Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

[1Z]

Yablo and Gallois's paper "Is ontology based on a mistake" is quite
relevant to
the question of Platonism, specificall whether true matehmatical
assertions
of existence have to be taken literally.

http://tinyurl.com/ldekg7

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is it?

A paper criticising the Quinean view of ontology. Yablo does so by
introduces a metaphorical/literal distinction as to when it is
reasonable to posit the existence of entities. Thus in order to
determine our ontological commitments we need to be able to extract
all cases in which such entities are posited in a metaphorical way
rather than a literal one. If there is no way to do this, then it is
not possible to develop a Quinean ontology.

Where does it fit in for me?

For the thesis: if correct, it implies that Quine's fundamental
approach to ontology is flawed and this may have negative implications
for the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument.

For the metaphysics paper: possibly details a way in which existence
cannot be held to occur (which would be interesting to look at in
terms of the relations proposed). At the very least it gives an
example of particular existence claims which can then be analysed in a
relational way.

Reference
Yablo, S., Does ontology rest on a mistake?, Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. LXXII (1998), 229-261.


The Argument

Carnap on existence
Carnap argued that the realist existence question/assertion was
meaningless. He did this by means of his concept of linguistic
framework. A linguistic framework lays down rules for the use and
meaning of some object term X in a linguistic sense. Thus there are
two ways in which one can question/assert the existence of X: internal
or external to the linguistic framework.

If one questions the existence of X internal to the framework, one is
almost certainly guaranteed a yes answer (thus the statement "there is
an X" can pretty much be viewed as tautological when assessed
internally to a framework involving X). Hence the realist must be
making an external existence assertion. However, in this case the term
X has no meaning, as the framework within which it gains such is not
present. Thus the realist existence question/assertion is either
tautological or impossible to answer/assess.

Quine on Carnap
Quine objected to Carnap's position in three ways: firstly, he held
that his internal/external distinction was reliant on an analytic/
synthetic distinction (because the concept of a linguistic framework
involves the rules inherent in that framework being viewed as
indefeasible (i.e. analytic) within that particular linguistic
practice). As Quine believed that the analytic/synthetic distinction
could not be made, he held that Carnap's internal/external distinction
breaks down: internal assessments are thus not just a matter of
following inviolable linguistic rules, it is indeed possible for these
rules to change in response to experience and thus for internal
practice to change too.

Secondly, Quine argues that the external choice between linguistic
frameworks is much more influenced by observation than Carnap would
have us believe. For Quine, the decision to adopt a rule governing the
appropriate observational conditions under which one may assert the
existence of X is itself in part an assertion that X exists (if such
conditions obtain). He does not believe in making a distinction
between the linguistic truth and the factual truth of a statement.

Finally, Quine objects to the claim that the choice of linguistic
framework existence rule is based on merely practical considerations
to do with efficiency, simplicity, etc with no metaphysical
implications. He does so on the basis that these are exactly the sorts
of things that scientists use to favour one theory (and hence in
Quine's opinion, a view of the world, complete with ontology) over
another.

Yablo on Quine
Yablo argues that each aspect of Quine's critique is flawed. Firstly,
one does not need to hold that rules making up a linguistic framework
are analytic in order to be able to understand the need for a
framework in order to understand the meaning of terms. Not really sure
how this fits in and is related to Quine's second objection stage: One
does not need to render external talk of the objects within a
particular framework meaningless in order to save the internal, rule-
bound meaning. One can just make clear how such external statements
cannot be applied internally.;finally, Yablo points out that Quine
himself accepts the fact that a statement can be asserted purely for
practical advantage without the asserter actually holding that what it
entails metaphysically is actually the case.

Saving the Framework
Yablo goes on to propose a linguistic framework modified in light of
Quine's criticisms in which a framework is adopted as a kind of "game"
where the players assess the truth and falsity of statements within
the framework without any belief in implications for truth and/or
falsity outside of the framework. Thus Yablo argues that there are two
ways in which a statement may be interpreted: literally (external to a
particular game or linguistic framework) or as a metaphor (internal).

The Framework Strikes Back
This distinction regarding the way in which a statement may be
interpreted causes problems for the Quinean ontological regime. Given
that Quine does accept that assertions may be made in a metaphorical
sense, and that when one does so no ontological implications may be
drawn from such assertions, Quine needs to provide a clear demarcation
criterion to distinguish between metaphorical and literal statements.
As this has been much discussed without progress, it seems unlikely
that one will be able to distinguish between metaphorical and literal
usage and thus it is impossible to construct a certain ontology under
Quine's approach.

Indeed, Yablo argues that for the most part when we make statements,
we are unsure as to whether they are strictly literally true or if
they are at least in part to be taken metaphorically. Thus the
Quiniean must argue that in time these metaphorical parts of our
statements will be eroded and eventually only the literal
interpretation will remain. However, this reduces the Quinean position
to the following: one should sympathise with the idea that Xs exist
iff the literal part of theories involve their postulation and one
should count the part of a theory that involves the postulation of Xs
literal iff there turn out to be Xs. Thus there is a circularity.

Argument Outline

* Carnap proposes a conception of linguistic practice (involving
an internal/external distinction) under which ontological
investigations cannot meaningfully be undertaken.

* Quine criticises this by linking it to the problems of the
analytic/synthetic distinction.

* Yablo modifies Carnap's position so that the distinction is made
on metaphorical/literal grounds in instead.

* This new position requires that the Quinean provide a principle
of demarcation between metaphor and literal truth in order for their
ontology to prevail.

* No such principle has been provided and so the Quinean
ontological project fails.

http://xeny.net/Yablo.Ontology

[John Mikes]

Dear Peter,

the Yablo-Carnac-Gallois-Quine compendium is an interesting reading - except for missing the crux:

You, as a person, with knowledge about the ideas of the bickering philosophers, could do us the politesse of a brief summary about "who is stating what" (very few lines) which may increase the understanding of the innocent by-reader about the generalities mentioned back and forth. I for one looked at the 2 URL-s, long as one of them may be, and found further generalities as in a style of scientifically 'expert' discussions/arguments.  

I did not read so far and did not study these versions, so reading your (and their) papers was frustrating.

I am fundamentally opposed to 'ontology', because I consider it explaining the partial knowledge we have about 'the world' as if it were the total. I am for epistemology, the growing information-staple we absorb.

Most people stand on ontological grounds. I wanted to get a glimps.

Could you help?
John M

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Sep 2009, at 19:35, 1Z wrote:

> Yablo on Quine <...>

Number theory and computer science, and life, illustrates that the
contrary happens.
Quine's view on ontology disallow the modal contexts, that is the
person views, but as Boolos said provability logics provide a Qiuine-
acceptable view on the modalities/views. By incompleteness, essence
are unavoidable for the sound machines.

> However, this reduces the Quinean position
> to the following: one should sympathise with the idea that Xs exist
> iff the literal part of theories involve their postulation and one
> should count the part of a theory that involves the postulation of Xs
> literal iff there turn out to be Xs. Thus there is a circularity.
>
> Argument Outline
>
> * Carnap proposes a conception of linguistic practice (involving
> an internal/external distinction) under which ontological
> investigations cannot meaningfully be undertaken.
>
> * Quine criticises this by linking it to the problems of the
> analytic/synthetic distinction.
>
> * Yablo modifies Carnap's position so that the distinction is made
> on metaphorical/literal grounds in instead.
>
> * This new position requires that the Quinean provide a principle
> of demarcation between metaphor and literal truth in order for their
> ontology to prevail.
>
> * No such principle has been provided and so the Quinean
> ontological project fails.

