Le 21-août-06, à 16:23, 1Z a écrit :
>
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> Le 21-août-06, à 13:34, 1Z a écrit :
>>
>>
>>> If Plato's heaven doesn't exist, I can't be in it.
>>
>>
>> I can hardly not agree with that.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> If numbers do not explain my existence -- explaining
>>> how a strucuture like a physial world would emerge from
>>> a UD if a UD existed does not explain my *existence* --
>>> then something else does, such as matter.
>>
>>
>> 1) I don't think think so at all. Even if numbers cannot explain your
>> existence, it does not follows that matter can explain it, nor God,
>> nor
>> anything else a priori.
>
> Matter has been a succesful explanation for many centuries -- an
> aposteriori explanation. Who said that only apriori explanations are
> acceptable ?
> Is that the premiss underlying your other premisses ?
I talk about primitive or primary matter. Just show me one text where
that notion explain anything.
I have never find a physical theory using it, except that it is
implicitly assume in the background, but the notion are never referred
too.
>
>
>> Actually, assuming the comp hyp., the UDA shows
>> precisely why a notion of primitive matter cannot explain the mind.
>
> Matter can explain anything computationalism or
> mathematics can explain, since any computaiotnal
> or mathematical structurecan be implmented in matter.
Read UDA. Primary matter is shown to be without any explanatory
purpose. You can still believe in it, like anyone can believe that car
are really pulled by invisible horses, and no thermodynamician will be
able to prove that wrong. They can only argue it is unnecessary. All
the same with UDA: it shows that primary matter has no purpose.
>
> It can also provide support for time and qulia, and
> explain away HP universes.
All serious people in the philosophy of mind agree that the mind-body
problem is not yet solved. Even Dennett agrees on this in the last
chapter of his "consciousness explained". Matter makes things worst
because, at least with comp, we have to justify it without positing it.
>
>> 2) Numbers, and the UD, by existing just in the usual sense of realist
>> mathematicians (like in statements similar to "it exists a perfect
>> number") explains completely your (correct, non illusory) *feeling*
>> of existence, including both the sharable part of it (quanta) and the
>> unsharable part of it (the qualia).
>
> Only if the "usual sense of realist mathematicians" is
> a sense amouting to the kind of existence I actually
> have (even if I mistakenly think that is material existence,
> I still have ot exist in some sense in order to make the mistake!).
>
> But that is what I have been saying all along. The argumentative
> work is being done by the hidden assumption of Platonism,
> not the explicit assumption of computationalism.
>
>> 3) ... and all this in a testable way, given that comp makes precise
>> predictions.
>>
>> Let me simplify to be clearer. The TOE has made progress:
>>
>>
>> 1) Copenhagen TOE:
>>
>> -Numbers
>> -Wave equation
>> -Unintelligible mind theory (collapse)
>>
>>
>>
>> 2) Everett TOE:
>>
>> -Wave equation
>
> Everett is compatible with standard computationalism.
> It doesn't have to assume computationalism. Any non-magical
> theory of mind will do.
Well, actually I do agree a bit with you here. But comp is assumed by
almost all many-worlder. This is because comp is the only known theory
of mind which does not posit actual infinities, and in general people
attracted to MW are motivated by searching a theory compatatible with
reasonable approach to the mind.
>
> Not just computationalism, because you need to
> assume a UD exists
No. The UD exists by AR, without which CT would not make sense.
I recall that by "the UD exists", I mean just that the truth of some
existential proposition in number theory is independent of me.
I'm afraid you are defending a (widespread) aristotelian misconception
of Platonia, like if it was some magical realm in which the numbers
exists, when I just mean the usual meaning of existence of numbers. Yes
the usual meaning is platonist. Mathematicians are almost all platonist
about natural numbers, even the week-end.
I think that if you study the UDA, it will be easier for you to
interpret the terms by the use I make of them.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.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 Wed Aug 23 2006 - 05:21:00 PDT