Le 18-juil.-06, à 18:42, 1Z a écrit :
>
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> Le 12-juil.-06, à 18:06, 1Z a écrit :
>>
>>>
>>> I mean that is what material exists regardless of any mathematical
>>> justification.
>>
>> So this is your main hypothesis: what is material exist.
>> Now my problem is that a term like "material" is very vague in
>> physics,
>
> Huh ? Physics studies matter, energy, time and space. Those
> are its topics. Physics may not have a single neat definition of
> matter, but
> that does not mean physicsts are a lot to know what it is.
> Arguably, the whole of economics is a definition of "money",
> Likewise for physics and matter.
All right. That is what I was saying. You do postulate stuffy matters.
I don't. It is all normal you have to criticize comp. But your critics
of the AR part of it does not convince me.
>
>
>> and I would say experimentally vague since the birth of experimental
>> quantum philosophy (EPR, Bell, Shimoni, Feynman, Deutsch, Bennett
>> ...).
>
> Huh???? Electrons and photons are still matter...what *do* you mean ?
"matter" is a word use like a lot of misuse of God in theocracies. What
do you mean when you say "photon" is matter? That we can make repeated
measurement on them and find stable number pattern.
>
> (BTW, Deutsch uses the Johnsonian "if it kicks back" appraoch
> to reality).
Yes. And Deutsch applied it to defend AR in his FOR (Fabric Of Reality)
book.
>
>
>> The big problem with the notion of *primary* matter = how to relate
>> "1-experiences" with "3-experiments".
>
> The mind-body prolbem boild down to qualia, and
> the problem of qualia and physics boils down to
> the problem of qualia and mathematical description
Feeling to listen to myself here :)
>
>
> Consciousness is a problem for all forms of materialism and physicalism
> to some
> extent, but it is possible to discern where the problem is particularly
> acute.
> There is no great problem with the idea that matter considered as a
> bare substrate can
> have mental properities.
Ah? (Well I guess I can deduce it from your non-comp theory)
> Any inability to have mental proeprties would
> itslef be a property and
> therefore be inconsistent with the bareness of a bare substrate.
You mean an electron or a string would have bare mental properties.
I admire you being coherent with non-comp.
> The
> "subjectity" of
> consciouss states, often treated as "inherent" boils down to a problem
> of communicating
> one's qualia -- how one feesl, how things seem.
I would say it is more the uncommunicability of qualia which could be
problematic.
> Thus it is not truly
> inherent but
> depends on the means of communication being used. Feelings and seemings
> can be more readily
> communicated in artistic, poetice language, and least readily in
> scientifi technical
> language.
OK, but that is not scientific (3-person) communication. An artist need
to bet on sufficiently similar experiences for those he wish to
"communicate" with.
> Since the harder, more technical a science is, the more
> mathematical it is,
> the communication problem is at its most acute in a purely mathematical
> langauge.
> Thus the problem with physicalism is not its posit of matter (as a bare
> substrate)
> but its other posit, that all properties are phycial. Since physics is
> mathematical,
> that amounts to the claim that all properties are mathematical (or at
> least mathematically
> describable). In making the transition from a physicalist world-view to
> a mathematical
> one, the concept of a material substrate is abandoned (although it was
> never a problem
> for consciousness) and the posit of mathematical properties becomes,
> which is a problem
> for consciousness becomes extreme.
I agree.
>
>> The naïve idea of attaching consciousness to physical activity leads
>> to
>> fatal difficulties.
>
> Do you mean the Maudlin/Olympia/Movie argument ? But that is
> very much phsyical activity as opposed to physical passivity.
> If you are the kind of physicalist who thinks
> counterfactuals and potentials are part of the total
> physical situation, the Maudlin argument has little
> impact.
This is cute. It is already a way to derive QM from comp, especially if
you know Hardegree's work showing that Quantum Logic is a particular
logic of counterfactuals. Again, with comp, it is cuter: the stuffy
appearances are explained by that very counterfactuality: the "stuff"
can be defined by what makes "many comp dreams" partially sharable.
Solidity has to be explained by *many* things (world, computations,
etc.).
May I ask you what is your opinion on Everett?
> Of course. I start from the assumption
> that I exist, since I do.
If by "I" you mean your first person, it is a good implicit assumption
to motivate the moring cup of coffe or tea. But such an assumption is
not "scientific", where we are asked to have refutable third person
assumption.
>
> I don't start from the assumtion that numbers
> exist supernaturally , floating around in Plato's
> heaven.
Me neither.
>
>>> The "intelligible" is a quasi-empiricist mathematical epistemology.
>>> Mathematicians are supposed by Platonists to be able to "perceive"
>>> mathematical
>>> truth with some extra organ.
