Pedagogy question (was: out-of-line)

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:15:54 +0200

Le 25-juil.-07, à 14:10, David Nyman a écrit :



> Hi Bruno
>
> Yes, please do, if that will help.
>
> David
>
> On 25/07/07, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>
>> Hi David,
>>
>> OK. Do you mind if I answer this post online, this could help.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Le 18-juil.-07, à 19:56, David Nyman a écrit :
>>
>> > Hi Bruno
>> >
>> > It's always a pleasure to converse with you on the list, and I
>> > certainly agree that we've made some progress towards a clearer
>> > understanding. I am very conscious of my ignorance, and
>> consequently
>> > have a sincere desire to learn more, and particularly to understand
>> > where I may have gone wrong in my previous ideas. So it helps me
>> > greatly to have a correspondent who goes to the trouble first to
>> > understand and clarify what I may have to say, and then to point out
>> > my errors.





I am not sure you have been gone wrong anywhere. Sometimes you are not
precise enough so that I could compare your talk with the lobian
machine talk. Now, even if you were enough clear so that I could find a
discrepancy between your talk and the machine's one, it would not
necessarily mean you are wrong: it could mean you are not a lobian
machine or entity. My point is just that the comp hyp leads to
assertions about the physical "world" which are enough precise to make
the comp hyp refutable.
You must also realize that the (ideally correct) machine will develop
all the arithmetical points of view, and that there are already a sort
of natural (arithmetical) tension between those points of view.
Sometimes two different persons discussing in the list seems to have
different ideas where I can see that they are both correct, but just
doesn't not look at things from the same angle or perspective. All this
is obviously related with the very intrinsical difficulty of the
subject itself.






>> I'll continue to study your papers, to the best of my
>> > ability.



OK. Don't hesitate to ask question. I don't mind any question,
including "what are talking about in that or that paragraph".



>> >
>> > Do let me know if there's anything I can do to help, list-wise (or
>> any
>> > other-wise), vis-a-vis your dialogues with the machine (but -
>> > malhereusement - only in English!)


Actually, after the computability meeting in Siena, I have change my
mind about Russell Standish idea that "Conscience et Mecanisme" should
be translated in English. It is not at all outdated indeed, and
contains more than 400 pages just on the Church thesis impact. Comp is
mainly Church thesis (more so when you get the idea that the lobian
interview eliminates almost completely the need for the thought
experiences and thus the need of the "yes doctor" hypothesis. I have to
write more paper on Church thesis, or at least consecrate more lines of
explanations on that. (Despite people like Emil Post or Judson Webb
seems to me to have already well understood this quite well, ref in my
thesis).

The other pedagogical problem I have is always the same: is it
reasonable to try to explain the lobian interview before a thorough
understanding of the UDA (or at least the seven first steps). This
makes no sense perhaps, except for a pure mathematician.
Have you understand that the UDA literally gives no choice about what
has to be taken as primitive element for any TOE once we assume the
comp hyp?


Concerning the math, do you know the book by Torkel Franzen on the uses
and misuses of Godel theorems? Despite some big mistake I will talk
about, it is a quite excellent book which I would recommend the
reading. Do you have a (passive) knowledge of first order logic? Do you
see that (with x, y ... belonging to the natural numbers).

(x div y) <-> Ez(x * z = y)
prime(x) <-> (~(x = 1) & Ay((y div x) -> (y = 1 V y = x)))

Do you have an idea how Godel manages to define in a similar way the
provability predicate in the arithmetical language (= first order
logical language + the symbols =, 0, +, *, s).


Anyway, I should have a bit less time 'pression' in august, so I
propose we go easy, slow, but deep. Perhaps you could think of making
some short summary of your points. Your last posts, imo, were a bit
fuzzy by over-determination, I said even close to the 1004 fallacy ...


What could go possibly wrong in your approach, with respect of comp
(and/or the lobian interview) is that sometimes I understand that you
want that your most primitive element belongs to the first person
realm. My problem here is that this is consistent with the comp hyp,
but this consistency is irrelevant as far as we are trying to make a
communicable and refutable theory. This one has to have communicable
(or at lest axiomatizable) third person primitive element. The lobian
"soul" (alias first person or third hypostase) disagrees somehow with
this, but that lobian soul is not completely willing to make science at
the start!


Best,

Bruno




>>
>> > On 18/07/07, Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> >> Hi David,
>> >>
>> >> I leave Brussels tomorrow and come back on Sunday, and I will have
>> a
>> >> lot of work to finish in July, but hopefully we will be able to
>> >> converse later. Don't hesitate to study my papers, by helping you
>> with
>> >> Podnieks page, perhaps---I mean in the meantime. In a longer run,
>> you
>> >> could help me on the list to say in french, I mean in english, what
>> >> the
>> >> machine tells me a little bit more formally or mathematically.
>> >>
>> >> I think we have some common appreciation of the first person, and I
>> >> thank you for your kind interest and patience,
>> >>
>> >> Bruno
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>
>
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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Received on Wed Jul 25 2007 - 10:15:57 PDT

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