Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Le 27-mars-06, à 20:34, 1Z (Peter D Jones) a écrit :
>
> >
> > You think "matter" is different to"stuff" ?
>
>
>
> When I define matter by what is observable, I don't necessarily
> consider it as a primary stuffy thing indeed.
AFAIC that only means that you should not describe matter as
something that is observable -- it is not any colour or shape.
It is why one particualr colour or shape exists and another does not.
> Given that arithmetical truth already emulate all "video-games" with
> internal observers incapable of testing the "stuffiness" of their
> environment, you can easily conceive the consistency of the idea that
> we don't need to postulate more than arithmetical truth.
Providing arithemtical truth can account for consciousness and and
time,
and overlooking HP problems.
> > I suppose so. But you stlll haven' t explained why "physics is all
> > about
> > matter" doesn't equate to "physics is all about stuff".
>
>
>
> Don't put to much literal interpretation on words. If by matter or
> stuff you mean electron, or whatever that makes the needles of some
> apparatus here or there, again I believe that the electron exists, but
> this has nothing to do with the idea that the electron or the string or
> whatever "physical" is primitive or not. My point is that we cannot
> believe at the same time in the primitiveness of matter and in the
> computationalist hypothesis (or incredibly weaker as I have discovered
> and made precise after the comp PhD).
The computationalist hypothsis is about the ability of one material
system to emulate another; it does not warrant dispensing with any idea
of matter.
> >>>> nor do they postulate it with the notable exception of
> >>>> Aristotle, and of those moderns who show that a boolean conception
> >>>> of
> >>>> matter is contradicted by the facts and/or the QM theory.
> >>>
> >>> If a "boolean concept" of matter is wrong , then a boolean concept
> >>> of matter is wrong. That does not mean that matter itself is
> >>> non-existent.
> >>
> >>
> >> I have never said that matter is non-existent. I say only that matter
> >> is not a primitive concept. That the existence of matter emerge from
> >> average of observer/machine points of views.
> >
> >
> > Your second sentence does not support your first. Something may be
> > observationally,
> > theoretically and epistemically comples and still be ontologically
> > simple.
> >
> > The fact that the scientific concept of matter doesn't *seem*
> > particularly
> > obvious or intuitive to humans just means we are not born with apriori
> > knowlede of the world. The problem , if there is one, is with us, not
> > with matter.
>
>
>
> If matter exists. Do you agree that this is not obvious. (here again I
> mean by matter a notion of primitive matter, not just physical theories
> and possible interpretation of it).
> Can you doubt about the existence of primitive matter.
> What is your conception of matter? Strings living in a space-time? Loop
> gravity. What is your interpretation of QM. I mean "matter" is less
> clear today than yesterday (even if yesterday matter was already
> unclear for those who believe in consciousness)
I have given a definiton of matter which is quite delibarately,
completely general -- ie
it applies to any kind of physics. Philosophically, it makes no
differnce to
me whether m-theory or LQG is correct.
.
> Even Descartes was already aware that if the world was explainable in a
> mechanist way, no observation could provide a definite evidence of the
> existence of matter.
What provides evidence for the existence of matter as I have defined it
is
the non-appearance of logically possible "HP" worlds.
> But Descartes believed in matter and to justify
> it---keeping the mechanist hypothesis---he was forced to invoke the
> transcendental goodness of a God.
>
>
>
>
>
> >>
> >> Only the putative stuffy Aristotelian matter disappears.
> >
> > I don't know of any other kind of matter.
>
>
> But even physicist can sometimes imagine that. That would be the case
> if all units disappear in some fundamental equation. But then if you
> want a concrete model of palpable but immaterial matter, just study the
> UDA (or even some other proposal in this list). Oh, I think I will send
> asap some other immaterialist TOE (not based on comp for a change).
None, of that is matter, it is just appearances , the usual
solipsist/idealist
substitute for matter. That kind of explanation is really elimination.
> > What you are presumably
> > saying is that a solipsistic perceived world will seem to be a material
> > world. But do you really have an explanation for that ?
>
>
> Well, with comp, it is enough to understand that "numbers" can dream,
> in a sense which is not so easy to explain concisely of course. But my
> url contains links to my papers (and to the list but those needs to be
> updated).
The computationalist hypothsis is about the ability of one material
system to emulate another; it does not warrant dispensing with any idea
of matter.
> > Or are you just
> > assuming that a computational multiverse will conveniently behave like
> > a quantum multiverse ?
>
>
>
> Well, a priori, with comp, we get to many universes in the comp
> multiverse, but then the "simple" argument showing there are too much
> comp-universes is put under highly non trivial constraints once we add
> conditions of consistency. This is due to the non trivial consequences
> of the incompleteness phenomena. And indeed I got from that a begining
> of explanation of why those universes interfere and why probabilities
> behaves in some weird way. Then I am stuck in mathematical conjectures
> (meaning more works remain to be done, but that is hardly astonishing).