>>
>>
>> That is naïve platonism. Already condemned by Plato himself and most
>> of
>> his followers. Read Plotinus for more on this (especially Ennead V).
>
>
> The question then is whether numbers have any role at all,
> if they have no epistemological role.
I don't understand. Why shouldn't number have some epistemological
role? With comp they have epistemological role, and ontological (even
if by this I just mean the independence of the truth of first or second
order existential propositions like "there exists prime numbers").
>
>>>> I don't understand what you mean by "numbers don't exist at all".
>>>
>>> Well, I've never seen one.
>>
>>
>> Again that would be a critics of naïve Platonism. As I have said:
>> "number n exists in Platonia" means just that the proposition "number
>> n
>> exists" is true. For example I believe that the equation
>> x^2 - 61y^2 = 1 admits integers solutions independently of any things
>> related to me.
>
> If that is all it means, it cannot possibly support an argument
> whose conclusion is that something really exists.
What do you mean by "really" exists. If you mean by this a stuffy
material existence, again what you say is going in my direction.
>
> The conclusion of a deductive argument has to be implicit in its
> premisses.
Sure.
>
>>>> Numbers exists in Platonia in the sense that the classical
>>>> proposition
>>>> "4356667654090987890111 is prime or 4356667654090987890111 is not
>>>> prime" is true there.
>>>
>>> It's true here. why bring Platonia into it ?
>>
>>
>> I don't understand what you mean by "4356667654090987890111 is prime
>> or
>> not" is true here.
>> Is it false or meaningless on the moon?
>> is it false or meaningless beyond the solar system?
>> is it false or meaningless beyond the Milky Way?
>
> It's true here, in the non-Platonic world.
This I find weird. I believe *much more* in the truth of <<The number
4356667654090987890111 is either prime or is not prime>> than in any
proposition asserting the existence of any "non-platonic" thing.
OK, I agree there is a cup of coffee in front of me. But this means,
with comp, that among all infinite computational histories going
through my current comp states (which exists by comp) the normal one
(in some Gaussian sense, they are the most weighty) describes me in
front of that cup.
This is not a final explanation. Somehow my point is just that if comp
is true than an explanation must have a shape of that kind. Introducing
stuff makes the explanation of the relative stability of the qualia
related to that coffee cup much harder.
>
> We don't need the Platonic World to *make* it true. It fulfils
> no epistemological role.
We certainly don't need any naïve Platonic World. I keep insisting I
don't believe in any stuffy-like plato heaven. I am not criticizing the
notion of stuff here to reintroduce it in Platonia.
Now "173 is prime" has a truth value independent of me, and it is a
matter of taste to see that truth as an epistemological or an
ontological one.
Actually it is better to see it as an ontological truth (in a slightly
generalized sense) for the precise reason that the epistemology will
concern what (immaterial) machine can prove. Wrongly, rightly, etc.
Proof at first will not be related to truth. Of course an ontological
proposition like "the machine 456 believes (proves) 666 is a prime
number" could be an ontological truth, in the sense that the machine
456 does really prove that 666 is a prime number (from which we can
believe the machine 456 is not correct; but that is something else).
> Of course, *standard* computationalism doesn't by itself allow
> you to attach cognition/consciousness to anything abstract.
See the UDA proof. What you call "standard computationalism" is
inconsistent. See UDA.
>
>> Those computations are entirely defined by infinite sets of true
>> relations among numbers. You could perhaps wait I define the "Kleene
>> predicate" in the diagonalization posts. or read the beautiful work of
>> Matiazevitch on the diophantine equations. A set of numbers is RE,
>> i.e.
>> is a Wi set, if and only if it is given by the zero of a diophantine
>> polynomial.
>
>
> I dare say *algorithms* can be defined Platonically.
With Church Thesis, you can.
> Computations can be multiply replicated at different points
> in space and time (or not at all) so they are not Platonic.
I don't think you can replicate a computation, nor do I think you can
replicate a number, nor even that this makes sense. You can only
replicate a relative implementation of those things.
>
>> In *all* situation, when I say a number exists, or when I say a
>> sequence of numbers exists, I only mean that the proposition
>> expressing
>> that existence is true independently of me or you.
>
> Then nothing actually existing can possible "emerge".
We already agreed on that. If you mean "material" by "actually
existing".
>>
>> You did not read carefully what I have said. I am just using "exists"
>> as a quantifier (in first or second order logic). Exists n P(n) =
>> truth
>> of "exists n P(n)".
>
> Which still isn't helpful, since different
> schools of mathematical philosophy put different
> interpretations on the mathematical sense of "exists".
I disagree. All platonist mathematical philosophers agree with the
standard interpretation of the 150 first pages of any introduction to
predicate logics, or even second order logic, and I need no more given
that my starting frame is "platonism" (restricted or not on
arithmetics).
