David Nyman wrote:
> 1Z wrote:
>
> > This *is* ecumenicism. The buck stops here. What higher
> > court of appeal is there , than consideration of the nature of
> > EVERYTHING?
>
> Touché!
>
> > If Bruno isn't reifying numbers, he's in trouble.
>
> And if the materialist isn't reifying the observables, he's right in
> there with him.
Obviously the materialist is reifying matter.
But then we can *see* material things.
Reification pers e is not the problem; the problem
is reifying what is invisible/uninteractive.
> Take your pick. You know I'm with you in requiring that
> the underlying reality must somehow be Real In The Sense I Am Real. But
> I don't know what reification has to do with it - I'm not a thing.
I mean reification in the most general sense -- of having some
sort of reality.
> The
> interesting issues here IMO are about explanatory power. For the sake
> of empiricism, I hope that comp can make some predictions with respect
> to the instantiation of consciousness and the 1-person that are
> inconsistent with theory couched purely in terms of the 'material
> observables' - i.e posit specifically how the computational emergence
> of 'matter' makes an experimentally disconfirmable difference. I would
> also like to understand how this differs (if indeed it does) from
> computation done on 'real computers' (how I distrust this vocabulary!)
> So although somehow it must all be RITSIAR all the way down, I'm
> prepared to keep my counsel (sine die) as to the 'fundamental' nature
> of the turtles.
>
> > They're metaphysics. Face it.
>
> Yes, of course. All such discourse is metaphysics, what else could it
> be? It is a question of faith if we wish to go beyond this
> acknowledgement and ascribe 'ultimate reality' in the direction of our
> metaphysical gestures.
When I say metaphysical, I don't mean "heopelessly insoluble".
I am just expressing wariness of the idea that there is
some way of reaching metaphsyical conclsuins
by logical or mathematical means, that avoids the pitfalls
of traditional metaphysics.
> In this broad ecumenical spirit, materialism is
> a metaphysics too.
Of course.
> But we should be no less empirically demanding with
> respect to our metaphysics.
Metaphysics is not, and never was, divorced from empiricism.
> And we have no practical alternative (and
> I'm all too aware of the irony) but to act in good faith.
>
> [Scene: Night-time. David is asleep and having a nightmare that he's
> Father Dougal.
> Dougal: "Ted, I've had an idea. We're all just a dream of the Great
> Turtle!"
> Ted: "Get off that bloody computer!"]
>
> 'night.
>
> D
>
> > David Nyman wrote:
> > > Bruno Marchal wrote:
> > >
> > > > If you prefer I should
> > > > have said "associate" instead of "identifying".
> > >
> > > Hi Bruno, welcome back.
> > >
> > > The terminological distinction you now make above is important - maybe
> > > it's another case of Franco-English faux amis (false cognates), but
> > > when you say 'identify' I think it steers Peter (and others) towards
> > > notions of 'reification' of number.
> >
> > If Bruno isn't reifying numbers, he's in trouble.
> >
> > He might be able to reduce an existent physical universe
> > to existent numbers, but he certainly can't reduce it
> > to non-existstent numbers.
> >
> > > To 'associate' (in your sense of
> > > point-for-point commensurability) digital machines with number is a
> > > different matter (literally) than to 'identify' (i.e. posit an absolute
> > > identity between) them.
> >
> > Yes. But if there if Platonia consist only of numbers,
> > and it here is no-one to do the associating in Platonia,
> > there are no machines/computations/algorithms in Platonia.
> >
> > > Perhaps for the future, vis-a-vis reification, we should simply
> > > conclude, with Father Jack: "that would be an ecumenical matter"!
> >
> > This *is* ecumenicism. The buck stops here. What higher
> > court of appeal is there , than consideration of the nature of
> > EVERYTHING?
> >
> > > > Computability is an absolute notion (with CT), but provability is a
> > > > relative (with respect to a machine) notion. Put in another way:
> > > > computations admits a universal dovetailer which generates and run all
> > > > computations, but there is no universal dovetailer for proofs.
> > >
> > > Point taken. The EC 'axioms' may be better conceived as primitive
> > > computations (like the UD), not theorems.
> >
> > They're metaphysics. Face it.
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Received on Thu Oct 19 2006 - 07:58:34 PDT