CT entails it is easy to provide such a demarcation. The literal truth
are the true arithmetical sentences (in the Tarski sense.
The metaphor are the arithmetical sentences related to the discourses
and silence of universal numbers observing themselves, and (in most
UD-"time", betting on their most probable local universal computations.

There are many other possible demarcations. CT entails the equivalence
of a large class of such demarcation.

A physicalist demarcation is conceivable too. The literal truth could
be state of the universal wave function, or state of universal quantum
object (like Freedman Kitaev functor). The metaphor are given then by
emerging higher level relative classical (notably) beliefs.

There is already an explanation how bits emerges from qubits, (Everett
---> Zurek)

Only, if comp is true, the arrow has a reverse: we have to explain how
qubits emerge from bits (by UDA). The reverse arrow enriches the
picture a lot. By the Solovay splitting, we get both the communicable
quanta and the sensible and incommunicable qualia. At least, for the
formalist, we get sincere (by construction/restriction) discourses by
universal machines about themselves, and their possible views. That's
in the AUDA. This provides a formal (à-la Plotinus) 'theology'. For
non-comp, it is at least a 'toy' theology. Apparently valid and
complete (at the propositional level!) for all the sound axiomatizable
extensions of Peano Arithmetic, and sound for all the sound extensions
(don't need to be axiomatizable).

Instead of metaphor I would talk on emerging relative belief states.

Bruno

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

[Flammarion]

On 3 Sep, 17:12, John Mikes <jami...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Peter,
> the Yablo-Carnac-Gallois-Quine compendium is an interesting reading - except
> for missing the crux:
> You, as a person, with knowledge about the ideas of the bickering
> philosophers, could do us the politesse of a brief summary about "who is
> stating what" (very few lines) which may increase the understanding of the
> innocent by-reader about the generalities mentioned back and forth. I for
> one looked at the 2 URL-s, long as one of them may be, and found further
> generalities as in a style of scientifically 'expert' discussions/arguments.

One of my reasons for posting it was to illustrate that there is in
fact
a debate about ontology. Bruno has been arguign that numbers
exist because there are true mathematical statements asserting their
existence. The counterargument is that "existence" in mathematical
statements is merely metaphorical. That is what is being argued
backwards
and forwards.

> I did not read so far and did not study these versions, so reading your (and
> their) papers was frustrating.
> I am fundamentally opposed to 'ontology', because I consider it explaining
> the partial knowledge we have about 'the world' as if it were the total. I
> am for epistemology, the growing information-staple we absorb.
> Most people stand on ontological grounds. I wanted to get a glimps.
> Could you help?
> John M
>

[Flammarion]

On 3 Sep, 17:12, John Mikes <jami...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am fundamentally opposed to 'ontology', because I consider it explaining
> the partial knowledge we have about 'the world' as if it were the total.

How much we don't know is somehting we don't know.

[Jesse Mazer]

> Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 10:21:17 -0700
> Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology
> From: peter...@yahoo.com
> To: everyth...@googlegroups.com

>
>
>
>
> On 3 Sep, 17:12, John Mikes <jami...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Dear Peter,
> > the Yablo-Carnac-Gallois-Quine compendium is an interesting reading - except
> > for missing the crux:
> > You, as a person, with knowledge about the ideas of the bickering
> > philosophers, could do us the politesse of a brief summary about "who is
> > stating what" (very few lines) which may increase the understanding of the
> > innocent by-reader about the generalities mentioned back and forth. I for
> > one looked at the 2 URL-s, long as one of them may be, and found further
> > generalities as in a style of scientifically 'expert' discussions/arguments.
>
> One of my reasons for posting it was to illustrate that there is in
> fact
> a debate about ontology. Bruno has been arguign that numbers
> exist because there are true mathematical statements asserting their
> existence. The counterargument is that "existence" in mathematical
> statements is merely metaphorical. That is what is being argued
> backwards
> and forwards.

Your summary appears fairly nonsensical. "Existence" is a word humans have invented, as such it means whatever we define it to mean, there is no "truth" about whether numbers exist independent of our arbitrary choices about how to define what the word "exist" actually means. If I choose to define "existence" as the property of walking around on four legs, then it is perfectly correct to say that cats and dogs exist but humans and birds do not exist, according to this definition. I have asked you in several previous posts (such as the one at http://tinyurl.com/muh9a3 ) whether you agree that different philosophers define "existence" differently and there is no single "correct" usage, but you never seem willing to answer this straightforward question.

Philosophers may debate whether various concepts of existence like Quine's are internally coherent, or how well they match up with how we talk about the "existence" of things in everyday speech (these kinds of issues seem to be what Yablo is talking about), but they certainly don't debate about whether a particular definition of existence coincides with what "really exists", as if "existence" has some pure platonic meaning beyond human definitions.

 

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Sep 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote:

> ... Bruno has been arguign that numbers

> exist because there are true mathematical statements asserting their
> existence. The counterargument is that "existence" in mathematical
> statements is merely metaphorical. That is what is being argued
> backwards

I have never said that numbers exists because there are true

mathematical statements asserting their existence.

I am just saying that in the comp theory, I have to assume that such
truth are not dependent of me, or of anything else. It is necessary to
even just enunciate Church thesis. A weakening of Church thesis is 'a
universal machine exists". In the usual mathematical sense, like with
the theorem asserting that 'prime numbers exists.

I just make explicit that elementary true arithmetical statements are
part of the theory. You are free to interpret them in a formlaistic
way, or in some realist way, or metaphorically. The reasoning does not
depend on the intepretation, except that locally you bet you can 'save
your relative state' in a digital backup, for UDA. And you don't need
really that for the 'interview' of the universal machine.

All theories in physics uses at least that arithmetical fragment. But
fermions and bosons becomes metaphor, with comp. May be very fertile
one. Like galaxies and brains.

Scientist does not commit themselves ontologically. They postulate
basic entities and relations in theories which are always
hypothetical. I am just honest making explicit my use of the non
constructive excluded middle in the arithmetical realm.

You get stuck at step zero by a bullet you are ntroducing yourself, I
'm afraid.

Bruno

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

[John Mikes]

Bruno,

there is a lot of wisdom in your post. Your last sentence, however, may apply to that wisdom as well I am afraid.

 

"...I have to assume that [such] truth are not dependent of me,..." -

nor on anything else we may know of. I stay clear of 'truth' which is applied in whoever's theory - as 'his' truth.

I am in trouble with the "Church Thesis", it seems to be anchored in the math of functions and applied to comp.science. (BTW "recursive functions" pointing back to themselves? a restriction into what has been known (already)?  I may have the wrong idea (if any) about the Ch-Th of course.)

It may be 'fundamental' in - what I consider - a segment of the totality.

 

I can accept the 'universal machine' as not restricted to mathematical comp,

it definitely should not apply those binary-slanted algorithms. I consider it as

some analogue 'think-tank' beyond our present terms. Whatever I would try to characterize it with, is MY restriction to its unlimited capabilites. So I don't.

 

Bruno, is your own restriction  concentrated to 'physics' with 'math' as in:

("All theories in physics use at least that arithmetical fragment....")?

I love your extension of 'metaphors' (bosons) into galaxies and brains. They certainly are, included into our presently valid "perceived reality" of figments.

 

"Scientists do not commit themselves ontologically...."

Most - (especially the conventional ones) do. I find it a restriction of the total into the so far experienced portion - even  to the adjusted format of those - serving as the 'entirety this 'ontology' is based on.  I would love to device an ontology for the 'totality' - that would explain lots of questionmarks we still have in our ignorance (the how-s, why-s, and the other 1000 to be modest).

I am not sure about the 'excluded middle' since that is excluded from a mere segment we consider 'them all' while the entire set may include quite another middle. (My usual objection against statistical conclusions and probabilities of course, that are mere illusions of our human ways of anticipatory thinking). 

