Please see interleaved in the remnants of the text
below
John Mikes
--- Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> Le 27-juil.-05, à 20:11, Lee Corbin a écrit :
>
> > Build carefully upon what is simple and knowable,
> and keep the
> > wild theories to a minimum. Even then, the world
> is hardly
> > simple, but at least we've got a chance.
>
> I agree completely.
>
Only 'that much' is knowable, especially simple, so we
have no choice. Wild theories? Who is to label it?
>
> >
> >> In other words, dualists and materialists
> contravene Occam, not
> >> idealists. I don't see how Johnson refuted that.
> >
> > Materialists do not contravene Occam.
>
> Subtance-materialists does. Imo. (but we can go back
> on this latter).
>
Occam principlised our human knowledge based model. It
may well be that there are much more simple solutions
beyond our horizon of knowability. Even our present
level of epistemicly supplied cognitive inventory is
VERY limited - to say it mildly.
>
> > The simplest explanation is
> > that there is a world "out there" and that our
> brains are survival
> > machines designed by evolution to thrive in it.
>
> I agree. But it is just the recent "logical" path.
> Atoms and waves also
> are "survival" machines, then eventually the laws of
> physics themselves
> emerge from simpler things (like immaterial
> relations between prime
> numbers for example).
>
Simplest...see above. "out there"? we are 'out there'.
There is no "US and the rest of the world out there".
What are we so special ABOVE(?) those figments we call
"atoms" etc. to put our 'mentality' (ideational basis)
into a special box? It may be different (for us),
maybe we see more complexity in ourselves because we
know more about ourselves.
>
> > The phantasms that
> > occasionally infest our awareness and
> consciousness causally arise
> > as side-effects of how our brains work, that's
> all.
>
> I disagree completely. Take a physicist of mass M,
> and another one of
> mass m. physicists obey to the laws of physics, all
> right? (It is *the*
> Everett motto).
Snip the enjoyable monolog about physicists as
objects.
*
I cannot 'disagree completely' untill we agree in the
elusive phantasm called consciousness. No such
'thing'.
> Consciousness is the most powerful force in the
> multi ... multiverses.
SNIP
> And then, just defining "consciousness" by
> unconscious (automated)
> inference of self-consistency, not only explains
> this self-speeding up
> process, but it can explain why matter or
> consciousness *looks*
> epiphenomenal.
"epi" (or endo) to what?
*
> >
> > The simplest explanation does *not* start with
> perceptions and
> > all the rest of that stuff, for a number of
> > reasons. The primary
> > reason is that you can't truly communicate them to
> others---after
> > all, your brain may not work the same as theirs.
> As Wittgenstein
> > said, "Of what we cannot speak thereof we must be
> silent".
>
>
> Well, apparently, either Wittgenstein missed the
> opportunity to remain silent,
BRAVO
> or we have the right to ask him "What are
> you really talking
> about, M. Wittgenstein?". But I agree with
> Wittgenstein: there exists
> propositions which although true cannot be
> communicated or justified.
SNIP
> Bruno
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
Remark: ever since we have a way of communication we
try to complete (verb) our feeble imagination about
the world according to the ever increasing level of
the knowables. Our models (so far) have always been
totally boundary-enclosed and we did not even think
beyond them
"Natural laws". "logical laws", ONE cause, the axioms
and givens to make such views work AND math as the
main adjuvant of that fantastic and fruitful edifice
we have built called "scientific worldview". All human
thought.
Only lately (½ c.?) do some looked-down minds attempt
to 'look beyond' - even violating the Witgenstein
norm.
J.M.
>
Received on Thu Jul 28 2005 - 12:19:09 PDT