Le 27-août-07, à 07:08, marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden a écrit :
>
>
>
> On Aug 22, 10:14 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>>
>> Comp is a short expression made for "computationalism".
>> Computationalism, which I called also "digital mechanism" is Descartes
>> related doctrine that we are digitalisable machine. I make it often
>> precise by defining comp to be the conjunction of Church Thesis and
>> "yes doctor". The "yes doctor" assumption is the bet that there is a
>> level of description of yourself such that you would survive from some
>> digital reconstruction of your body (the 3-person "you") made at that
>> level.
>> From this I don't think it is entirely obvious that materialism (evn
>> weak materialism, i.e. physicalism) fails.
Er... Actually I was wrong here. Physicalism is a strong version of
materialism. By "weak materialism" I mean the doctrine that substance
exists in some primary way. Higher Animals and Aristotelian thinkers
tend to believe in it, plausibly for Darwinian reasons. The opposite
doctrine is counterintuitive, sure, and appears with Pythagorus and
Plato (in Occident).
>> Actually it is the main
>> point that I try to convey, and it is the object of the Universal
>> Dovetailer Argument (UDA).
>> We don't have to postulate physical laws, if comp is true they have to
>> emerge on even a tiny fragment of arithmetical truth. The UDA is not
>> constructive (so, after UDA, it still could be that the shorter
>> derivation of the physical laws from number is intrinsically not
>> feasible). But then I show how computer science and mathematical paves
>> the way of an actual short (but complex) derivation of at least the
>> necessity of a quantum computer as an invariant of all universal
>> machine neighborhood: this should provide a path from bit to qubits.
>> The quantum uncertainty emerges from the fact that once a machine look
>> at herself below her substitution level, she has to find trace of the
>> entire set of computations going through its actual relative comp
>> state.
>
> Sounds interesting.
>
>
>>
>>> Under my
>>> version, remember, the primatives are Physical,
>>
>> But I don't follow you here. Even without comp I don't take the
>> "physical" for granted. Science (including theology) appeared when
>> human took some distance with "naive realism", despite billions of
>> year
>> of evolution which programmed us to take seriously our local
>> neighborhood. But you can understand intellectually that the existence
>> of primary matter asks for an act of faith.
>
> I don't see that the existence of the material world is any more or
> less an act of faith than the existence of the mathematical world. So
> these same remarks could be applied to *comp*.
Comp asks indeed for an act of faith, as any theory in which we want to
believe in. But my point, the UDA point, is that if comp is correct,
all appearance of matter, including the observation of measurement
devices, has to be explained by pure number theoretical relations. With
comp, the act of faith in matter is just *useless*, like the vital
principle in 19th century biology, or the phlogistic and things like
that.
>
>
>> Nobody has ever prove that
>> that exists, and the very old dream-metaphysical argument put a
>> reasonable doubt that such a proof can vere been presented. Now, with
>> comp, I pretend that matter is devoid of any explanation power. Even
>> if
>> you postulate the existence of matter, you will not been able to use
>> it
>> to justify any belief, be them on mind or even matter. But I let you
>> study the UDA which is supposed to explain that.
>
> I think we need to draw a careful distinction between the *process* of
> reasoning itself, and the external entities that reasoning is *about*
> *(ie what it is that our theories are externally referencing). When
> you carefully examine what mathematics is all about, it seems that it
> is all about *knowledge* (justified belief).
I don't see that at all. As a "natural number realist" I would say that
99,999... of arithmetical reality is independent of knowers and
ofepistemologies.
With comp, knowledge applies only to sophisticated observer themselves
described by universal (and immaterial) machines, those capable to hold
beliefs and to justified them.
> This is because math
> appears to be the study of patterns and when meaning is ascribed to be
> these patterns, the result is knowledge. So:
> so Math <----> Meaningful Patterns <--------> Knowledge.
Math has a big role for discovering and communicating knowledge (with
and without comp), but this does not make math equivalent with
knowledge.
I define knowledge, of any entity, axiomatically by the modal logic S4.
>
> Since math appears to be equivalent to knowledge itself, it is no
> surprise that all explanations with real explanatory power must use
> (or indirectly reference) mathematics. That is to say, I think it's
> true that the *process* of reasoning redcues to pure mathematics.
> However, it does not follow that all the entities being *referenced*
> (refered to) by mathematical theories, are themselves mathematical.
I agree. Now my point is that IF we assume the comp hyp (even through
the very weak form I am studying) then the simplest explanation of
matter is that the appearance of matter emerge from the relations
between numbers. You can still believe in primary matter, like you can
still believe that car are pulled by invisible hourse, despite modern
thermodynamic + Occam discourages this move.
>
> It appears to me that to attempt to reduce everything to pure math
> runs the risk of a lapse into pure Idealism, the idea that reality is
> 'mind created'.
First, science is not wishful thinking: if comp leads to solipsism, you
can still abandon comp, but the scientific fact would remains.
Second, although it is true that comp + occam (even a weak form of
occam) leads to idealism, it does not necessarily leads to solipsism,
and there are good technical reason that it doesn't. Indeed matter
itself stabilizes through the coherence of "many dreams" and the rise
of a notion of first person plural perspectives. Reality is not "mind
created", but indeed with comp, physical reality is "lobian machine"
constructed, as it should (cf UDA).
> Since math is all about knowledge, a successful
> attempt to derive physics from math would appear to mean that there's
> nothing external to 'mind' itself.
Just that it is unnecessary to postulate more than natural numbers,
with their additive and multiplicative structure, at the ontological
level. That is enough for explaining the appearance of an
extraordinarily big and rich and lawful plenitude from the many inside
views.
> As I said, there seems to be a
> slippery slipe into solipsism/idealism here. That's why I'm highly
> skeptical of your UDA.
That's a sane reaction, and that could perhaps explain why you don't
even try to study it, hmmm?
It is really up to you to tell me where in the reasoning you stop to
follow the argument ....
>
> I think both yourself (Bruno) and (and you Max Tegmark!) need to
> carefully think through consider the implications of your postulate
> that all is math.
To be sure, I am not an entire mathematicalist. I have often criticize
Tegmark on the fact that *mathematics" is a too large term, and that
such a notion is well beyond ... mathematics itself. But if comp is
true, then with occam, the arithmetical structure (N, +, *) is largely
enough to derive the physics of the lobian machine possible
neighborhood. It is enough to compare the empirical world with that
comp-physics to test the comp hyp. Up to now, the quantum facts does
confirm comp. To be sure we need only a tiny part of arithmetical
truth, for the ontic. Then, the whole cantorian paradise is already too
little to understand the behavior of most machines ... (I can say more
in my conversation with David).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Mon Aug 27 2007 - 06:39:38 PDT