A short remark. I have decided start with philosophy, as it is more
entertaining as mathematical logic. Right now I listen to lectures of
Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen (in German)
http://podcasts.uni-freiburg.de/podcast_content/courses?id_group=12
His title "Controversy in philosophy" took my attention first but he has
some more offers. Say now I listen to "What is philosophy". He speaks a
bit too much but I have already got used to him.
The half of his series on controversies has been devoted to realism vs.
nominalism. If I understand correctly, your theorem proves that comp
implies realism and in my view your argument is a mathematical model for
realism. It is interesting to note that Ockam was a nominalist and with
his razor he wanted to strip realism away.
By the way, in the middle ages realism was quite popular as it was
easier to solve some theological problems this way. At some time, one
philosophy department had even two different chairs, one for realism,
another for nominalism. Hence Plato's ideas have not disappeared during
Christianity completely.
Prof Hoenen specializes in the middle ages and it gives some charm to
his lectures.
Evgenii
On 03.09.2011 19:41 Bruno Marchal said the following:
> Hi Evgenii,
>
>
> On 02 Sep 2011, at 21:12, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
>> Bruno,
>>
>> Thanks a lot for your answers. I have said Bruno's theory just to
>> keep it short, nothing more, sorry.
>
> No problem. But logicians knows the devil is in the details, and,
> frankly, "theorem" is just one letter longer than theory, so I don't
> ask for so much. If you are skeptical it is a theorem, just say
> "argument".
>
>
>
>>
>> Your theorem is on my list but presumably I will try to think it
>> over in some time, not right now. At the moment I just follow your
>> answers to others, in other words I am at the stage of gathering
>> information. I should say the list was so far very helpful to learn
>> many things.
>>
>> Just one thing now. Do I understand correctly that your theorem
>> says that the 1st person view is uncomputable?
>
>
> You are right. This follows already from UDA 1-6. No need of anything
> except a rough idea of how most machines works (by obeying simple
> computable laws).
>
> The first person view is indeterminate, and non local. To predict the
> precise result of a physical experience, you have to take into
> account that you don't know, and cannot know, which universal (or
> not) machine(s) execute(s) you (even just in the physical universe,
> if that exists). When a physicist uses a physical law, to predict a
> first person experience (like seeing an eclipse, or a needle pointing
> on a number), he uses implicitly an identity thesis between his
> body/neighborhood and its experience. A logician would say that the
> physicist use an inductive close, like saying that my equation
> predicts I will see an eclipse, and no other laws or history is
> playing that role. But when we assume comp, such identity thesis
> cannot work (this subtle point *is* the main UDA point: basically you
> can still escape, at step 6 and 7, such conclusion by assuming that
> the universe is little (finite and not too big).
>
> If you are a machine, you are duplicable. And if you are duplicated,
> iteratively, you (most of the resulting "you"s) can correctly bet
> that the outcome of the duplication(s) cannot been predicted in
> advance. Children get the UDA 1-6 point without problem. OK, for "UDA
> step 6" they have to be a little bit older and capable to understand
> the plot in "the prestige" or in "simulacron 3". No need of math, or
> even of technical or theoretical computer science.
>
> Now, In AUDA, the first person appears also to be "a non machine",
> from the machine's point of view. This is due to the Theaetetus'
> connection between belief and truth, to define a knower. That is
> *much more* technical (to see that we stay *in* the arithmetical, to
> study an internal vision which escapes completely the arithmetical).
>
> But you don't need this to understand that if we are machine weak
> materialism becomes a sort of vitalism. We don't need it, and it can
> only prevent the DM solution of the mind-body problem (the
> 'solution' being a pure body-appearance problem in arithmetic).
>
> Comp, alias DM, can lead toward a contradiction, but up to now, it
> leads to a quantum like reality. It leads to a many-words, or better
> many (shared) dreams, internal interpretations of elementary
> arithmetic (notably).
>
> Best,
>
> Bruno
On 04 Sep 2011, at 18:30, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> A short remark. I have decided start with philosophy, as it is more
> entertaining as mathematical logic.
