Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 23, Issue 24
Dear Loet, On 22 Feb 2016, at 20:36, Loet Leydesdorff wrote: All worldviews begin in a miracle. No exceptions. I agree. Nevertheless, we should, and can, minimize the miracle. Why would one need a worldview? We need some theory, and around the mind-body problem or the first person/third person views relation problem (my subject) at some point we must be aware of the difference of conception between Aristotle and Plato. Roughly speaking: Aristotle: reality is what we see, observe, measure, etc. Plato: what we see might be only a symptom of a simpler reality (like numbers for example). The digital mechanist hypothesis in cognitive science seems to favor a lot Plato, if not Pythagorus. The whole assumption of an order as a Given (in a Revelation) is religious. What would it mean to do (fundamental) research if we do not postulate some reality? The beauty is that once we assume mechanism, we are led to a very minimal ontologic assumption/ precisely the following theory will do: (classical or intuitinist logic + 0 ≠ s(x) s(x) = s(y) -> x = y x = 0 v Ey(x = s(y)) x+0 = x x+s(y) = s(x+y) x*0=0 x*s(y)=(x*y)+x where s(x) denotes the intended x + 1. I put the induction axioms already in the epistemology. Order is always constructed (by us) and can/needs to be explained. OK, but then we need a theory of "us", and many are OK with the mechanist theory, especially since we can use some theorem in logic to show that universal machine defeat all reductionist theory: they already know that they have a soul which is not a machine, with the soul defined by the conjunction of truth and representation. No “harmonia praestabilita”, but ex post. No endpoint omega. No cosmology, but chaology. To have chaos, you need to assume the axioms given above (or Turing equivalent one). With due respect for those of you who wish to hold on to religion or nature as a given; however, vaguely defined. The religion of the ideally correct machine is platonist: god is a nickname for the ultimate truth that we search, and in that theory, god is not omniscient, not omnipotent, cannot be invoked in reasoning, explanation and any terrestrial affairs, ... Machine can have personal revelation, but cannot prove or communicate them rationally. But they can prove that: they can prove that if God exist, then it has no name, is simple, etc. In fact the nuances brought by incompleteness make that machine theology quasi identical with the discourse of Moderatus of Gades, (a neopythagorean of the first century), Plotinus (neoplatonist, third century). Machines are born "theological": they quickly intuit (produce as true without proving) that truth extends properly reason, when looking inward in the Gödel manner. There is an annulus of "surrationalism" between rationalism and irrationalism. It plays a key role in the explanation of consciousness, qualia, pain, etc, which can also be personally revealed, but not in a provable way. Then such theology contains physics, and so can be tested by comparing with nature. Up to now, it fits rather well. If Mechanism is false, this approach gives experimental tools to measure our degree of non- mechanism. Note that as a scientist, I don't use or mention any public revelation, which in my opinion, are only pseudo-religious political methods to control people (basically no relation with the antic theology of Plato which was banished by such authorities). Best, Bruno ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 23, Issue 24
All worldviews begin in a miracle. No exceptions. I agree. Nevertheless, we should, and can, minimize the miracle. Why would one need a worldview? The whole assumption of an order as a Given (in a Revelation) is religious. Order is always constructed (by us) and can/needs to be explained. No "harmonia praestabilita", but ex post. No endpoint omega. No cosmology, but chaology. With due respect for those of you who wish to hold on to religion or nature as a given; however, vaguely defined. Best, Loet ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 23, Issue 24
Dear Malcolm, On 21 Feb 2016, at 22:51, Malcolm Dean wrote: All worldviews begin in a miracle. No exceptions. I agree. Nevertheless, we should, and can, minimize the miracle. With the digital mechanist assumption, the miracle can be limited to the axioms of elementary arithmetic (or combinatory algebra or any Turing Universal System) + at the meta-level, the assumption that consciousness is an invariant for some digital functional substitution. So the "origin" can be taken as being elementary arithmetic (or Turing- equivalent). God created "only" the natural numbers together with the laws of addition and multiplication. This, then, can be explained as being something that we cannot derive from anything else (except some Turing- equivalent theory), which confirms somehow your idea that at least one miracle is needed, but this illustrates that it can be kept quite minimal. Eventually, this makes Mechanism testable, as it gives no choice for the physical laws(*), and until now, thanks to quantum-mechanics- without-collapse, it looks like nature confirms quite well the digital mechanist hypothesis. This fits very well with the information based approaches, notably your own work, even if the starting motivation and the intended applications can be different. Best, Bruno (*) I am not pretending this is obvious, but that is explained in my papers, notably the recent one in the issues of the Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology under discussion. Malcolm On Feb 21, 2016 3:00 AM, wrote: >- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 07:37:09 +0100 > From: "Loet Leydesdorff" > To: "'Pedro C. Marijuan'" , "'fis'" > > Subject: Re: [Fis] _ Re: Maxine?s presentation > Message-ID: <001801d16c72$4a89c730$df9d5590$@leydesdorff.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Dear Maxine and colleagues, > > It seems to me that the assumption of an origin takes a heavy load on this theory. We know that order can emerge from chaos. Any order will also disappear in the longer run. > > Why would one wish to make such assumptions? Meta-physical? > > Best, > Loet Malcolm ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 23, Issue 24
All worldviews begin in a miracle. No exceptions. Malcolm On Feb 21, 2016 3:00 AM, wrote: >- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 07:37:09 +0100 > From: "Loet Leydesdorff" > To: "'Pedro C. Marijuan'" , "'fis'" > > Subject: Re: [Fis] _ Re: Maxine?s presentation > Message-ID: <001801d16c72$4a89c730$df9d5590$@leydesdorff.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Dear Maxine and colleagues, > > It seems to me that the assumption of an origin takes a heavy load on this theory. We know that order can emerge from chaos. Any order will also disappear in the longer run. > > Why would one wish to make such assumptions? Meta-physical? > > Best, > Loet Malcolm ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
