Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:33:17 +0200

On 17 Sep 2009, at 23:55, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 17 Sep, 00:52, David Nyman <david.ny....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peterdjo....domain.name.hidden>:
>>
>>> The knowabilitry of a claim about what powers numbers
>>> have can only depend on what labels are correctly attached.
>>> Petrol is not flammable just becaue I attached the label
>>> "flammable" to it. Petrol *Is* flammable, and that
>>> makes the label-attachment correct.
>>
>> Yes, but 'flammable' and 'exists' are horses of different colours,
>> surely. You and Bruno are disputing whether mathematics is a formal
>> abstraction from physics or vice versa. But in either case this
>> seems
>> to me fundamentally a question of methodological, not ontic,
>> priority.
>
> In either case the conclusion is ontological , so the assumptions
> must be.

No, the conclusion is epistemological. Physics becomes a branch of
computer science/number theory.
The ontological "conclusion" is a consequence of Occam Razor, and is
*optional*.



>
>> We cannot hope to have any final criterion for what is really real;
>> rather we search for the deepest theory we can find, one that can
>> explain whatever we are currently persuaded needs explaining, and in
>> terms of which we are able to subsume subsidiary theories. Then we
>> feel justified in saying that our theory describes what exists.
>> Isn't
>> that about the size of it?
>
> Yep, and if the conclusion is ontological, the process that reaches it
> is ontological.
>
> Bruno thinks he can reach an ontological assumption starting with pure
> maths.

I start from pure cognitive science. Saying "yes" to the doctor is not
pure math.
I'm afraid you are continuing to systematically confuse the
consequences of comp and comp itself.

Bruno



> But he can't. "mathematical existence" means that mathematicians take
> certain "exists" statements to be true. Whether "exists" should be
> taken
> literally in the mathematical context is an ontological question, as
> the material
> in the first posting indicates
> >

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




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Received on Fri Sep 18 2009 - 09:33:17 PDT

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