I'm afraid you are wrong on this, with all my respect. Mathematical
logic is the most entertaining thing in the world (except perhaps
salvia divinorum). Of course ML asks for some work, and the initial
work is a bit boring, and is the hardest part of logic (you have to
understand that at some point you are asked to NOT understand or even
interpret the symbols).
About "philosophy" I have no general opinion. The word has a different
meaning according to places and universities. When I was young, the
prerequisite for studying philosophy consists in showing veneration
and adoration for Marx. I made myself a lot of enemies by daring to be
just a little bit skeptical, if only on materialism. They have never
forgive me. In the country nearby, philosophy is literature, with an
emphasis of being vague, non understandable, and "authoritative". To
get good note, you need to leak the shoes of the teacher. It is
"religion" in disguise (pseudo-religion).
So, I don't believe in philosophy, per se. I don't take people like
Putnam or Maudlin, or Barnes, as philosopher, but as scientist.
because they are clear and refutable. Yet in the USA it is called
"philosophy", but it is not: it is just fundamental serious inquiry.
There is no difference between "philosophy of mind" and fundamental
cognitive science.
I don't really believe in science either. I believe in the scientific
attitude, which is just an attempt toward clarity and modesty. A
scientific theory is just a torch lighter on the unknown. Many confuse
the torch and the unknown, or the shadows brought by the torch and
reality.
> Right now I listen to lectures of Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen (in German)
>
> http://podcasts.uni-freiburg.de/podcast_content/courses?id_group=12
>
> His title "Controversy in philosophy" took my attention first but he
> has some more offers. Say now I listen to "What is philosophy". He
> speaks a bit too much but I have already got used to him.
>
> The half of his series on controversies has been devoted to realism
> vs. nominalism. If I understand correctly, your theorem proves that
> comp implies realism
Could you define realism? For some weak-materialist (believer in
primitive matter), realism is physical realism.
Comp proves nothing on that, but it assumes arithmetical realism,
which is believed by all mathematicians and scientists (except some of
them when they do Sunday philosophy (that is non professionally)).
Arithmetical realism is the belief that a number is either prime or is
not prime. It is the belief that the excluded middle principle can be
applied for close arithmetical statement (close = without having a
variable which is not in the scope of a quantifier).
> and in my view your argument is a mathematical model for realism.
My argument is just a proof that you cannot be rational, consistent,
mechanist and weakly materialist. It is a constructive proof that if
we are machine, physics cannot be the fundamental science, but that is
is derivable from number theory.
With the nice surprise, when we do the math, that we get a theory of
qualia extending naturally a theory of quanta.
> It is interesting to note that Ockam was a nominalist and with his
> razor he wanted to strip realism away.
Could you define 'nominalism'. I think nominalism needs arithmetical
realism. Mechanism needs arithmetical realism (only to define what is
a machine, really), but can be said to lead to some form of
epistemological realism. The physical universe is an illusion, but
that illusion is real, in some sense. Comp makes it 'more real' and
more 'solid' than what can be brought by any observation.
>
> By the way, in the middle ages realism was quite popular as it was
> easier to solve some theological problems this way. At some time,
> one philosophy department had even two different chairs, one for
> realism, another for nominalism. Hence Plato's ideas have not
> disappeared during Christianity completely.
This is true. Christians do even reject some typical point of
Aristotle theology (like the mortality of the soul), and embrace a lot
in Platonism. Unfortunately they have taken Aristotle doctrine of
primary matter (which is certainly a quite good simplifying
methodological assumption, but is just basically wrong in case we are
machine).
>
> Prof Hoenen specializes in the middle ages and it gives some charm
> to his lectures.
I might try to understand when I got more time. Although I talked
German up to the age of 6, I have not practice it a lot since, and
German philosophers can do very long complex sentences.
Bruno
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>
A is a person;
B is a person.
Does A is equal to B? The answer is no, A and B are after all different
persons. Yet then the question would be if something universal and
related to a term "person" exists in A and B.
Realism says that universals do exist independent from the mind (so in
this sense it has nothing to do with the physical realism and
materialism), nominalism that they are just notation and do not exist as
such.
It seems that this page is consistent with what Prof Hoenen says
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals
Well, he has not discussed what idealism has to do with universals.
Please have a look. If I understand your argument correctly, according
to it the universals do exist literally.
