Re: Numbers

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:41:13 +0100

Le 20-mars-06, à 00:04, John M a écrit :


> A Turing machine does nothing (by itself). Don't take
> the power for granted. Something has to OPERATE it to
> do anything.


Why? How could a digital machine distinguish reality, virtual reality,
arithmetical reality, etc.
(well, she can't. That has been showed by the movie graph argument,
and/or Olympia's mauldin argument).

Do you postulate a stuffy reality?

I respect all assumptions, but some conversation can go into loops if
we forget to make precise what we are assuming, at least informally.



> Bruno:
> let me draw your attention to one little phrasing in
> Hal's (and everybody else's, I presume, as I read
> these posts)- text:
> "If we assume..."
> And if we do not?


You will miss the consequences of the assumption. All science is based
on implicit or explicit assumption, related to (non definable)
world-views.



> What the hell are those "numbers"???


I find you hard with the numbers and/or with the machines. Are you not
"human-elitist"?
I will try someday to explain you (if you agree) that before Godel, it
looked normal to say that numbers/machines are simple and that we can
know what they are all about. After Godel, we are forced to be modest
with the realm of numbers. With the comp hyp, we can add that we know
that we just know quasi-nothing about them, and this forever. There is
just no finite TOE for the numbers.

Perhaps you could read Plotinus treatise on "Numbers"? I don't know,
it is not so simple.

Bruno



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


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Received on Mon Mar 20 2006 - 06:42:19 PST

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