaning, 
begs
the question of meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.


Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you deny 
meaning to
'17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to it its meaning... then you're 
simply
negating arithmetical realism and with it computationalism (ie: 
consciousness is
emulable qua computatio).

Quentin


Hi Quentin,

Well, therefore I must reject arithmetical realism as "unreal" by 
definition!
Individual entities are incapable of "giving meaning" to things, be they 
puppies or
prime numbers. It requires an *agreement between many entities* to have
meaningfulness. I claim that it takes at least three entities...

 If objects that are proposed to be "real" are not observable by anyone 
then
they don't exist! Where am I going off the rails? I think that the problem 
here is
that the distinction between "not observable by any particular entity" and 
"not
observable by any entity" are being confused. I am reminded of Einstein's 
silly quip
about the Moon still existing even if he was not looking at it. The poor 
old fellow
neglected to notice that he was not the only entity that was capable of 
being
affected by the presence or non-presence of the Moon!

You might have seen my definition of Reality. Do you recall it?



So in your view, no humans (no consciouness) implies... 17 is prime or not is not 
meaningful ? Only consciousness gives meaning to thing... yet it seems absurd that truth 
value would disappear without consciousness.


If there were no humans, no human level consciousness, would it still be true that Holmes 
assistant is Watson?


Brent

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 10:43 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems apply 
only to
the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some
machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one plus 
one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert that 
the truth
of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or subject 
having to
discover it, or prove it.

Bruno

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



Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological 
primitive
*and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A statement, such 
as 2 =
1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said truthfully to have the same 
meaning because
there are multiple and separable entities that can have the agreement on 
the truth
value. In the absence of the ability to judge a statement independently of 
any
particular entity capable of "understanding" the statement, there is no 
meaning to
the concept that the statement is true or false. To insist that a statement 
has a
meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological condition where no 
entities capable
of judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.


Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you deny meaning to '17 
is prime' absent an entity which gives to it its meaning... then you're simply negating 
arithmetical realism and with it computationalism (ie: consciousness is emulable qua 
computatio).


I don't see why denying mathematical realism would entail saying no to the doctor.  The 
doctor isn't proposing to replace part of you brain with a piece of Platonia, he has a 
real physical device to implant.


Brent

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

On 10/30/2012 10:39 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:

On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems apply only to the
concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers themselves.

Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some
machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.

So your are agreeing? "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one plus one."
does.

Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert that the truth of,
say "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or subject having to discover
it, or prove it.

Bruno

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

Dear Bruno,

I think you are confusing the tokens "2 = 1+1" with the proposition 2 = 1+1. The former
requires someone who understands the notation to interpret it, but the latter is the
interpretation, i.e. the concept. A concept has meaning by definition, otherwise we say
we cannot conceptualize it, e.g. klognee flarbles myrable, and so there is nothing to
assign a truth value to.

there is no meaning to the concept that the statement is true or false. To insist that a
statement has a meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological condition where no
entities capable of judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!

That sounds like idealism, but whatever it is sll theories that will explain the world to
us are going to have to apply to times and places where there are no humans. So I guess
the question is whether 2=1+1 means to you what it means to the rest of us. If it does it
can be part of our explanation.

Brent

You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.
--
Onward!

Stephen
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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-30 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/10/30 Stephen P. King 