 

I intended this reflection to be 'positive' to your ideas, as considered them in more ways than just 'arithmetically based' (numbers?). 

 

John  

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi John,

I will answer your post as soon as possible. I am a bit busy those days (september exams, administrative things, ...).

At the same time, the sequel of the "seven step series" should be part of that answer, but this is what I will explain ...

Thanks for letting me know your interest,

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi John,

On 06 Sep 2009, at 18:03, John Mikes wrote:

Bruno,

there is a lot of wisdom in your post. Your last sentence, however, may apply to that wisdom as well I am afraid.

 

"...I have to assume that [such] truth are not dependent of me,..." -

nor on anything else we may know of. I stay clear of 'truth' which is applied in whoever's theory - as 'his' truth.

I think you are perhaps confusing provable (in a theory), and truth (of possible statements assertable in the theory). A theory does not known "his" complete truth.

Being realist on the arithmetical statement is an admission of ignorance in arithmetic. We accept that truth extends the mean of our brains, theories, systems, etc.

I hope I can clarify this later for you. It is weird, and not easy to explain without providing details. 

Reality is beyond fiction and when you make attempt to be just honest (and may be false), then "reality looks crackpot" ...

I am in trouble with the "Church Thesis", it seems to be anchored in the math of functions and applied to comp.science. (BTW "recursive functions" pointing back to themselves? a restriction into what has been known (already)?  I may have the wrong idea (if any) about the Ch-Th of course.)

It may be 'fundamental' in - what I consider - a segment of the totality.

For  mathematical reasons, assuming comp, we will have the choice between a non completely knowable totality, or on some necessarily partial, but complete in their domain, "totality", or sequence of totalities.

Self-extending totalities are akin to the notion of first person. 

With machines incompleteness makes room for the others (the second and third persons)

 

I can accept the 'universal machine' as not restricted to mathematical comp,

This is unclear. Universal machine appears only in that 'apparently restricted digital world'. remember that after Gödel, we can no more be sure that digitality is a restriction. Gödel signed the reductionist conception of numbers. Assuming comp, we know that we are either insane or very limited. And then UDA shows that the physical worlds arise 'logically' from our limitations (where "us" = the Lobian machine/entity, not the humans).

it definitely should not apply those binary-slanted algorithms. I consider it as

some analogue 'think-tank' beyond our present terms.

That is the case for all theory. Science is modest. 

(and in AUDA all 8 hypostases are derivable from the Löb 'modesty' formula B(Bp->p)->Bp, I say this for those who have follows some post, or read Smullyan's or Boolos (or Smorynski) book on the logic of provability/consistency.

Whatever I would try to characterize it with, is MY restriction to its unlimited capabilites. So I don't.

You are a universal machine, John. I can prove it, and I can even show that, as far as you are sound, you are Löbian. This means you can know that your are, at least, a universal machine. And this will be used negatively, in some way. Because Universal machine are very limited. They are under the jug of many limitation theorems.

In the arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus theology. Universal machine corresponds to what Plotinus call "man", 'or reasoner".

 

Bruno, is your own restriction  concentrated to 'physics' with 'math' as in:

("All theories in physics use at least that arithmetical fragment....")?

Not here. I am just making the quasi obvious remark that physicist needs the concept of number, or anything equivalent (like real numbers + trigonometry)  in their theory. 

I love your extension of 'metaphors' (bosons) into galaxies and brains. They certainly are, included into our presently valid "perceived reality" of figments.

Yes. With comp, brains, galaxies, atoms, still exists, but not as first order citizens. This is not obvious, and is the conclusion of UDA. This is so counter-intuitive that I have no problem with those who takes this as a reason to doubt  comp. Without the Everett-QM confirmation, I would have believed that this is close to a refutation of comp.

 

"Scientists do not commit themselves ontologically...."

Most - (especially the conventional ones) do.

This is due to the abandon of theology (the fundamental science) by academy to temporal political power. Atheists and Christians are ally against the reintroduction of non confessional theology in the academy. This explains why there is a still widespread belief that science can do ontological commitment. But then it is no more science but "religion".

I find it a restriction of the total into the so far experienced portion - even  to the adjusted format of those - serving as the 'entirety this 'ontology' is based on.  I would love to device an ontology for the 'totality' - that would explain lots of questionmarks we still have in our ignorance (the how-s, why-s, and the other 1000 to be modest).

Comp provides a vast range of acceptable and equivalent *hypothetical* ontology.

The hypothetical ontology of comp is a subset of all scientific theories today.

This has nothing to do with the fact that comp entails that we can stop speculating on matter. Even if matter exists, it would be an epiphenomenon, or better, an epinoumenon. Almost exactly like invisible horses driving the cars. But this should not be considered as obvious. It is a consequence of comp which needs some reasoning.

I am not sure about the 'excluded middle' since that is excluded from a mere segment we consider 'them all' while the entire set may include quite another middle. (My usual objection against statistical conclusions and probabilities of course, that are mere illusions of our human ways of anticipatory thinking). 

 

I intended this reflection to be 'positive' to your ideas, as considered them in more ways than just 'arithmetically based' (numbers?). 

I will try to reassure you about the idea that "arithmetically based" could be a reductionism, or a restriction. On the contrary, this idea leads to the idea that universal machine should have the right to vote (to put the things in this way). With the discovery of the universal machine, there is a sense to say that now we really have a better view on our ignorance, which appears to be larger than what we could ever have conceived before the work of Cantor, Kleene, etc.

The universal machine is not the solution of our problems. The universal machine *is* our problem.  (Assuming comp/CTM).

I think that I will have to make a little detour into other "impossibility theorem". I can already hear you saying that an impossibility theorem is impossible, because impossible could be a relative notion. But this is not the case, mathematics kicks back, and many things are just impossible, sometimes absolutely impossible, and sometimes we can prove it to ourself (assuming our consistency).

You cannot prove that an impossibility theorem is not possible, because if you prove that, you are proving an impossibility theorem!

Of course we need some faith, that 0 is different from 1, for example, but not much more. I intend to show that the principle of excluded middle can be seen as a tolerance-of-ignorance principle. As I said to Brent a long time ago, the excluded middle principle is more a rule of politeness among persons than a platonic reality. With comp, it reveals, in 'Arithmetica', incredible and innumerous unknown forms of 'living entities', and some incredible mess, too. The Mandelbrot set provides some partial illustration of that phenomenon(*).

Bruno

(*) You may enjoy this interpenetration of two parts of the M set. M invades itself, as you can see when zooming on the border of a little Mandelbrot. As in this "dezoom":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJLcyHOUHc&feature=channel_page

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

[Flammarion]

On 4 Sep, 22:12, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 04 Sep 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote:
>
> > ... Bruno has been arguign that numbers
> > exist because there are true mathematical statements asserting their
> > existence. The counterargument is that "existence" in mathematical
> > statements is merely metaphorical. That is what is being argued
> > backwards
>
> I have never said that numbers exists because there are true
> mathematical statements asserting their existence.

> I am just saying that in the comp theory, I have to assume that such
> truth are not dependent of me, or of anything else. It is necessary to
> even just enunciate Church thesis. A weakening of Church thesis is 'a
> universal machine exists". In the usual mathematical sense, like with
> the theorem asserting that 'prime numbers exists.

There is no usual sense of "exists" as the material I posted
demonstrates.

You have to be assuming that the existence of the UD is literal
and Platonic since you care concluding that I am beign generated by
it and
my existeince is not merely metaphorical. The arguemnt doesn't go
through
otherwise.

