Re: Paper+Exercises+Naming Issue

From: George Levy <glevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:43:23 -0800

Naming this field is difficult. This is why I made several suggestions
none of which I thought were excellent.

Bruno Marchal wrote:

> I don't think it is a question of vocabulary,

It is only a question of vocabulary if you intend to communicate with
other people. And this is where the difficulty lies. If you make the
name too esoteric they will not even understand what the field is about.

> and actually I am not sure we are not in, well *perfect* perhaps not,
> but at least in an a larger matching area than you think.
> Perhaps, like so many, you have not yet really understand the impact
> of the discovery by Turing and its relation with Godel's theorem.
> When I talk on Platonia, it is really "Platonia" updated by Godel's
> and Lob's theorem. I hope you are open to the idea I could perhaps
> progress in my way of communicating that. It really concerns machines
> and even many non-machines. I think about abandoning comp for ind,
> where ind is for indexical, given that G and G* applies to almost
> anything self-referentially correct.
> I knew this for long, the comp hyp just makes the reasoning and the
> verification easier.

> I can already say that I disagree the word "quantum" should be in it.
> The name should not issue what will or should be derived by the theory.


I do not fully understand the full ramification of how indexical relates
to this field. However, I think that to use Indexical now is like
Heisenberg using Entanglement instead of Quantum. Nobody would have
understood what he was talking about. It was hard enough already to
understand Quantum.

BTW, COMP is not very good, because you have to explain what it is. At
first glance it appears to be the Mechanist Philosophy and this is what
I originally thought.

I think the best approach is to use a compound expression to bridge the
gap between different fields. (i.e., Quantum electro-chromo dynamics,
electro-magnetism, physical chemistry)

> There is nothing surprising that quantum physics could be derived from
> quantum psycho mechanics.


Of course it is surprising...not to you or me or others on the list
because we have been talking about it for so long... but to the average
scientist in the street... or the university. And these are the people
you intend to communicate with.

> Plato is the one who introduced the word "theology" with the meaning
> of "Science of Gods", and by extension I take it as the science of
> what we can hope or bet upon. It is just the truth *about* machine,
> and we can talk and reason about it without ever knowing that truth,
> given that no scientist at all can *know* the truth, at least as knowed.

I think this science relates primarily to the "self." As I said before,
I think that it it the "I" that creates the (orderliness in the) world.
This is not a new idea. Some philosophers have asserted this idea
before. Does this makes "I" a god? Not in the traditional sense of
"Theology" which carries too much baggage. This is my own emphasis
which may not be shared by everyone on this list.
I am aware of the popular meaning of "psycho" = crazy as John mentioned.
We could draw from other language than the Greek (auto, psyche) or Latin
(anima, spiritus) but we lose the ability to be widely understood:
Hebrew: nefesh, neshamah Japanese: tamashii. Neshamah Mechanics is not
going to fly. Tamashii Mechanics sounds like sushi to the average westerner.

> To talk on immortality issues (cf: quantum immortality or
> comp-immortality) without accepting we are doing theology is perhaps a
> form of lack of modesty. Nobody would dare to try to help me making a
> case for the use of the word "theology"?

Of course we are doing theology but don't say it too loud or you'll get
involved in a religious war. I think theology has too much baggage and
is populated by people with faith - a virtue for them, a vice for us. :-)

George
Received on Tue Dec 27 2005 - 01:01:53 PST