1Z wrote:
> > This isn't a surprise surely, because 'matter' is defined purely
> > relationally as behaviour.
>
> By whom ?
Not by me! I mean that I assume that it is defined this way in the
'AR+CT+YD' version of comp. Whereas I need a 'substrate' to carry my
sense of reflexive ontic 'realism' or 'seriousness'. I think our views
can be reconciled (see below).
> >I just can't
> > see, except in 'as if' mode, how AR truly serves as 'ontic ground zero'
> > in this 'maximally serious' sense.
>
> Some of us think matter does...
And as it happens we both may be included in this 'some of us'! I've
been reading with interest your exchange with Bruno re the 'existence'
of numbers etc - also what you've been saying to Stathis about the
significance of instantiation and the consequent difference between
'programme and process'. I've always felt that that much of our
disagreement was language based, and reading these conversations has
reinforced this. When you say:
> If numbers don't exist in the sense that I exist, then I cannot be a number.
I'm perfectly happy to agree. And 'in the sense that I exist' is what
I always intended by 'personal', etc. Consequently, as far as I'm
concerned, we can agree on 'reflexive necessity' as ontic ground zero.
IOW, we both ask that whatever is postulated as the fons et origo of
existence should exist 'in the sense that I exist'. I think the
difference in language is mainly that my mental picture begins with the
'situated view' and yours with the 'external view', but I think we both
believe that a 'serious' view of 'existence' cannot dispense with
either, and must reconcile and unify them. Hence the idea of a 'bare
substrate' as indispensible to carry this basic sense of existence,
within which relationally defined 'properties' and 'phenomena' can then
coherently find their expression.
But it seems to me that inherent in Bruno's (and Stathis') view is a
desire to have relationality without the relata, and although this may
lead to some unexpected epistemological insights, it leads IMO to a
fatally incoherent theory of 'existence', with a concomittant
trivialisation, amounting to dismissal, of the whole notion of
instantiation. There is a fundamental disagreement here on the mutual
dependency of 'personal existence' and 'conceptual existence'. I hold,
and I think you do too, that 'I exist' must be prior to 'concepts
exist', whereas AR+CT+YD holds the opposite. So its article of faith
becomes:
'If I don't exist in the sense that numbers exist, then I cannot be.'
Actually, your recent debates on these issues have come as close as
I've seen on the list to pinning down the precise terms of disagreement
between what amounts two two camps. It would be a great service to the
list if we could achieve a position where the 'articles of faith' of
each camp could be unambiguously defined, even if not reconciled. For a
start, have you a view on the status, as empirical *evidence* for your
position, of what you intend by 'the sense I exist'? I ask because both
sides claim the 'sense of existence' as compatible with their views,
and it would be really helpful if this could be shown to be false.
David
> David Nyman wrote:
>
> > This isn't a surprise surely, because 'matter' is defined purely
> > relationally as behaviour.
>
> By whom ?
>
> >I just can't
> > see, except in 'as if' mode, how AR truly serves as 'ontic ground zero'
> > in this 'maximally serious' sense.
>
> Some of us think matter does...
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
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.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list-unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Mon Aug 21 2006 - 10:58:21 PDT