Evgenii
On 05.09.2011 18:59 Bruno Marchal said the following:
I think of that as Platonism. I think of realism as just the theory that things exist
independent of minds.
Brent
On 9/5/2011 3:50 PM, meekerdb wrote:
> On 9/5/2011 12:02 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>> Realism and nominalism in philosophy are related to universals (I
>> guess that numbers could be probably considered as universals as
>> well). A simple example:
>>
>> A is a person;
>> B is a person.
>>
>> Does A is equal to B? The answer is no, A and B are after all
>> different persons. Yet then the question would be if something
>> universal and related to a term "person" exists in A and B.
>>
>> Realism says that universals do exist independent from the mind (so
>> in this sense it has nothing to do with the physical realism and
>> materialism),
>
> I think of that as Platonism. I think of realism as just the theory
> that things exist independent of minds.
>
> Brent
How does realism explain the means by which knowledge of these
'things that exist independent of the mind" obtains? Is there some form
of interaction between those 'independent things' and our minds? If so,
that mechanism is this and how does it work?
Onward!
Stephen
Those things interact with a brain which instantiates the mental processes. At least
that's the theory.
Brent
So the mind is merely epiphenomena? OK... Are you truly satisfied
with that explanation?
Onward!
Stephen
Of course not. I might eventually be satisfied when we can engineer artificial
intelligences that exhibit the kind of behavior that makes up believe other humans are
conscious and we can say why one AI seems conscious and another doesn't. Maybe it'll be
because we make it Lobian.
Brent
> Realism and nominalism in philosophy are related to universals (I
> guess that numbers could be probably considered as universals as
> well). A simple example:
>
> A is a person;
> B is a person.
>
> Does A is equal to B? The answer is no, A and B are after all
> different persons. Yet then the question would be if something
> universal and related to a term "person" exists in A and B.
>
> Realism says that universals do exist independent from the mind (so
> in this sense it has nothing to do with the physical realism and
> materialism), nominalism that they are just notation and do not
> exist as such.
>
> It seems that this page is consistent with what Prof Hoenen says
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals
>
> Well, he has not discussed what idealism has to do with universals.
> Please have a look. If I understand your argument correctly,
> according to it the universals do exist literally.
I am not sure. UDA shows that we can take elementary arithmetic as
theory of everything (or equivalent). In that theory only 0, s(0),
s(s(0)), ... exist primitively (literally?).
Then you can derive existence of objects, among the numbers, which
have special property (like the prime numbers, the universal numbers,
the Löbian Universal numbers). Do they exist literally? I don't know
what that means. Do they exist primitively? That makes sense: s(s(0))
exists primitively and is prime.
Then you have the epistemological existence, defined by the things the
numbers, relatively to each other believes in (this includes the
physical universes, the qualia, persons, etc.). They does not exist
primitively, but their properties are still independent of the mind of
any machines. This is epistemological realism. Pain exists, in that
sense, for example.
All what you have, in the 3-pictures, are the numbers and their
relations and properties. This is enough to explain the "appearances"
of mind and matter, which exist from the number's perspective (which
can be defined by relation between machines' beliefs (defined
axiomatically) and truth (which is assumed, and can be approximated
from inside).
Now with comp, the primitive object are conventional. You can take
combinators, Turing "machines" or java programs instead of the
numbers. That will change nothing in the theory of mind and matter.
Bruno
Evgenii
On 06.09.2011 09:00 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>
> On 05 Sep 2011, at 21:02, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
>> Realism and nominalism in philosophy are related to universals (I
>> guess that numbers could be probably considered as universals as
>> well). A simple example:
>>
>> A is a person; B is a person.
>>
>> Does A is equal to B? The answer is no, A and B are after all
>> different persons. Yet then the question would be if something
>> universal and related to a term "person" exists in A and B.
>>
>> Realism says that universals do exist independent from the mind (so
>> in this sense it has nothing to do with the physical realism and
>> materialism), nominalism that they are just notation and do not
>> exist as such.
>>
>> It seems that this page is consistent with what Prof Hoenen says
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals
>>
>> Well, he has not discussed what idealism has to do with universals.