>  On 10/30/2012 2:00 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>
>
> 2012/10/30 Stephen P. King 
>
>>  On 10/30/2012 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> 2012/10/30 Stephen P. King 
>>
>>>  On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>  On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:
>>>
>>>  On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>  My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems
>>> apply only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to
>>> numbers themselves.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some
>>> machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.
>>>
>>>
>>> So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one
>>> plus one." does.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
>>> But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert that
>>> the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or
>>> subject having to discover it, or prove it.
>>>
>>>  Bruno
>>>
>>>http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>>
>>>
>>>   Dear Bruno,
>>>
>>> My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological
>>> primitive *and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A
>>> statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said truthfully
>>> to have the same meaning because there are multiple and separable entities
>>> that can have the agreement on the truth value. In the absence of the
>>> ability to judge a statement independently of any particular entity capable
>>> of "understanding" the statement, there is no meaning to the concept that
>>> the statement is true or false. To insist that a statement has a meaning
>>> and is true (or false) in an ontological condition where no entities
>>> capable of judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!
>>>You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.
>>>
>>
>> Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you deny
>> meaning to '17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to it its meaning...
>> then you're simply negating arithmetical realism and with it
>> computationalism (ie: consciousness is emulable qua computatio).
>>
>> Quentin
>>
>>  Hi Quentin,
>>
>> Well, therefore I must reject arithmetical realism as "unreal" by
>> definition! Individual entities are incapable of "giving meaning" to
>> things, be they puppies or prime numbers. It requires an *agreement between
>> many entities* to have meaningfulness. I claim that it takes at least three
>> entities...
>>
>>  If objects that are proposed to be "real" are not observable by
>> anyone then they don't exist! Where am I going off the rails? I think that
>> the problem here is that the distinction between "not observable by any
>> particular entity" and "not observable by any entity" are being confused. I
>> am reminded of Einstein's silly quip about the Moon still existing even if
>> he was not looking at it. The poor old fellow neglected to notice that he
>> was not the only entity that was capable of being affected by the presence
>> or non-presence of the Moon!
>>
>> You might have seen my definition of Reality. Do you recall it?
>>
>
>
> So in your view, no humans (no consciouness) implies... 17 is prime or not
> is not meaningful ? Only consciousness gives meaning to thing... yet it
> seems absurd that truth value would disappear without consciousness.
>
> Quentin
>
>
> Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of symbols "17 is
> prime" is an indicator of some particular mathematical object and one of
> its particular properties, then how does "17 is prime" come to mean
> anything at all? Can you stop subconsciously assuming an invisible observer
> whose sole job is to observe everything from infinity? It seems that you
> cannot if what I am writing is mysterious to you!
> How is it not absurd that meaningfulness exists in the absence of
> anyone that can apprehend it? Please note that I am not considering the
> absence of any one entity; I am considering the absence of all possible
> entities in the degenerativeness or vanishing of meaningfulness. I am
> asking "Why is it OK to think that meaningfulness exists in the absence of
> any means to determine it?".
>
>
Well what you're explaining just feels like the egg and the chicken...
meaning is an internal view, if computationalism is true, observer and
meaning arise through computation... computation would be ontologically
real and primitive.

Quentin


>
>  --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
>
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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 2:00 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King >


On 10/30/2012 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King mailto:stephe...@charter.net>>

On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of
theorems apply only to the concepts of numbers and their
constructions, not to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing
them for some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even
makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two
equals one plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to
assert that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one."
depend on some numbers or subject having to discover it, or
prove it.

Bruno

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




Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an
ontological primitive *and* having some particular set of
values and meanings. A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two
equals one plus one, are said truthfully to have the same
meaning because there are multiple and separable entities
that can have the agreement on the truth value. In the
absence of the ability to judge a statement independently of
any particular entity capable of "understanding" the
statement, there is no meaning to the concept that the
statement is true or false. To insist that a statement has a
meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological condition
where no entities capable of judging the meaning, begs the
question of meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments
disallow.


Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If
you deny meaning to '17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to
it its meaning... then you're simply negating arithmetical
realism and with it computationalism (ie: consciousness is
emulable qua computatio).

Quentin


Hi Quentin,

Well, therefore I must reject arithmetical realism as "unreal"
by definition! Individual entities are incapable of "giving
meaning" to things, be they puppies or prime numbers. It requires
an *agreement between many entities* to have meaningfulness. I
claim that it takes at least three entities...

 If objects that are proposed to be "real" are not observable
by anyone then they don't exist! Where am I going off the rails? I
think that the problem here is that the distinction between "not
observable by any particular entity" and "not observable by any
entity" are being confused. I am reminded of Einstein's silly quip
about the Moon still existing even if he was not looking at it.
The poor old fellow neglected to notice that he was not the only
entity that was capable of being affected by the presence or
non-presence of the Moon!