>
> Some take it to mean "can be defined wtihout contraciction",
The formalist. I don't need the formalist philosophy.
> some "can be finitely constructed" and so on.
Most intuitionist. I rediscover their math philosophies through the
notion of first person related to the machines.
>
>> I believe that there is an infinity of twin primes ... or not,
>> independently of the fact that mathematicians on this planet or
>> elsewhere will solve, or not, that (currently open) problem.
>
> The point remains that existence cannot emerge
> out of truth.
You keep saying this, and I keep answering that any stuffy existence,
indeed, cannot emerge out of truth. But the UDA shows that the
assumption of a material stuff cannot even explain why we believe and
keep belief in stable 3-person sharable patterns. WE don't need that
hypothesis.
>>>
>>> You have to explain how a mathematical structure can appear
>>> at all, before you can explain how it can appear quantal (or
>>> whatever).
>>
>>
>> Honestly why?
>
> Logic. Something has to exist before it has any particular properties.
You mean "5" existed before being prime?
>
>> I presuppose some amount of arithmetic.
>
> Presume its existence or just its truth ?
> Back to the usual ambiguity.
I think you repeat yourself. Please Jones, once and for all, remember I
don't believe comp is consistent with the belief that something exists
with *your* notion of physical primary existence.
When I say something exist, I always mean that I can formalize the
theory in first or second order logic, and that some existential
proposition like "ExP(x)" is true. It does not entail x exists in any
other sense. I don't need other sense. Nor do I need any bare notion of
causality. causality, like responsibility, are high level descriptive
notion. Not something at the root.
>
>> As an
>> arithmetical platonist I suppose those existential proposition are
>> true. Comma. I don't believe math truth are related to time or space.
>> The number 2, or any math structure, does not *appear*.
>
>
> Then nothing can appear *from* it.
Right. Nothing stuffy. Time, space, energy MUST (by the UDA) emerges
from (probably deep and long) computations, and those computations
themselves exists only in the sense I described above: either in the
sense of some arithmetical proposition like ExP(x), or in the truth of
an infinity of such propositions.
>
>> I have never slipped into:
>
>> mathematical objects (numbers) exist Platonically" EXCEPT in the sense
>> that some existential arithmetical proposition is objectively true.
>
> And that *does* entail existence ?
No. Let us be clear: with your notion of existence I believe there is
just nothing.
To be exact, I believe anyone understanding the comp hyp will by
himslef soon or later undersatnd it must be so, or comp is false.
Why are we discussing: from what you say we know already you don't
believe in comp.
You pretend that you accept "standard comp", but the UDA shows standard
comp leads to immateriality. Nothing exists in your sense if standard
comp is true. Unless you find an error in UDA, ...
>
> In any case, you do switch between epistemology (realism-qua-truth) and
> ontology (realism-qua-existence), as these quotes from
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.pdf
> show:
>
>
> BM: 'Arithmetical Realism (AR). This is the assumption that
> arithmetical proposition, like
> ''1+1=2,'' or Goldbach conjecture, or the inexistence of a
> bigger prime, or the statement
> that some digital machine will stop, or any Boolean formula bearing on
> numbers, are
> true independently of me, you, humanity, the physical universe (if that
> exists), etc. '
>
> PJ: That's an epistemological claim then....
IF you want.
>
> BM: 'It is
> a version of Platonism limited at least to arithmetical truth'.
>
> PJ: Is it ? But Platonism is an ontological thesis. As a standard
> reference work has it: "The philosophy of Plato, or an
> approach to philosophy resembling his. For example, someone who
> asserts that numbers exist independently of the
> things they number could be called a Platonist."
Yes like G. Hardy. No problem. Peano Arithmetic and second-order
arithmetic have been invented to show we can do math a-la-Hardy without
ontological commitment. Modern platonism does not need to interpret
ontologically any mathematical form of existence.
>
> BM: 'It should not be confused
> with the much stronger Pythagorean form of AR, AR+, which asserts that
> only natural
> numbers exist together with their nameable relations: all the rest
> being derivative from
> those relations.
>
> If Pythagoreanism is stronger than Platonism in insisting that
> everything is
> derivable from (existing) natural numbers, is Platonism weaker than
> Pythagoreanism
> in insisting that everything is derivable from existing numbers of all
> kinds,
> natural or not? Is Platonism not being taken as a claim about existence
> here, not just a claim about truth ?
Logicians, after the failure of logicism, have succeeded in showing
that you cannot derive the existene of some math object without
postulating sets. So There are an infinity of stronger mathematical
theories. Now with comp arithmetic is enough. But we don't need to
postulate that only numbers exists (in my non-ontological sense then).
>
> BM: "A machine will be
> said an Arithmetical Platonist if the machine believes enough
> elementary
> arithmetical truth (including some scheme of induction axiom)."
>
> PJ: Switching back to an epistemological definition of "platonism"
In all text and discussion we need just to accord ourself. You talk
like if "platonism" was a clear notion. No conceptual notion are easy.
I just hope you understand and remember that by arithmetical platonism
I just mean the independence of arithmetical truth, and, by "ontology
of x" I mean anything concerned witrh the proposition with shape
ExP(x).
I don't even have to postulate the consistency of arithmetic, although
it makes things simpler for beginners.
In my work there is no ontological commitment at all, if you except the
betting on others' consciousness, without which the enterprise would
not make sense. But then, I eliminate even that bet in the lobian
interview.
>
>
> BM:'Instead of linking [the pain I feel] at space-time (x,t) to
> [a machine state] at space-time
> (x,t), we are obliged to associate [the pain I feel at space-time
> (x,t)]
> to a type or a sheaf of
> computations (existing forever in the arithmetical Platonia which is
> accepted as existing
> independently of our selves with arithmetical realism).'
>
> PJ: Another use of Realism as a thesis about existence.
Again in the sense of "ExP(x)" is true independently of me, you ...
>
> PJ: And if the pain-feeling "you" exists eternally, how do
> ever *not* feel pain ? There is an ontological gulf
> between tokens and types, between the temporal
> and the eternal, which has been leaped over at a bound here.
The UDA gives a first approximation of an explanation of time. The
lobian interview isolate that subjective time notion with the modal
logic S4Grz. Which I isolate: I mean I don't chose it because I would
find it nice, etc.
>
>> And I don't believe that mathematical objects, or even *any* 3-object,
>> are capable of having experiences (which by definition are *never*
>> illusory).
>
> In which case it is hard to see how your argument could work at all.
But then just read it, and tell me where you lose the line.
>
>> Only subject or person can have experiences, and subject and persons
>> emerges from infinities of (sigma_1) relation between numbers.
>
> What can "emerge" from relationships between mathematical
> structures except more mathematical structures ?
>
> "And then a miracle occurs"
If you want. Actually Godel call already Church thesis a miracle, and
then the comp hyp explain why numbers eventually believe correctly in
"physical" theories. But here "physical" is not primitive. It concerns
"observable" and sharable stable patterns. Nothing stuffy, nothing
primitive.
The advantage of my theorem is that it leads to a simultaneous
understanding of quanta and qualia. Qualia are the non sharable part of
what machines can still measure. The proposition
>
> http://www.webamused.com/blogosophy/archives/002064.html
I like very much that jokes. Now read UDA, and tell me where you think
I should be more explicit (in case you feel the need).
>
>> The UD
>> generates those relations and assigns some weight to all of them.
>
> "Weight" of course being just another number -- not actual
> existence.
I could as well ask you what do you mean by "actual existence" (except
that by experience I have never hear something interesting here).
You do an ontologica&l commitment (matter, time, electron). I don't. I
could have said I postulate numbers (to make it easy for beginners) but
I will not, because *you* take it as naive platonism.
The only object in which I really belief are those for which I can
present proof or evidences that the proposition "ExP(x)" is true
independent of me.
> It seems to me that materialism can survive the Maudlin/Olympia
> argument
> with only a slight adjustment; phenomenal states supervene
> on the total physical state, not just on the active physical state.
Excellent. But really just a tiny step toward understanding that the
comp hyp forces us to eventually accept that the "total physical
states" is just an (incredible) pattern existing among numbers and
sequences of numbers, ....
All that "Existing" in my non-ontological-commitment sense.
>
>> the
>> idea that there is something genuinely stuffy at the origin of the
>> computations. Comp entails that the appearance of that genuine stuff
>> emerges from the independent truth of some formula in arithmetic. I
>> could even put them in polynomial form.
>
> You have a mathematical proof that phenomenality emerges from
> mathematics ???
Yes. It is almost trivial ASSUMING comp. But then with just the lobian
interview I retrieve a good candiidate for many form of phenomenality,
which corresponds nicely with what Plotinus called "hypostasis".
> (And that's *phenomenality*, not uncertainty
> or undecidability).
Well, "phenomenality" is not "uncertainty", still less
"undecidability". But both the UDA and the lobian interview relates
those notions. For example "physicality" is almost reduced with
"measurable uncertainty", and the consistency of the use of the
Theaetetical notion of knowledge arise from the necessary gap between
proof and truth for lobian machine, etc.
The theory of matter I get from that is testable, and part of it
already tested!
And nature seems indeed comp-correct until now ;-)
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Wed Jul 19 2006 - 09:34:24 PDT