>> Please have a look. If I understand your argument correctly,
>> according to it the universals do exist literally.
>
>
> I am not sure. UDA shows that we can take elementary arithmetic as
> theory of everything (or equivalent). In that theory only 0, s(0),
> s(s(0)), ... exist primitively (literally?).
>
> Then you can derive existence of objects, among the numbers, which
> have special property (like the prime numbers, the universal numbers,
> the L�bian Universal numbers). Do they exist literally? I don't know
On the other hand, if we are to write a program that should classify
objects, then this program should have some dictionary with categories.
That dictionary in some sense should exist. This was my second
naive/crazy thought. It would be interesting to look how
realism/nominalism is translated into the object-oriented programming.
Evgenii
On 06.09.2011 05:13 Stephen P. King said the following:
Wouldn't those neural net face recognition programs be an example of this. They start out
not knowing anyone's face. But then with training they learn to recognize Brent and
distinguish him from Evgenii. Each instance of the Brent image is a little different from
the other instances but it assigned the same classification for purposes of access or
other action. In effect it has invented "Brent" and "Evgenii" as universals. The
'dictionary' then exists as the combined information of the program and memory. The
persistent patterns in memory are analogous to dictionary entries. The imaging and
actions provide the meaning of these entries.
Brent
Does the existence of said universals act as a guarantor of the
definiteness of the properties of the universals? As I see it, existence
per say is neutral, it is merely the necessary possibility to be. We
seem to be stuck with thinking that 3p = not-1p. What if 3p is the
invariant over 1p instead? I.e. the objective world is what all
observers hold as mutually non-contradictory, a sort of intersection of
their 1p's. I worry that in our rush to toss out the subjective and
illusory that we are discarding the essential role that an observer
plays in the universe. Is it any wonder why we have such a 'hard
problem' with consciousness because of this?
OTOH, it is incoherent to say that the Universals = 'what the
nominals have in common' since we cannot prevent nominals that can
entirely contradict each other. A possible solution to this is to
consider how communication between observers works out.
Onward!
Stephen
> Let me try it this way. Could we say that universals exist already
> in the 3d person view and they are independent from the 1st person
> view?
I think we can say that.
With the 'modern logic' approach we can bypass the middle-age "problem
of universal".
For example I would say that "prime number exist", and so, that the
notion of "being prime" can exist independently of any first person.
But this can be translated in first order logic with the
quantification restricted to the natural numbers, for example by
Ex (x is prime)
with (x is prime) being an abbreviation of (y divides x -> ((x ≠ 1) &
((y = 1) or (y = x))
with (y divides x ) being an abbreviation of (Ez (y * z = x))
So, the existence of universal can be translated into the truth of
some (arithmetical) relations. You can do the same with
Ex (x is a universal number)
Ex(x is a Löbian machine)
Ex (x is a finite computation)
or even
Ex (x is the code of a possibly infinite computation)
We can probably not say Ex(x is a dog), but we can say Ex(x is very
plausibly a dog), without any trouble, so we can have fuzzy universal
too. Those are well handled by programming technics and fuzzy set
theory, for example.
Bruno
>
> Evgenii
>
> On 06.09.2011 09:00 Bruno Marchal said the following:
>>
>> On 05 Sep 2011, at 21:02, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>>> Realism and nominalism in philosophy are related to universals (I
>>> guess that numbers could be probably considered as universals as
>>> well). A simple example:
>>>
>>> A is a person; B is a person.
>>>
>>> Does A is equal to B? The answer is no, A and B are after all
>>> different persons. Yet then the question would be if something
>>> universal and related to a term "person" exists in A and B.
>>>
>>> Realism says that universals do exist independent from the mind (so
>>> in this sense it has nothing to do with the physical realism and
>>> materialism), nominalism that they are just notation and do not
>>> exist as such.
>>>
>>> It seems that this page is consistent with what Prof Hoenen says
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals
>>>
>>> Well, he has not discussed what idealism has to do with universals.
>>> Please have a look. If I understand your argument correctly,
>>> according to it the universals do exist literally.
>>
>>
>> I am not sure. UDA shows that we can take elementary arithmetic as
>> theory of everything (or equivalent). In that theory only 0, s(0),
>> s(s(0)), ... exist primitively (literally?).
