Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Le 21-nov.-06, à 03:42, Tom Caylor a écrit :
>
>
> > 1. What is the purpose of this 0-person? What role does it play? As
> > soon as we say it has a purpose or role, we've just instantiated it.
> > Why do you (or Plotinus) think we need it?
>
> The 0-person is the big whole. It is the "everything". A physicalist
> could say it is the whole UNIverse. A physicalist MW could say: it is
> the whole multiverse. It is something which could only be viewed from
> outside the universe: that is from nowhere.
>
See me comment below #2.
> ...
>
> The eight hypostases:
>
> ...
>
OK. I follow all of your logic (propositional calculus) once we get
into it. There are two problems with going too far in this. One has
been noted before, that this is pretty technical stuff, although I
enjoy it and would like to hear it out. The other problem is how all
of this logic connects to Everything. That is why I am trying to
understand the 0-person. I think questioning the 0-person might be the
same thing as questioning the assumption of Arithmetic Realism (AR),
but I'm not sure. In the past it may have sounded like I was
supporting AR, but actually I was just arguing that physicalism is not
any more well founded than AR. What I am worried about is that all of
the fancy calculus might end up being something like string theory,
beautiful but how can it be proven that it is the key to understanding
and living in the world around us?
> >
> > 2. This 0-person cannot be the basis for saying that the scientific
> > discourse (and allegedly the Everything List discussions) has to have
> > an impersonal basis. As you say, this 0-person has no discourse. And
> > the hypothetical existence of a 0-person does not rule out the
> > existence of person at the deepest level to which we can relate (as
> > persons).
>
>
> The trick is that a lobian machine as rich as ZF is able to prove the
> whole (provable and unprovable by PA) theology of a simpler lobian
> machine like PA. There is nothing hypothetical in the notion of
> "arithmetical truth" from the pov of a rich (set theoretically based)
> lobian machine. Faith arrives only when a machine begins to bet on its
> *own* correct theology, i.e. its *own* G* if you want (or G* minus G).
>
Here you talk as if the 0-person is always relative to a given limited
G. But above you say that the 0-person is viewed from outside
everywhere (nowhere), i.e. an absolute notion. Which is it?
>
> > I believe the reasoning behind an impersonal basis is based
> > on the desire to get away from the personal at the core level of being.
>
> I don't think so. It comes only from the scientist desire to get away
> of first person truth in the scientific discourse. Actually, the cute
> thing here is that we get a extremely powerful defense of the existence
> of the first person, at the core level of being (despite the need to
> restrict the scientific discourse in the third person discourse).
>
Doesn't the 3rd person provide the discourse of 1st person? Again, why
is the 0-person needed? You didn't answer that question above; you
simply restated what the 0-person is.
So the 3rd person is the discourse of the 1st person. OK. That's
simply labeling what's there. It isn't trying to get away from 1st
person truth. We don't have to *try* to get away from 1st person
truth. When we say anything about 1st person we *automatically* are in
the 3rd person by definition.
What I am calling into question is the need for 0-person, and the
motive for saying we need it. As I stated before, I think it is an
attempt to elevate the impersonal to the "god" level. That way we
don't have to worry about the personal at the core of being because
we've artifically stuck the impersonal at the core.
>
> Exercice: show that the UD is not a Universal Machine (at all). It is
> enough to show that the UD cannot crash. Indeed it has no inputs! (Now
> there is a sense in which we could say that the UD is "borned crashed"
> given that it is programmed for non stopping (my usual definition of
> crashed). So there is a sense to say that the UD is a "crashed
> universal machine".
>
The other definition of crashing is that the machine takes an input for
which the output is not defined. So since the UD does not have an
input, crashing is not possible.
I also see your reasoning about the "crashed UM" based on your usual
definition of crashed. But this makes me think that I should not trust
the output of the UD, if it is "crashed". So would you call a machine
that generates the natural numbers a crashed machine? Probably just a
linguistic curiosity.
>
> >
> > Weyl quote is interesting though in that it cites the infinite in the
> > first half in reference to good, and it cites our finiteness in the
> > second half in reference to evil.
> >
> > I would say that our finiteness (or other limitations such as a need
> > for a particular reference frame) is not sufficient for the existence
> > of evil.
> ...
>
> Yes, evil belongs intrinsically to the realm of the ideally correct
> self-observing universal machine.
>
> ...
Again, simply realizing our own limitations is not cause for doing
evil. It is when we are dissatified with our own limitations, and we
want to elevate ourselves above where we are, that we are tempted to do
evil. We are finite, so there will always be a level at which it will
be impossible for us to see truth and operate in it. Elevating our
understanding inside of our capabilities is good, I am not discounting
that. But it is a simple mathematical problem that we will always find
a limit to what we can do. This is fine. No evil yet. But it is when
we try to go above that limit at all costs, taking "more is better" as
our ultimate motto, that we end up stepping on others to do it.
So what is the answer? What is the "balance" (not a good word) between
a) staying within our limits and b) the expanding our knowledge by a
combination of leaps of intuition and logical inference? I have a view
of this, but it will be good to get others' views also. Hint: I think
this is connected to Stathis' post, that this is where faith comes in.
More later.
> >
> > This is my point. We go too far when we let our view of the "natural
> > order" (or "god"!) be the dictator of what can happen. Indeed this is
> > actually making ourselves the center of the universe (multiverse).
> > This is against the true essence of spirituality.
>
> I agree with you. "Naturalism" as implicit metaphysics or theology is
> as fake as any form of authoritative dogma. Of course a *doubting*
> naturalist can remain scientific. But a naturalist who says that when
> we die, we will not born again (like many materialist believes) is just
> "religious" in the worst sense of the word. The truth is that we don't
> know, but can propose theories.
> With comp, it is easy to kill oneself ... locally. It is harder ...
> globally. With comp it remains possible that consciousness is a sort
> of prison, as Otto Rossler extracts from Descartes (I agree with him on
> that).
>
>
It is interesting that strict naturalism is a prison, and yet with comp
you also end up in a prison. Anything that is based on us being at the
center is a prison.
>
>
> > If God is the one who does miracles, then from his Gods-eye view a
> > miracle is simply a rare event, not inconsistent at all. But from our
> > view a miracle is something that punctuates the equilibrium of the
> > computable "natural order" that we have deduced from the relative calm
> > in which we live.
>
>
> Perhaps. I have only extracted the logic of "probability/credibility
> one". I will cautiously not venture myself on the very hard notion of
> "historical rare event" (as opposed to the "future" white rabbits,
> which must be explained away if the comp idea has to survive).
>
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
OK.
Tom
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Received on Wed Nov 22 2006 - 12:27:32 PST