> I just make explicit that elementary true arithmetical statements are
> part of the theory. You are free to interpret them in a formlaistic
> way, or in some realist way, or metaphorically. The reasoning does not
> depend on the intepretation, except that locally you bet you can 'save
> your relative state' in a digital backup, for UDA.

IF formalism is true there is no UD. It simply doesn't exist
and doesn't genarate anything.

>And you don't need
> really that for the 'interview' of the universal machine.

Of course I need a real machine for a real interview.

> All theories in physics uses at least that arithmetical fragment. But
> fermions and bosons becomes metaphor, with comp.

Mathematical existence is metaphorical if mathematical existence is
literal.

Their existence is literal if mathematical existence is metaphorical.

> May be very fertile
> one. Like galaxies and brains.
>
> Scientist does not commit themselves ontologically. They postulate
> basic entities and relations in theories which are always
> hypothetical.

False. There is nothing hypothetical about ingeous rock.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 11 Sep 2009, at 17:45, Flammarion wrote:

On 4 Sep, 22:12, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 04 Sep 2009, at 19:21, Flammarion wrote:

...  Bruno has been arguign that numbers

exist because there are true mathematical statements asserting their

existence. The counterargument is that "existence" in mathematical

statements is merely metaphorical. That is what is being argued

backwards

I have never said that numbers exists because there are true

mathematical statements asserting their existence.

I am just saying that in the comp theory, I have to assume that such

truth are not dependent of me, or of anything else. It is necessary to

even just enunciate Church thesis. A weakening of Church thesis is 'a

universal machine exists".  In the usual mathematical sense, like with

the theorem asserting that 'prime numbers exists.

There is no usual sense of "exists" as the material I posted
demonstrates.

You have to be assuming that the existence of the UD is literal
and Platonic  since you care concluding that I am beign generated by
it and
my existeince is not merely metaphorical. The arguemnt doesn't go
through
otherwise.

Once you say "yes" to the doctor, there is a clear sense in which "you" (that is your third person relative computational state, the one the doctor digitalizes) exist in arithmetic, or exist arithmetically, and this in infinite exemplars, relatively to an infinity of universal numbers which executes the computation going through that state, and this in the arithmetical sense, which implied a subtle mathematical redundancy.

Then the MGA enforces that all universal machine first person future experience is statistically dependent of a sum on all those computations. 

You may read books by Boolos and Jeffrey, or Epstein & Carnielli, to see this. It is related to the representability of the computable functions in Robinson Arithmetic together with Church thesis.

I just make explicit that elementary true arithmetical statements are

part of the theory. You are free to interpret them in a formlaistic

way, or in some realist way, or metaphorically. The reasoning does not

depend on the intepretation, except that locally you bet you can 'save

your relative state' in a digital backup, for UDA.

IF formalism is true  there is no UD. It simply doesn't exist
and doesn't genarate anything.

If formalism is true, there is no matter, either. 

I am still waiting your formal definition of "primary matter", and of "ontological existence".

I am not sure I understand how you can both believe to be a formalist and believe in *primary* matter. To be honest.

Both in the West and the East we known since the dream argument that *primary* matter is a metaphysical notion. That is the main difference between the Platonist (in my sense) and the Aristotelicians. Atheists and Christians are usually Aristotelicians, and their opposition hides the deeper opposition between (weak) materialist Aristotelician and (neo)-Platonist. 

It is here that the scientific attitude remind us to not commit ontological commitment, and to be agnostic, except on refuted statements.

I am agnostic on both Matter and God. With "B" = believe, "~" = not, "m" = "Matter exists" and "g" ="God exists", taking in mind that I am open for large sense of those words, I am agnostic in the sense that ~Bm & ~B~m & ~Bg & ~B~g. That's why I do research. (Matter with a big "m" = primary matter. In Plotinus the "One" and "Matter" are both beyond being/existence. That fits very well with AUDA.

 I am not agnostic about consciousness, and persons, though. 

And you don't need

really that for the 'interview' of the universal machine.

Of course I need a real machine for a real interview.

You should avoid the use of 'real". In our context, this is the notion which we are discussing, or (re)defining. 

I have personally less doubt about my consciousness, and about my believe in the prime numbers than in anything material. Physicists avoid the question, except when interested in the conceptual problems posed by QM.

Bohr was ready to decree sometimes ago that the notion of reality did not apply to the microscopic. Nowadays we apply QM in cosmology, and we accept the price, that is the multiverse, but this still avoid the consciousness/reality relationship problem, when we assume comp. The MGA shows that we have to be a little more radical than Everett if we want to keep the CTM/comp idea.

As I just said on another forum: 'real' is a tricky notion.

All theories in physics uses at least that arithmetical fragment. But

fermions and bosons becomes metaphor, with comp.

Mathematical existence is metaphorical if mathematical existence is
literal.

In your theory. I have no problem with that. I just refer you to an argument showing that such theories are epistemologically incompatible with the comp hypothesis, or CTM. 

Their existence is literal  if mathematical existence is metaphorical.

May be very fertile

one. Like galaxies and brains.

Scientist does not commit themselves ontologically. They postulate

basic entities and relations in theories which are always

hypothetical.

False. There is nothing hypothetical about ingeous rock.

This is either mere wishful thinking, or you are not a machine. If you are a machine, then you confuse stable hypothesis with truth. "de mémoire de rose, je n'ai jamais vu mourir un jardinier" said the poet Fontenelle (from a rose's memory "I have never seen a gardiner dying". A possible misquote! 

Of course, we can play with words. Comp does provide an explanation of the existence of relatively stable patterns, already similar to quantum mechanics, so there is a sense, in the comp frame, that some rock are not hypothetical relatively to some observer. They are just not composed of little material definite things, they are singular maps on the local accessible probable computational histories. Why this is described by a wave? Probably because things get symmetrical and linear on the border of the universal machine ignorance, as the logic of "sensible" and "intelligible" matter suggests (already, cf AUDA).

With the SWE, you get a phenomenological account of the wave packet reduction through a comp subjective differentiation (that's mainly the work of Everett). But UDA shows that once you do that, you have to pursue the differentiation up to the justification of the SWE itself, from the numbers (or combinators, etc.). 

You are stuck at step 0 (you told me) by irrelevant philosophical considerations, I'm afraid. My point is mainly technical. UDA transforms the mind-body or consciousness/reality problem into a problem in mathematical computer science. If you are formalist, there is a complete formalist reading on what I do, indeed that's AUDA. A strict formalist can read UDA as a motivation for AUDA. But I have to insist that formalists are in general arithmetical realist ... in the formal sense of using the third excluded middle. I don't need more, and I can technically recast the whole thing with less (by using Markov intuitionistic principle).

The consistency of all this eventually resides in subtle aspects of the incompleteness phenomena in theoretical computer science. "Comp" is also for "computer science". Once you accept the excluded middle principle, like most mathematicians, you discover there is a "universe" full of living things there, developing complex views. 

You can say everything is metaphor but your consciousness: it is up to *your* work to make some things less metaphorical than others. 

We share, "obviously" long histories, and we are deep objects which can explain usual confusions about tokens and types.

And all this leads to a very elegant theory of everything. The ontology is defined by "p is true" if "p" is provable in Robinson Arithmetic. The epistemology is defined by "p is believed" if "p" is provable by Peano Arithmetic, or by any Löbian Machine described by Robinson Arithmetic. It is very concrete and a formalist should appreciate. Perhaps you should forget UDA for a while, and come back later, and study the "formal" AUDA part. It is my modest part in theoretical computer science, relying on key theorems by Gödel, Löb, Solovay, and many others. It is also a sequence of open problems, but the contrary would have been surprising. And there is an heroin there: the (classical) universal machine. And its little brother the (quantum) universal machine plays some key role too. AUDA shed some light on a two way road between those two notions. 

