Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:02:29 +0200

On 12 Sep 2009, at 16:42, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 11 Sep, 19:34, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> On 11 Sep 2009, at 17:45, Flammarion wrote:
>>>
>>
>> Once you say "yes" to the doctor, there is a clear sense in which
>> "you" (that is your third person relative computational state, the
>> one
>> the doctor digitalizes) exist in arithmetic, or exist arithmetically,
>> and this in infinite exemplars, relatively to an infinity of
>> universal
>> numbers which executes the computation going through that state, and
>> this in the arithmetical sense, which implied a subtle mathematical
>> redundancy.
>
> Not at all.

It follows from saying "yes" to a material re-incarnation. I have no
clue why you say so.


> I would only say yes to a material re-incarnation.

yes that is comp.


> I
> don't believe in infinities of really existing immateial numbers.

You don't have to. *That* is the MGA point. Unless you make
consciousness and matter into actual infinite, but then you can no
more say yes to a *digital* surgeon.




>
>> Then the MGA enforces that all universal machine first person future
>> experience is statistically dependent of a sum on all those
>> computations.
>
> They don't exist/

They don't exist physically. They do exist mathematically. It is all
what is used.



>>>
>>
>> If formalism is true, there is no matter, either.
>
> No,that does not follow.

You believe in formalism for math, but not for physics. OK. Fair enough.
I was using "formalism" in metaphysics or theology.

>
> The existence of anyhting immaterial is a metaphysical notion

I don't see why. I believe that the truth of a proposition like "It
exist prime numbers" is a matter of mathematics, not of metaphysics.
You seem to believe we have to do those reification, but the MGA point
is that we don't need to do that, at least once we accept the idea
that "I" am not "my material" body, as we do when saying yes to a
doctor, even for a "material" re-incarnation, given that anything
material is substituted by different "tokens". You still dodge the
critics of any part of the argument, by using philosophically remark
which you don't show the relevance *at the place of the reasoning*.
Science does not work like that.



>>
>
> How can I avoid "real" in a discussion of "real"?

By adding "in the math sense" or "in the physical sense', etc.
But you define "real" by primitively material. OK, but then you are
obliged to admit that a movie of a computation does a computation,
which is non sense.




>
>> I have personally less doubt about my consciousness, and about my
>> believe in the prime numbers than in anything material. Physicists
>> avoid the question, except when interested in the conceptual problems
>> posed by QM.
>
> You can't validly infer the actual non-existence of matter
> from beliefs about numbers.

I have never done that. I show that we cannot epistemologically use a
notion of matter to explain the first person account of observation.



> At some stage you have
> to argue that the "exists" in mathematical statemetns
> is metaphysically loaded

At which stage, and why?



> and should be interpreted
> literally to mean actual existence.

I don't see why. Arithmetical existence is quite enough. You need to
reify matter, but MGA shows that such a move contradict the idea that
I can survive through a digital substitution. You will save our time
by reading the argument.




> And that is precisely
> because I cannot deny my own actual existence.

Yes, but you can deny your material existence, given that nobody has
proved that primitive matter exists. This is already in the old dream
argument used in both the west and the east by the (objective, non
solipsist) idealist. You are begging the question.


>>
>
> They are not incompatible with CTM. They are incompatible
> with comp because comp=CTM+Platonism. I can keep CTM and
> materialism by rejecting Platonism

AR = classical logic can be appied in arithmetic (Arithmetical realism)
Platonism = "matter emerge from math"

Comp = CTM, and this include Church thesis, and thus arrithmetical
realism.

Theorem: comp => platonism. or CTM => platonism.

You are confusing the hypothesis and the conclusion.


>
> Everybody makes common-sense metaphysical commitments,
> and that includes much of science. It only becomes problematical
> in abstruse areas of physics. In any case, your argument is not-
> metaphysically
> non-comital, you are committed to the Platonic existence of numbers.

Given that I am using "Platonic" in the sense of the theologian, and
not in the larger sense of the mathematician, it would be nice to
cooperate a little bit on the vocabulary so as not confusing the mind
of the reader.
I am commited to the use of the excluded middle in arithmetic, that's
all.



> The difference between my position and yours is that my commitments
> are closer to common sense.

That may be true, but I am not even sure about that. All we can say is
that since the closure of Plato Academy, it is a Aristotelian
theological tradition in Churches and in some "materialist" academies
to mock Plato-like theologies, you may be right. But it is not common
sense, it is Aristotelian habit. Cats believed in Mouse, but not that
mouse are *primitively* material.
I believe in matter, you know. But not necessarily in primitive
matter. I give you an argument, but you don't read it, so ...


>
> There is not UDA if there is no realy existng UD. There is no
> really existing UD if Platonism is false.

If you read UDA, you will see that it is using "physical existence" up
to the seventh step, and then the 8th step decharge that assumption.
Clearly your problem is with the MGA.



>
>> If you are formalist, there
>> is a complete formalist reading on what I do, indeed that's AUDA. A
>> strict formalist can read UDA as a motivation for AUDA. But I have to
>> insist that formalists are in general arithmetical realist ...
>
> Only AR qua bivalence. The whole point of formalism
> is the rejection of AR qua existence.

This does not make sense. AUDA works very well with a formal notion of
mathematical existence.



> However truth
> alone does nto get you an existing UD, and therefore
> does not get my existence inside it.

You existence in the UD* (execution of the UD in arithmetic) *in the
third person* sense is pretty obvious, once you say yes for the
"material execution". Your existence of you in the first person sense
is a non trivial consequence of the MGA.


>> The consistency of all this eventually resides in subtle aspects of
>> the incompleteness phenomena in theoretical computer science. "Comp"
>> is also for "computer science". Once you accept the excluded middle
>> principle, like most mathematicians, you discover there is a
>> "universe" full of living things there, developing complex views.
>
> Nonsense. The LEM is just a formal rule. There is no inference
> from bivalence to Platonism

Of course. This is provided by the MGA. Here you are using Platonism
in my sense (Plato's sense). Good.





>>
>> And all this leads to a very elegant theory of everything. The
>> ontology is defined by "p is true" if "p" is provable in Robinson
>> Arithmetic.
>
> That is not ontology. You keep thinkign you can get
> ontology for free jsut by proving somehting on a
> blackboard.

It just means that something exists if "Ex P(... x ...) is provable in
Robinson Arithmetic.
I cannot get a metaphysical existence of primitive matter from that.
But this is not a problem.

Also, when I say that RA provides the ontology, this is in the frame
where I trust the doctor, so I don't dispute the "metaphysical (if you
want)" existence of the first person conscious experience. saying
"yes" to a doctor is not part of a proof on a backboard, it is a
theological believe in form of material (at first, in step zero) re-
incarnation.

I am astonished how much you can discuss an argument without reading it.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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Received on Sun Sep 13 2009 - 10:02:29 PDT

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