Re: Numbers, Machine and Father Ted

From: 1Z <peterdjones.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 08:52:14 -0700

Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Le 23-oct.-06, à 14:29, 1Z a écrit :
>
> >
> >
> > Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >> Le 20-oct.-06, à 17:04, 1Z a écrit :
> >>
> >>> As usual, the truth of a mathematical existence-claim does not
> >>> prove Platonism.
> >>
> >> By Platonism, or better "arithmetical realism" I just mean the belief
> >> by many mathematician in the non constructive proof of "OR"
> >> statements.
> >
> > So where is the UD running? If Platonia doesn't exist,
> > how can I be in it?
>
>
>
> You miss the point. For asserting that the UD exists, I don't even
> need to use the non-constructive OR. The UD exists for an intuitionist
> as well.
> ("exists" in the same sense that it exists a number which is not the
> sum of three squares (x = 7 for example).


That doesn't answer the question. I am not saying mathematical
statements asserting the mathemtical existence of a UD, or
the number 7, are false. I am asking what mathematical existence
means. Where do mathematical objects exist? In the physical
world? In Platonia? In mathematicians minds? Nowhere?

> I think that in many of your last posts you are begging the point. You
> seem to assume the existence of a physical universe, then you define
> "existence" by existing in the physical universe.

No, I am just asking. I have even
come up with formulations like "real in the sense
that I am real" which avoid begging any questions about what
kind of reality I have.

>I don't assume a
> physical universe. I define existence by the arithmetical truth of

(mathematical)

>existential sentences.

But for anti-Platonists the truth of mathematical statements
has no existential consequences.

> Then I explain in all (technical thus) details
> why immaterial machines/numbers come to feel, perceive, know, believe
> in sharable quanta and unsharable qualia.

Assuming immaterial machines exist.

> You say somewhere that we see matter. I think that this is the main
> difference between you and me, and I would say between Aristotle and
> Plato: Aristotle (like St-Thomas) argues indeed in his metaphysics that
> what we see and measure is what really exist (so that we can sleep in
> peace). Plato and actually most (rational) mystics (from Pythagorus to
> St-Augustin) try to explain that what we see could as well be only the
> shadows of the shadows of the shadows of the shadows ... of what
> perhaps is (so that we have to keep our vigilance and our skepticism or
> our doubting abilities in front of *all* theories (especially including
> those who could have been built in by long evolutionary processes).

Matter can only be a shadow of something that exists.

> All what I say is that (standard) computationalism is epistemologically
> incompatible with materialism. It *is* a necessary-redundancy argument:
> even if matter exists, standard comp makes it impossible to use for
> justifying any stable belief.

But that isn't true. Matter can only be made redundant by some
form of immaterial existence. However immaterial existence,
is *not* implied by *standard* computationalism.
Claims that computationalism necessitates the
truth of mathematical existence claims does not
prove immaterial existence, unless you can
refute the anti-Platonists argument that mathematical
"existence" is non-existence ontologically.

> That is the conclusion of the UDA.

The UDA has to assume the existence of
a UD, and that is not given by standard
computationalism. It is given by Platonism.

> The
> AUDA makes it constructive and can generate the physical laws
> completely (making comp or acomp 100% scientific (popper-testable).
> It remain possible that the translation of UDA in arithmetic is to
> rough, and that is why I say "comp or acomp". But until now, empirical
> physics seems to confirm all the "weird" prediction of (a)comp.
>
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Received on Thu Oct 26 2006 - 11:53:43 PDT

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