You might have seen my definition of Reality. Do you recall it?



So in your view, no humans (no consciouness) implies... 17 is prime or 
not is not meaningful ? Only consciousness gives meaning to thing... 
yet it seems absurd that truth value would disappear without 
consciousness.


Quentin


Unless multiple entities can agree that the sequence of symbols "17 
is prime" is an indicator of some particular mathematical object and one 
of its particular properties, then how does "17 is prime" come to mean 
anything at all? Can you stop subconsciously assuming an invisible 
observer whose sole job is to observe everything from infinity? It seems 
that you cannot if what I am writing is mysterious to you!
How is it not absurd that meaningfulness exists in the absence of 
anyone that can apprehend it? Please note that I am not considering the 
absence of any one entity; I am considering the absence of all possible 
entities in the degenerativeness or vanishing of meaningfulness. I am 
asking "Why is it OK to think that meaningfulness exists in the absence 
of any means to determine it?".



--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-30 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/10/30 Stephen P. King 

>  On 10/30/2012 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>
>
> 2012/10/30 Stephen P. King 
>
>>  On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>>  On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:
>>
>>  On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>  My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems apply
>> only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers
>> themselves.
>>
>>
>>  Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some
>> machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.
>>
>>
>> So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one plus
>> one." does.
>>
>>
>>  Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
>> But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert that
>> the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or
>> subject having to discover it, or prove it.
>>
>>  Bruno
>>
>>http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>   Dear Bruno,
>>
>> My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological
>> primitive *and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A
>> statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said truthfully
>> to have the same meaning because there are multiple and separable entities
>> that can have the agreement on the truth value. In the absence of the
>> ability to judge a statement independently of any particular entity capable
>> of "understanding" the statement, there is no meaning to the concept that
>> the statement is true or false. To insist that a statement has a meaning
>> and is true (or false) in an ontological condition where no entities
>> capable of judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!
>>You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.
>>
>
> Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you deny
> meaning to '17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to it its meaning...
> then you're simply negating arithmetical realism and with it
> computationalism (ie: consciousness is emulable qua computatio).
>
> Quentin
>
>  Hi Quentin,
>
> Well, therefore I must reject arithmetical realism as "unreal" by
> definition! Individual entities are incapable of "giving meaning" to
> things, be they puppies or prime numbers. It requires an *agreement between
> many entities* to have meaningfulness. I claim that it takes at least three
> entities...
>
>  If objects that are proposed to be "real" are not observable by
> anyone then they don't exist! Where am I going off the rails? I think that
> the problem here is that the distinction between "not observable by any
> particular entity" and "not observable by any entity" are being confused. I
> am reminded of Einstein's silly quip about the Moon still existing even if
> he was not looking at it. The poor old fellow neglected to notice that he
> was not the only entity that was capable of being affected by the presence
> or non-presence of the Moon!
>
> You might have seen my definition of Reality. Do you recall it?
>


So in your view, no humans (no consciouness) implies... 17 is prime or not
is not meaningful ? Only consciousness gives meaning to thing... yet it
seems absurd that truth value would disappear without consciousness.

Quentin

> --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
>
>  --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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>



-- 
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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 1:43 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:



2012/10/30 Stephen P. King >


On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of
theorems apply only to the concepts of numbers and their
constructions, not to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them
for some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals
one plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to
assert that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend
on some numbers or subject having to discover it, or prove it.

Bruno

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




Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an
ontological primitive *and* having some particular set of values
and meanings. A statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus
one, are said truthfully to have the same meaning because there
are multiple and separable entities that can have the agreement on
the truth value. In the absence of the ability to judge a
statement independently of any particular entity capable of
"understanding" the statement, there is no meaning to the concept
that the statement is true or false. To insist that a statement
has a meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological condition
where no entities capable of judging the meaning, begs the
question of meaningfulness!
   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments
disallow.


Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you 
deny meaning to '17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to it its 
meaning... then you're simply negating arithmetical realism and with 
it computationalism (ie: consciousness is emulable qua computatio).


Quentin


Hi Quentin,

Well, therefore I must reject arithmetical realism as "unreal" by 
definition! Individual entities are incapable of "giving meaning" to 
things, be they puppies or prime numbers. It requires an *agreement 
between many entities* to have meaningfulness. I claim that it takes at 
least three entities...


 If objects that are proposed to be "real" are not observable by 
anyone then they don't exist! Where am I going off the rails? I think 
that the problem here is that the distinction between "not observable by 
any particular entity" and "not observable by any entity" are being 
confused. I am reminded of Einstein's silly quip about the Moon still 
existing even if he was not looking at it. The poor old fellow neglected 
to notice that he was not the only entity that was capable of being 
affected by the presence or non-presence of the Moon!


You might have seen my definition of Reality. Do you recall it?

--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-30 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2012/10/30 Stephen P. King 

>  On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
>  On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:
>
>  On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>  My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems apply
> only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not to numbers
> themselves.
>
>
>  Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for some
> machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.
>
>
> So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one plus
> one." does.
>
>
>  Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
> But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert that
> the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some numbers or
> subject having to discover it, or prove it.
>
>  Bruno
>
>http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>  Dear Bruno,
>
> My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological
> primitive *and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A
> statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said truthfully
> to have the same meaning because there are multiple and separable entities
> that can have the agreement on the truth value. In the absence of the
> ability to judge a statement independently of any particular entity capable
> of "understanding" the statement, there is no meaning to the concept that
> the statement is true or false. To insist that a statement has a meaning
> and is true (or false) in an ontological condition where no entities
> capable of judging the meaning, begs the question of meaningfulness!
>You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.
>

Hmm... but that's what arithmetical realism is all about... If you deny
meaning to '17 is prime' absent an entity which gives to it its meaning...
then you're simply negating arithmetical realism and with it
computationalism (ie: consciousness is emulable qua computatio).

Quentin

> --
> Onward!
>
> Stephen
>
>  --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Everything List" group.
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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 12:51 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems 
apply only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not 
to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for 
some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one 
plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert 
that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some 
numbers or subject having to discover it, or prove it.


Bruno

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



Dear Bruno,

My point is that a number is not a capable of being an ontological 
primitive *and* having some particular set of values and meanings. A 
statement, such as 2 = 1+1 or two equals one plus one, are said 
truthfully to have the same meaning because there are multiple and 
separable entities that can have the agreement on the truth value. In 
the absence of the ability to judge a statement independently of any 
particular entity capable of "understanding" the statement, there is no 
meaning to the concept that the statement is true or false. To insist 
that a statement has a meaning and is true (or false) in an ontological 
condition where no entities capable of judging the meaning, begs the 
question of meaningfulness!

   You are taking for granted some things that your arguments disallow.

--
Onward!

Stephen

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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm


On 10/30/2012 12:38 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
No? If they do not have something equivalent to concepts, how can 
they dream?


Yes, the universal numbers can have concept.

Dear Bruno,

Let's start over. Please plain in detail what is a universal number 
and how it (and not ordinary numbers) have concepts or 1p.


--
Onward!

Stephen


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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm

2012-10-30 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 30 Oct 2012, at 17:04, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/30/2012 4:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


My argument is that concepts of truth and provability of theorems  
apply only to the concepts of numbers and their constructions, not  
to numbers themselves.


Truth applies to proposition, or sentences representing them for  
some machine/numbers. If not, comp does not even makes sense.


So your are agreeing?  "Two" has no truth value, but "Two equals one  
plus one." does.


Yes I agree. It seems I insisted on this a lot.
But in this context, it seems that Stephen was using this to assert  
that the truth of, say  "Two equals one plus one." depend on some  
numbers or subject having to discover it, or prove it.


Bruno

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



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Re: Numbers in the Platonic Realm