>
>
>
>
> >
> >> On the
> >> contrary, the physical laws (the math of the observable) should be
> >> made
> >> more solid as arising from purely number theoretical relations, as
> >> seen
> >> and glued together by an infinite union of first person point of view.
> >
> > That's not explaining matter as such -- as "stuff" -- that's explaining
> > physics
> > phenomenologically/instrumentally/solipsistically.
>
>
>
> If me or someone else derive QM string or loop theory without invoking
> stuff, I think we will say that we don't need no more the hypothesis of
> "stuff".
If you wind up saying that one logically possible universe exists,
and another doesn't, you are agreeing with the existence of matter
under my defintion.
> Nobody has succeed in defining stuff or justifying it exists.
I have alredy done both!
> Why do
> you want we try to explain something vaguely defined and that nobody
> has ever see?
That's exactly what some poeple say about consciousness !
> It is like if Napoleon would have said to Laplace "Sorry but your
> theory does not explain God, and should be abandoned".
> If you really believe in stuff, I think the burden is for you ... if
> only just explaining what do you really mean by that. I have less
> problem with consciousness, which I verify every instant.
> To doubt matter, just one dream is enough, or just a little bit of
> imagination in front of video-games.
> >>> Note, BTW, the extreme generality of the concept of matter I am
> >>> using;
> >>> matter is whatever makes one abstract form, rather than another,
> >>> concretely exist.
> >>
> >>
> >> ?
> >>
> >
> > To put it another way, matter answers the HP problem. HP universes are
> > not observed
> > because they do not concretely exist. "They do not concretely exist"
> > means they are
> > not material.
That follows tautologously from my definition.
> >>>> In the
> >>>> meantime if you can find a more circumscribed set of references ...
> >>>
> >>> ?????
> >>>
> >>> Can you point me to the paper in a journal of botany that definitely
> >>> proves,
> >>> for once and all, that plants exist ?
> >>
> >>
> >> I have not so much doubt that plants exist, and if you define matter
> >> by
> >> the object study of physicists, I have no problem. I believe in
> >> fermions and bosons and anyons, and in the moon also. But I take them
> >> as abstract type of observable things, sometimes with a so much
> >> specificity relatively to me that indeed for all practical purpose I
> >> will consider them as token. But both from QM and comp, I hardly
> >> believe those token are token-identified by any form of "concrete
> >> stuff".
> >
> > There is nothing about QM that suggests that matter does not exist
> > (ie that all abstract forms are instantiated. The SWE in that case *is*
> > the constraint.).
>
>
> But even SWE is presented as an immaterial constrained.
No, it's just a non-traditional concept of matter.
Some physicists will say it's "just maths" because they don't
want to face up to an idea of matter which is different to their
pre-concieved notions. At one time , some diehards held that
atoms were "just a calcualting device". Later, everybody was forced to
a
admit they were real.
> Nothing in QM
> suggests that matter (the stuffy primitive one) exists.
Everything does; QM is the study of matter just as much
as any other kind of physics.
> And with comp,
> such a stuffy matter can no more explained anything, giving that from a
> first person perspective the mathematical and physical are not
> distinguishable.
They can be distinguished because there is a lot more of the former.
Without the constraints of matter (physical law) we would observe
all sorts of crazy things.
> >> *Primitive* matter is the bullet of both cognitive science and
> >> physics. It makes unnecessarily complex both mind and matter (and
> >> their
> >> relations).
> >
> >
> > The problem with the mind-body relation is the mathematical
> > **description**
> > of matter.
>
>
> I agree. It is *the* main problem. A quite interesting one, and I have
> perhaps make progress.
I don't mean that mathematics is unable to describe matter; I mean
it is impossible to see how some particular mathematical formula
"catches fire"
and becomes a quale.
> > Hmm. Matter can be primitive (particularly under my definition) without
> > physics being
> > the fundamental science.
>
>
> ?
If the chemical or biological properties of matter are not reducible to
the physical
properties, then physics is not the fundamental science. far from being
contradictry
to the notion that matter is fundamental, thjat is something that is
only
possible if matter is something "behind" physical properties.
>
>
> > Of course the computational theory of mind does not directly equate to
> > idealism; computers are real things, real processes.
>
>
> Yes but you know, that word "real" what does it mean in a scientific
> approach?
Made out of matter. A processes happening in time. Located in space.
> More so since I have shown (others developed similar argument in the
> list) that once you postulated comp (even the concrete one applying it
> in some concrete universe) then eventually the idea of concrete
> universe became explicatively empty.
It explains immediately and directly what all mathematical TOE's
struggle
greatly to explain.
> The approach I gave is
> constructive, it proposes an alternative theory.
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Tue Mar 28 2006 - 19:27:04 PST