Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Hi Abram,
>
> On 02 Dec 2008, at 20:33, Abram Demski wrote:
>
>> Bruno,
>>
>> I am a bit confused. To me, you said
>>
>>> Or, you are weakening the physical supervenience
>>> thesis by appeal to a notion of causality which seems to me a bit
>>> magical, and contrary to the local functionalism of the
>>> computationalist.
>> This seems to say that the version of MAT that MGA is targeted at does
>> not include causal requirements.
>
>
> MAT is the usual idea that there is a physical world described through
> physical laws. Those capture physical causality, generally under the
> form of differential equations. If there were no causality in physics,
> the very notion of physical supervenience would not make sense. Nor MEC
> +MAT, at the start. Sorry if I have been unclear, but I was
> criticizing only the *magical* causality which is necessary for
> holding both the physical supervenience thesis and the mechanist
> hypothesis, like attribution of prescience to the neurons (in MGA 1),
> or attributing a computational role in inert Material.
This seems to assume there is causality apart from physical causality, but there
is no causality in logic or mathematics (except in a metaphorical, I might say
"magical", sense). So I don't see that Gunther is relying on anything magical.
Brent
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Received on Wed Dec 03 2008 - 13:12:55 PST