Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Le 07-sept.-06, à 16:42, 1Z a écrit :
>
> > Rationalists, and hence everythingists, are no better off because they
> > still have to appeal to some contingent brute fact, that *onl*
> > mathemematical
> > (or computational) entities exist, even if *all* such entities do.
> > (Platonia
> > is broad but flat). Since no-one can explain why matter is impossible
> > (as opposed to merely unnecesary) the non-existence of matter is
> > a contingent fact.
>
>
> I guess here you mean "primary matter" for "matter".
>
> Would you say that a thermodynamician has to appeal to the "contingent
> brute fact" that car are not pulled by invisible horses?
Not directly. He would appeal to a background understanding
of physics which is rooted in contingent, observed facts,
not deduction from first principles.
> Does molecular biologist have to appeal to the "contingent brute fact"
> that the vital principle is a crackpot principle?
It is not crackpot in the sense of being logically contradictory,
so it is not a necessary truth, so it is contingent -- indeed
the rejection of vitalism leans on Occam's less-than-certain
razor.
> Should all scientist appeal to the "contingent brute fact" that God is
> most probably neither white, nor black, nor male, nor female, nor
> sitting on a cloud, nor sitting near a cloud ...
What fact would that be? How is it related to empiricism?
Just because some things that are true are not necesarily
true, does not mean anything anyone says qualifies as a contingent
truth.
> Let me be clear on this: comp reduce matter to number relation, it does
> not make matter impossible, it explain it from something else, like
> physics explain temperature from molecules cinetical energy.
Then you cannot say computationalism is false if matter exists.
> And then you come and talk like if physicists would have shown
> temperature impossible?
>
> Do I miss something?
>
> Comp makes primary matter dispensable only like thermodynamics makes
> phlogiston dispensable.
> And I think that's good given that nobody ever succeed in making those
> notion clear.
> I still don't know what do you mean by "primary matter".
To understand that you would
have to undetrstand what I mean by existence. But, to understand that,
you would have to understand what *you* mean by existence.
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Fri Sep 08 2006 - 16:31:24 PDT