>>
>> Then you can derive existence of objects, among the numbers, which
>> have special property (like the prime numbers, the universal numbers,
>> the Löbian Universal numbers). Do they exist literally? I don't know
>> what that means. Do they exist primitively? That makes sense: s(s(0))
>> exists primitively and is prime.
>>
>> Then you have the epistemological existence, defined by the things
>> the numbers, relatively to each other believes in (this includes the
>> physical universes, the qualia, persons, etc.). They does not exist
>> primitively, but their properties are still independent of the mind
>> of any machines. This is epistemological realism. Pain exists, in
>> that sense, for example.
>>
>> All what you have, in the 3-pictures, are the numbers and their
>> relations and properties. This is enough to explain the "appearances"
>> of mind and matter, which exist from the number's perspective (which
>> can be defined by relation between machines' beliefs (defined
>> axiomatically) and truth (which is assumed, and can be approximated
>> from inside).
>>
>> Now with comp, the primitive object are conventional. You can take
>> combinators, Turing "machines" or java programs instead of the
>> numbers. That will change nothing in the theory of mind and matter.
>>
>> Bruno
>
?? "necessary possibility" = necessity ??
> We seem to be stuck with thinking that 3p = not-1p. What if 3p is the invariant over 1p
> instead? I.e. the objective world is what all observers hold as mutually
> non-contradictory, a sort of intersection of their 1p's.
I think that is essentially right. From an operational point of view, objective =
intersubjective agreement.
Brent
I like more to take an example with a human being rather than with a
name, so let me consider a term "a human being". So, after all a neural
net is some map. It takes some visual, audio, tactile, etc. inputs,
processes them and produces some token. What happens then? Presumably it
puts this token to the dictionary that produces qualia for the
homunculus in the brain (or whomever, this does not matter at this
point). Now I would say that if that final qualia corresponded to "a
human being" is the same in all brains, than this is realism. If
different, then this is nominalism.
Evgenii
--
http://blog.rudnyi.ru
I don't think that's the distinction between realism and nominalism in their theory of
universals. It's my understanding that the realist says that there really are human
beings in an objective sense (where "objective" may really just refer to intersubjective
agreement). While the nominalist says "human being" is just name we give to a category
created arbitrarily and we could just as well have defined it as hairless bipeds and
include ostriches and shaved kangaroos.
Brent
I think it is a category error to think of a token being put in a dictionary as evoking
qualia. I think qualia supervene on the conscious formation (and recall) of symbolic
(mostly language) narration which is put into memory (although possibly only short term).
In the neural net analogy, the perception of a person activates some part of the network
so that some word, e.g. "Bob", gets inserted in the stream of consciousness that it is
going into memory. "Bob" is retrieved only in the sense that some part of the network is
activated. There is no homunculus.
Brent
> The scenario that I have described is different in a sense that the communication takes
> place through physical processes that we know but at the end we may still think of
> qualia in the ontological sense. Hence one could probably state that this is also the
> realism (but definitely in some unconventional sense).
>
> Evgenii
>
Yes, you are right. My interpretation is different from the conventional
difference between realism and nominalism. Here one says indeed that
each person has something that exists in the objective sense and this
something is "a human being". Well, it we treat qualia ontologically,
then I guess, this will be close to realism. Yet one can imagine
different scenarios. Under a conventional definition, qualia "human
being" is tied with a physical person in the classical sense of the
realism. It is necessary however then to explain how a homunculus in the
brain retrieves that qualia from a physical person (quantum
consciousness?). The scenario that I have described is different in a
It well may be, I do not know. Anyway, in my view if we take qualia
ontologically, this will be some sort of realism.
As for homunculus, I also agree. Yet, frankly speaking I still do not
understand (even with qualia), how a 3D world that I experience is
created. Who experiences it? How qualia helps to solve such a question?
Evgenii
> OTOH, it is incoherent to say that the Universals = 'what the
> nominals have in common' since we cannot prevent nominals that can
> entirely contradict each other. A possible solution to this is to
> consider how communication between observers works out.
Universals = what things of one kind have in common.
Evgenii
On 07.09.2011 13:47 Stephen P. King said the following: