Re: ODP: Free will/consciousness/ineffability

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 07:17:13 -0700

On 10-Oct-01, Marchal wrote:
> You talk like if you have a proof of the existence of matter. Like if
> it was
> obvious subtancia are consistent. But you know substancia only appears
> in Aristote mind when he misunderstood Plato doctrine on intelligible
> ideas.
> (My opinion!). Despite the formidable success of physics, the main
> problems are not solved: neither qualitative appearance, nor (the new
> problem which appears through the comp hypothesis), the problem of the
> qualitative *appearance* of matter and quantities.

I don't see this as an either-or question. That everything is
computational is an hypothesis and is everything is material. We
should pursue every hypothesis as far as we can and see what we get.
Some will be proven wrong - Newtonian mechanics. Some will be found
vacuous - God did it. But the rest we should pursue. Some may work
out and they may even prove to be all different versions of the same
thing.

Brent Meeker
 "One cannot guess the real difficulties of a problem before having
solved it."
   --- Carl Ludwig Siegel
Received on Wed Oct 10 2001 - 19:43:36 PDT