To be sure other part of math shows that, like the relation between braids and quantum computations, or Abramski's combinators algebra. The advantage of the "self-referential" approach, with the (formal) interview of the universal machine which introspects itself is that, by the Solovay G/G* splitting, we get the difference between the true (theological part) and the provable (the 'scientifically communicable' part).

A correct Löbian machine can study correctly (formally) the whole theology (which extends the science here) of a simpler Löbian machine. She cannot lift it correctly to herself, without falling in inconsistencies, but she can lift it in the interrogative and informal way, be it by hope, fear, bets, prayers or whatever. (or she can accept some 'truth' as new axioms and transform herself, but that's necessary risky).

Bruno

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

[Flammarion]

Not at all. I would only say yes to a material re-incarnation. I
don't believe in infinities of really existing immateial numbers.

> Then the MGA enforces that all universal machine first person future  
> experience is statistically dependent of a sum on all those  
> computations.

They don't exist/

> You may read books by Boolos and Jeffrey, or Epstein & Carnielli, to  
> see this. It is related to the representability of the computable  
> functions in Robinson Arithmetic together with Church thesis.
>
>
>
> >> I just make explicit that elementary true arithmetical statements are
> >> part of the theory. You are free to interpret them in a formlaistic
> >> way, or in some realist way, or metaphorically. The reasoning does  
> >> not
> >> depend on the intepretation, except that locally you bet you can  
> >> 'save
> >> your relative state' in a digital backup, for UDA.
>
> > IF formalism is true  there is no UD. It simply doesn't exist
> > and doesn't genarate anything.
>
> If formalism is true, there is no matter, either.

No,that does not follow.

> I am still waiting your formal definition of "primary matter", and of  
> "ontological existence".

I don't have to give one. Formalism is not the claim
that everything is formal, it is the claim tha mathematics
is a formal game played by material beings, ie mathemaicians.

> I am not sure I understand how you can both believe to be a formalist  
> and believe in *primary* matter. To be honest.

You have misunderstood formalism

> Both in the West and the East we known since the dream argument that  
> *primary* matter is a metaphysical notion.

The existence of anyhting immaterial is a metaphysical notion

> That is the main difference  
> between the Platonist (in my sense) and the Aristotelicians. Atheists  
> and Christians are usually Aristotelicians, and their opposition hides  
> the deeper opposition between (weak) materialist Aristotelician and  
> (neo)-Platonist.
>
> It is here that the scientific attitude remind us to not commit  
> ontological commitment, and to be agnostic, except on refuted  
> statements.
>
> I am agnostic on both Matter and God. With "B" = believe, "~" = not,  
> "m" = "Matter exists" and "g" ="God exists", taking in mind that I am  
> open for large sense of those words, I am agnostic in the sense that  
> ~Bm & ~B~m & ~Bg & ~B~g. That's why I do research. (Matter with a big  
> "m" = primary matter. In Plotinus the "One" and "Matter" are both  
> beyond being/existence. That fits very well with AUDA.
>
>   I am not agnostic about consciousness, and persons, though.
>
>
>
> >> And you don't need
> >> really that for the 'interview' of the universal machine.
>
> > Of course I need a real machine for a real interview.
>
> You should avoid the use of 'real". In our context, this is the notion  
> which we are discussing, or (re)defining.

How can I avoid "real" in a discussion of "real"?

> I have personally less doubt about my consciousness, and about my  
> believe in the prime numbers than in anything material. Physicists  
> avoid the question, except when interested in the conceptual problems  
> posed by QM.

You can't validly infer the actual non-existence of matter
from beliefs about numbers. At some stage you have
to argue that the "exists" in mathematical statemetns
is metaphysically loaded and should be interpreted
literally to mean actual existence. And that is precisely
because I cannot deny my own actual existence.

> Bohr was ready to decree sometimes ago that the notion of reality did  
> not apply to the microscopic. Nowadays we apply QM in cosmology, and  
> we accept the price, that is the multiverse, but this still avoid the  
> consciousness/reality relationship problem, when we assume comp. The  
> MGA shows that we have to be a little more radical than Everett if we  
> want to keep the CTM/comp idea.
> As I just said on another forum: 'real' is a tricky notion.
>
>
>
> >> All theories in physics uses at least that arithmetical fragment. But
> >> fermions and bosons becomes metaphor, with comp.
>
> > Mathematical existence is metaphorical if mathematical existence is
> > literal.
>
> In your theory. I have no problem with that. I just refer you to an  
> argument showing that such theories are epistemologically incompatible  
> with the comp hypothesis, or CTM.

They are not incompatible with CTM. They are incompatible
with comp because comp=CTM+Platonism. I can keep CTM and
materialism by rejecting Platonism

> > Their existence is literal  if mathematical existence is metaphorical.
>
> >> May be very fertile
> >> one. Like galaxies and brains.
>
> >> Scientist does not commit themselves ontologically. They postulate
> >> basic entities and relations in theories which are always
> >> hypothetical.
>
> > False. There is nothing hypothetical about ingeous rock.
>
> This is either mere wishful thinking, or you are not a machine. If you  
> are a machine, then you confuse stable hypothesis with truth. "de  
> mémoire de rose, je n'ai jamais vu mourir un jardinier" said the poet  
> Fontenelle (from a rose's memory "I have never seen a gardiner dying".  
> A possible misquote!

Everybody makes common-sense metaphysical commitments,
and that includes much of science. It only becomes problematical
in abstruse areas of physics. In any case, your argument is not-
metaphysically
non-comital, you are committed to the Platonic existence of numbers.
The difference between my position and yours is that my commitments
are closer to common sense.

> Of course, we can play with words. Comp does provide an explanation of  
> the existence of relatively stable patterns, already similar to  
> quantum mechanics, so there is a sense, in the comp frame, that some  
> rock are not hypothetical relatively to some observer. They are just  
> not composed of little material definite things, they are singular  
> maps on the local accessible probable computational histories. Why  
> this is described by a wave? Probably because things get symmetrical  
> and linear on the border of the universal machine ignorance, as the  
> logic of "sensible" and "intelligible" matter suggests (already, cf  
> AUDA).
>
> With the SWE, you get a phenomenological account of the wave packet  
> reduction through a comp subjective differentiation (that's mainly the  
> work of Everett). But UDA shows that once you do that, you have to  
> pursue the differentiation up to the justification of the SWE itself,  
> from the numbers (or combinators, etc.).
>
> You are stuck at step 0 (you told me) by irrelevant philosophical  
> considerations, I'm afraid. My point is mainly technical. UDA  
> transforms the mind-body or consciousness/reality problem into a  
> problem in mathematical computer science.

There is not UDA if there is no realy existng UD. There is no
really existing UD if Platonism is false.

>If you are formalist, there  
> is a complete formalist reading on what I do, indeed that's AUDA. A  
> strict formalist can read UDA as a motivation for AUDA. But I have to  
> insist that formalists are in general arithmetical realist ...

Only AR qua bivalence. The whole point of formalism
is the rejection of AR qua existence. However truth
alone does nto get you an existing UD, and therefore
does not get my existence inside it.

> in the  
> formal sense of using the third excluded middle. I don't need more,  
> and I can technically recast the whole thing with less (by using  
> Markov intuitionistic principle).
>
> The consistency of all this eventually resides in subtle aspects of  
> the incompleteness phenomena in theoretical computer science. "Comp"  
> is also for "computer science". Once you accept the excluded middle  
> principle, like most mathematicians, you discover there is a  
> "universe" full of living things there, developing complex views.

Nonsense. The LEM is just a formal rule. There is no inference
from bivalence to Platonism

> You can say everything is metaphor but your consciousness: it is up to  
> *your* work to make some things less metaphorical than others.
> We share, "obviously" long histories, and we are deep objects which  
> can explain usual confusions about tokens and types.
>
> And all this leads to a very elegant theory of everything. The  
> ontology is defined by "p is true" if "p" is provable in Robinson  
> Arithmetic.

That is not ontology. You keep thinkign you can get
ontology for free jsut by proving somehting on a
blackboard.

[John Mikes]

Bruno,

the more I read here on the "Church thesis" the less I know about it.

Is there a short description in 'non-technical' words about the 'essence' you hold instrumental in the applications you apply?

John M

[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Sep 2009, at 16:42, Flammarion wrote:

On 11 Sep, 19:34, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 11 Sep 2009, at 17:45, Flammarion wrote:

Once you say "yes" to the doctor, there is a clear sense in which  

"you" (that is your third person relative computational state, the one  

the doctor digitalizes) exist in arithmetic, or exist arithmetically,  

and this in infinite exemplars, relatively to an infinity of universal  

numbers which executes the computation going through that state, and  

this in the arithmetical sense, which implied a subtle mathematical  

redundancy.

Not at all.

It follows from saying "yes" to a material re-incarnation. I have no clue why you say so.

I would only say yes to a material re-incarnation.

yes that is comp.

I
don't believe in infinities of really existing immateial numbers.

You don't have to. *That* is the MGA point. Unless you make consciousness and matter into actual infinite, but then you can no more say yes to a *digital* surgeon.

Then the MGA enforces that all universal machine first person future  

experience is statistically dependent of a sum on all those  

computations.

They don't exist/

They don't exist physically. They do exist mathematically. It is all what is used.

If formalism is true, there is no matter, either.

No,that does not follow.

You believe in formalism for math, but not for physics. OK. Fair enough.

I was using "formalism" in metaphysics or theology.

The existence of anyhting immaterial is a metaphysical notion

I don't see why. I believe that the truth of a proposition like "It exist prime numbers" is a matter of mathematics, not of metaphysics. You seem to believe we have to do those reification, but the MGA point is that we don't need to do that, at least once we accept the idea that "I" am not "my material" body, as we do when saying yes to a doctor, even for a "material" re-incarnation, given that anything material is substituted by different "tokens". You still dodge the critics of any part of the argument, by using philosophically remark which you don't show the relevance *at the place of the reasoning*. Science does not work like that.

How can I avoid "real" in a discussion of "real"?

By adding "in the math sense" or "in the physical sense', etc. 

But you define "real" by primitively material. OK, but then you are obliged to admit that a movie of a computation does a computation, which is non sense.

I have personally less doubt about my consciousness, and about my  

believe in the prime numbers than in anything material. Physicists  

avoid the question, except when interested in the conceptual problems  

posed by QM.

You can't validly infer the actual non-existence of matter
from beliefs about numbers.

I have never done that. I show that we cannot epistemologically use a notion of matter to explain the first person account of observation.

At some stage you have
to argue that the "exists" in mathematical statemetns
is metaphysically loaded

At which stage, and why? 

and should be interpreted
literally to mean actual existence.

I don't see why. Arithmetical existence is quite enough. You need to reify matter, but MGA shows that such a move contradict the idea that I can survive through a digital substitution. You will save our time by reading the argument.

And that is precisely
because I cannot deny my own actual existence.

Yes, but you can deny your material existence, given that nobody has proved that primitive matter exists. This is already in the old dream argument used in both the west and the east by the (objective, non solipsist) idealist. You are begging the question.

They are not incompatible with CTM. They are incompatible
with comp because comp=CTM+Platonism. I can keep CTM and
materialism by rejecting Platonism

AR = classical logic can be appied in arithmetic (Arithmetical realism)

Platonism = "matter emerge from math"

Comp = CTM, and this include Church thesis, and thus arrithmetical realism.

Theorem: comp => platonism. or CTM => platonism.

You are confusing the hypothesis and the conclusion.

Everybody makes common-sense metaphysical commitments,
and that includes much of science. It only becomes problematical
in abstruse areas of physics. In any case, your argument is not-
metaphysically
non-comital, you are committed to the Platonic existence of numbers.

Given that I am using "Platonic" in the sense of the theologian, and not in the larger sense of the mathematician, it would be nice to cooperate a little bit on the vocabulary so as not confusing the mind of the reader.

I am commited to the use of the excluded middle in arithmetic, that's all.

The difference between my position and yours is that my commitments
are closer to common sense.

That may be true, but I am not even sure about that. All we can say is that since the closure of Plato Academy, it is a Aristotelian theological tradition in Churches and in some "materialist" academies to mock Plato-like theologies, you may be right. But it is not common sense, it is Aristotelian habit. Cats believed in Mouse, but not that mouse are *primitively* material.

I believe in matter, you know. But not necessarily in primitive matter. I give you an argument, but you don't read it, so ...

There is not UDA if there is no realy existng UD. There is no
really existing UD if Platonism is false.

If you read UDA, you will see that it is using "physical existence" up to the seventh step, and then the 8th step decharge that assumption. Clearly your problem is with the MGA.

If you are formalist, there  

is a complete formalist reading on what I do, indeed that's AUDA. A  

strict formalist can read UDA as a motivation for AUDA. But I have to  

insist that formalists are in general arithmetical realist ...

Only AR qua bivalence. The whole point of formalism
is the rejection of AR qua existence.

This does not make sense. AUDA works very well with a formal notion of mathematical existence.

However truth
alone does nto get you an existing UD, and therefore
does not get my existence inside it.

You existence in the UD* (execution of the UD in arithmetic) *in the third person* sense is pretty obvious, once you say yes for the "material execution". Your existence of you in the first person sense is a non trivial consequence of the MGA.

The consistency of all this eventually resides in subtle aspects of  

the incompleteness phenomena in theoretical computer science. "Comp"  

is also for "computer science". Once you accept the excluded middle  

principle, like most mathematicians, you discover there is a  

"universe" full of living things there, developing complex views.

Nonsense. The LEM is just a formal rule. There is no inference
from bivalence to Platonism

Of course. This is provided by the MGA. Here you are using Platonism in my sense (Plato's sense). Good.

And all this leads to a very elegant theory of everything. The  

ontology is defined by "p is true" if "p" is provable in Robinson  

Arithmetic.

That is not ontology. You keep thinkign you can get
ontology for free jsut by proving somehting on a
blackboard.

It just means that something exists if "Ex P(... x ...) is provable in Robinson Arithmetic.

I cannot get a metaphysical existence of primitive matter from that. But this is not a problem.

Also, when I say that RA provides the ontology, this is in the frame where I trust the doctor, so I don't dispute the "metaphysical (if you want)" existence of the first person conscious experience. saying "yes" to a doctor is not part of a proof on a backboard, it is a theological believe in form of material (at first, in step zero) re-incarnation.

I am astonished how much you can discuss an argument without reading it. 

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

John,

On 12 Sep 2009, at 17:01, John Mikes wrote:

> Bruno,
> the more I read here on the "Church thesis" the less I know about it.
> Is there a short description in 'non-technical' words about the
> 'essence' you hold instrumental in the applications you apply?

I will explain in detail Church thesis after the explanation of Cantor
and Kleene's results. If there are still problems, please ask at that
moment. Just now would be slightly premature and confusing I think.

In a nutshell, Church thesis is the statement that "lambda calculus",
or any of the many provably equivalent formal systems, provides a
correct and complete description of the notion of computability.
A provably weaker statement of Church thesis is the affirmation of the
(mathematical) existence of universal machine. The mathematical
existence of the UD is a direct consequence of CT.

Best,

Bruno

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

[m.a.]

Bruno,

           Could you please clarify to a non-mathematician why the principle of excluded middle is so central to your thesis (hopefully without using acronyms like AUDA, UD etc.). Many modern schools of philosophy reject the idea. Thanks,  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            m.a.

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Bruno Marchal

To: everyth...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 4:02 AM

Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

Given that I am using "Platonic" in the sense of the theologian, and not in the larger sense of the mathematician, it would be nice to cooperate a little bit on the vocabulary so as not confusing the mind of the reader.

I am commited to the use of the excluded middle in arithmetic, that's all.

 

Once you accept the excluded middle  

principle, like most mathematicians, you discover there is a  

"universe" full of living things there, developing complex views.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

Marty,

           Could you please clarify to a non-mathematician why the principle of excluded middle is so central to your thesis (hopefully without using acronyms like AUDA, UD etc.).

Without the excluded middle (A or not A), or without classical logic, it is harder to prove non constructive result. In theoretical artificial intelligence, or in computational learning theory, but also in many place in mathematics, it happens that we can prove, when using classical logic, the existence of some objects, for example machines with some interesting property, and this without being able to exhibit them.

In my preceding post on the square root of two, I have illustrated such a non constructive existence proof. The problem consisted in deciding if there exist a couple of irrational  numbers x and y such that x^y is rational. 

And by appying the excluded middle, in this case by admitting that a number is either rational or is not rational, I was able to show that sqrt(2)^sqrt(2) was a solution, OR that (sqrt(2)^sqrt(2))^sqrt(2) was a solution. This, for a realist solves the existence problem, despite we don't know yet which solution it is. Such an OR is called non construcrtive. You know that the suspect is Alfred or Arthur, but you don't know which one. Such information are useful though.

Many modern schools of philosophy reject the idea. Thanks,  

Classical logic is the good idea, imo, for the explorer of the unknown, who is not afraid of its ignorance.

Abandoning the excluded middle is very nice to modelize or analyse the logic of construction, or of self-expansion.

Classical logic can actually help to exhibit the multiple splendors of such logic, even, more so when assuming explicitly Church thesis, or some intuitionist version of Church thesis. It is a very rich subject.

Now there are Billions (actually an infinity) of ways to weaken classical logic. When it is use in context related to "real problem", I have no issue.

When we will arrive to Church thesis (after Cantor theorem), you will see that it needs the excluded middle principe to make sense.

Few scientists doubt it, and virtually none doubt it for arithmetic. It is the idea that a well defined number property applied on a well defined number is either true or false. The property being defined with addition and multiplication symbols.

I hope this help. Soon, you will get new illustration of the importance of the excluded middle.

I could also explain that classical logic is far more easy than non classical logic, where you have no more truth table, and except some philosopher are virtually known by no one, as far as practice is taken into account.

Technically, UDA stands up with many weakening of classical logics, but it makes the math harder, and given that the arithmetical hypostases justifies the points of view by what is technically equivalent weakening of classical logics, it confuses the picture.

To a non mathematician, I would say that classical logic is the most suited for comparing the many non classical internal views of universal machines. I would add it helps to take into account our ignorance. A simpler answer is that without it I have no Church thesis in its usual classical sense.

Bruno

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Bruno Marchal

To: everyth...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 4:02 AM

Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

Given that I am using "Platonic" in the sense of the theologian, and not in the larger sense of the mathematician, it would be nice to cooperate a little bit on the vocabulary so as not confusing the mind of the reader.

I am commited to the use of the excluded middle in arithmetic, that's all.

 

Once you accept the excluded middle  

principle, like most mathematicians, you discover there is a  

"universe" full of living things there, developing complex views.

Bruno

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

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

[m.a.]

Thanks,

              This does indeed clarify the subject and puts it in a perspective that I feel that I can understand as much as possible without working through the intricacies of the proof.       m.a.

[Flammarion]

On 13 Sep, 18:12, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> Marty,
>
> > Could you please clarify to a non-mathematician why the
> > principle of excluded middle is so central to your thesis (hopefully
> > without using acronyms like AUDA, UD etc.).
>
> Without the excluded middle (A or not A), or without classical logic,
> it is harder to prove non constructive result. In theoretical
> artificial intelligence, or in computational learning theory, but also
> in many place in mathematics, it happens that we can prove, when using
> classical logic, the existence of some objects, for example machines
> with some interesting property, and this without being able to exhibit
> them.

What you are proving is only existence in the mathematical sense.
The philosophical quesiton of whether backwards-E should be taken
literally (Platonism) or only metaphorically (formalism) is left
unadresses
by the PEM.

[Flammarion]

On 13 Sep, 09:02, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 12 Sep 2009, at 16:42, Flammarion wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 11 Sep, 19:34, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> >> On 11 Sep 2009, at 17:45, Flammarion wrote:
>
> >> Once you say "yes" to the doctor, there is a clear sense in which
> >> "you" (that is your third person relative computational state, the
> >> one
> >> the doctor digitalizes) exist in arithmetic, or exist arithmetically,
> >> and this in infinite exemplars, relatively to an infinity of
> >> universal
> >> numbers which executes the computation going through that state, and
> >> this in the arithmetical sense, which implied a subtle mathematical
> >> redundancy.
>
> > Not at all.
>
> It follows from saying "yes" to a material re-incarnation. I have no
> clue why you say so.

No consequences about an immaterial re-incarnation
follow from saying yes to a mteriali re-incarnation

> > I would only say yes to a material re-incarnation.
>
> yes that is comp.

That is CTM

> > I
> > don't believe in infinities of really existing immateial numbers.
>
> You don't have to.

No I don't.. I don't have to to beleive in CTM.
And without Platonism, I cannot exist in an immaterial
machine because there aren't any.

>*That* is the MGA point. Unless you make
> consciousness and matter into actual infinite, but then you can no
> more say yes to a *digital* surgeon.

Without Platonism, I cannot exist in an immaterial
machine because there aren't any. Formalism
refutes your conclusion without bringing in infinities.

> >> Then the MGA enforces that all universal machine first person future
> >> experience is statistically dependent of a sum on all those
> >> computations.
>
> > They don't exist/
>
> They don't exist physically. They do exist mathematically. It is all
> what is used.

You mean they exist Platonically. For formlalists,
such "existence" is a mere metaphor and has
no metaphyscial consequences.

> >> If formalism is true, there is no matter, either.
>
> > No,that does not follow.
>
> You believe in formalism for math, but not for physics. OK. Fair enough.
> I was using "formalism" in metaphysics or theology.




> > The existence of anyhting immaterial is a metaphysical notion
>
> I don't see why.

For the same reason that the existence of anyhting material is a
metaphysical notion

>I believe that the truth of a proposition like "It
> exist prime numbers" is a matter of mathematics, not of metaphysics.

So do I. I also believe that the *meaining* of exists
is a philosophical question (as in the papers I qutoed)
and that your arguemnt does not go throuigh without
takign a stance on that philosophical quesiton.

> You seem to believe we have to do those reification, but the MGA point
> is that we don't need to do that, at least once we accept the idea
> that "I" am not "my material" body, as we do when saying yes to a
> doctor, even for a "material" re-incarnation, given that anything
> material is substituted by different "tokens".

There is no valid implication from "I am not
dependent on any particular matter" to
"I am independent of all matter".

>You still dodge the
> critics of any part of the argument, by using philosophically remark
> which you don't show the relevance *at the place of the reasoning*.
> Science does not work like that.

You are not doing science, you are doing philosohpy.

> > How can I avoid "real" in a discussion of "real"?
>
> By adding "in the math sense" or "in the physical sense', etc.
> But you define "real" by primitively material.

That is false. I assert that I am real in some non-metaphorical
sense. I can then conclude that I am not being generated
by a non-existent UD. That reasoning does notr require
the assumption that real=material. Even if I am an disemobodied
spirirt, I am still nto being generated by a non-existent UD

>OK, but then you are
> obliged to admit that a movie of a computation does a computation,
> which is non sense.



> >> I have personally less doubt about my consciousness, and about my
> >> believe in the prime numbers than in anything material. Physicists
> >> avoid the question, except when interested in the conceptual problems
> >> posed by QM.
>
> > You can't validly infer the actual non-existence of matter
> > from beliefs about numbers.
>
> I have never done that. I show that we cannot epistemologically use a
> notion of matter to explain the first person account of observation.

Your argument does not fgo
through on pure espistemologiy, you
have to be makign metaphysical assumptions
since your conclusions are metaphyical.

> > At some stage you have
> > to argue that the "exists" in mathematical statemetns
> > is metaphysically loaded
>
> At which stage, and why?

you
have to be makign metaphysical assumptions
since your conclusions are metaphyical.

> > and should be interpreted
> > literally to mean actual existence.
>
> I don't see why. Arithmetical existence is quite enough.

If it is no real existence at all, as formalism
claims, it is not enough.

>You need to
> reify matter, but MGA shows that such a move contradict the idea that
> I can survive through a digital substitution. You will save our time
> by reading the argument.

The conclusion of the MGA can esaily be avoided by
requiring that a compuation is a causally coherent sequence of
phsycial states.

> > And that is precisely
> > because I cannot deny my own actual existence.
>
> Yes, but you can deny your material existence, given that nobody has
> proved that primitive matter exists. This is already in the old dream
> argument used in both the west and the east by the (objective, non
> solipsist) idealist. You are begging the question.

THat is irrelevant. Since I exist, I cannot be generatd
by a non-existent UD. Therefore the "mathematical"
existence of the UD has to be taken to be actual existence.

> > They are not incompatible with CTM. They are incompatible
> > with comp because comp=CTM+Platonism. I can keep CTM and
> > materialism by rejecting Platonism
>
> AR = classical logic can be appied in arithmetic (Arithmetical realism)
> Platonism = "matter emerge from math"

No that is not what Platonism means

> Comp = CTM, and this include Church thesis, and thus arrithmetical
> realism.

Only bivalence. You are trying to smuggle in Platonic metaphysics.

> Theorem: comp => platonism. or CTM => platonism.
>
> You are confusing the hypothesis and the conclusion.

Platonism has to be assumed, otr you cannot
casually introduce an existing UD in step 7 as you
do.

> > Everybody makes common-sense metaphysical commitments,
> > and that includes much of science. It only becomes problematical
> > in abstruse areas of physics. In any case, your argument is not-
> > metaphysically
> > non-comital, you are committed to the Platonic existence of numbers.
>
> Given that I am using "Platonic" in the sense of the theologian, and
> not in the larger sense of the mathematician, it would be nice to
> cooperate a little bit on the vocabulary so as not confusing the mind
> of the reader.
> I am commited to the use of the excluded middle in arithmetic, that's
> all.

That is not enough to derive your
metaphsycial conclusions.

> > The difference between my position and yours is that my commitments
> > are closer to common sense.
>
> That may be true, but I am not even sure about that. All we can say is
> that since the closure of Plato Academy, it is a Aristotelian
> theological tradition in Churches and in some "materialist" academies
> to mock Plato-like theologies, you may be right. But it is not common
> sense, it is Aristotelian habit. Cats believed in Mouse, but not that
> mouse are *primitively* material.
> I believe in matter, you know. But not necessarily in primitive
> matter. I give you an argument, but you don't read it, so ...



>
> > There is not UDA if there is no realy existng UD. There is no
> > really existing UD if Platonism is false.
>
> If you read UDA, you will see that it is using "physical existence" up
> to the seventh step, and then the 8th step decharge that assumption.
> Clearly your problem is with the MGA.



> >> If you are formalist, there
> >> is a complete formalist reading on what I do, indeed that's AUDA. A
> >> strict formalist can read UDA as a motivation for AUDA. But I have to
> >> insist that formalists are in general arithmetical realist ...
>
> > Only AR qua bivalence. The whole point of formalism
> > is the rejection of AR qua existence.
>
> This does not make sense. AUDA works very well with a formal notion of
> mathematical existence.

How can I be generated by a UD that exists only
as a concpet in mathematicians mind? You are confusing
the dropping of bivalence with the dorppign of Platonism

> > However truth
> > alone does nto get you an existing UD, and therefore
> > does not get my existence inside it.
>
> You existence in the UD* (execution of the UD in arithmetic) *in the
> third person* sense is pretty obvious, once you say yes for the
> "material execution".

No, it doesn't follow at all without
Platonism

>Your existence of you in the first person sense
> is a non trivial consequence of the MGA.



> >> The consistency of all this eventually resides in subtle aspects of
> >> the incompleteness phenomena in theoretical computer science. "Comp"
> >> is also for "computer science". Once you accept the excluded middle
> >> principle, like most mathematicians, you discover there is a
> >> "universe" full of living things there, developing complex views.
>
> > Nonsense. The LEM is just a formal rule. There is no inference
> > from bivalence to Platonism
>
> Of course. This is provided by the MGA. Here you are using Platonism
> in my sense (Plato's sense). Good.
>
>
>
> >> And all this leads to a very elegant theory of everything. The
> >> ontology is defined by "p is true" if "p" is provable in Robinson
> >> Arithmetic.
>
> > That is not ontology. You keep thinkign you can get
> > ontology for free jsut by proving somehting on a
> > blackboard.
>
> It just means that something exists if "Ex P(... x ...) is provable in
> Robinson Arithmetic.
> I cannot get a metaphysical existence of primitive matter from that.
> But this is not a problem.

YOu cannot get any metaphysics out of it, including
Platonism

> Also, when I say that RA provides the ontology, this is in the frame
> where I trust the doctor, so I don't dispute the "metaphysical (if you
> want)" existence of the first person conscious experience. saying
> "yes" to a doctor is not part of a proof on a backboard, it is a
> theological believe in form of material (at first, in step zero) re-
> incarnation.
>
> I am astonished how much you can discuss an argument without reading it.

I am astonished you think a UD can introduced without justification

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 Sep 2009, at 19:02, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 13 Sep, 18:12, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> Marty,
>>
>>> Could you please clarify to a non-mathematician why the
>>> principle of excluded middle is so central to your thesis (hopefully
>>> without using acronyms like AUDA, UD etc.).
>>
>> Without the excluded middle (A or not A), or without classical logic,
>> it is harder to prove non constructive result. In theoretical
>> artificial intelligence, or in computational learning theory, but
>> also
>> in many place in mathematics, it happens that we can prove, when
>> using
>> classical logic, the existence of some objects, for example machines
>> with some interesting property, and this without being able to
>> exhibit
>> them.
>
> What you are proving is only existence in the mathematical sense.

Indeed.

> The philosophical quesiton of whether backwards-E should be taken
> literally (Platonism) or only metaphorically (formalism) is left
> unadresses
> by the PEM.

Of course. that is why there is the MGA.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 14 Sep 2009, at 19:46, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 13 Sep, 09:02, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> On 12 Sep 2009, at 16:42, Flammarion wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 11 Sep, 19:34, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>>>> On 11 Sep 2009, at 17:45, Flammarion wrote:
>>
>>>> Once you say "yes" to the doctor, there is a clear sense in which
>>>> "you" (that is your third person relative computational state, the
>>>> one
>>>> the doctor digitalizes) exist in arithmetic, or exist
>>>> arithmetically,
>>>> and this in infinite exemplars, relatively to an infinity of
>>>> universal
>>>> numbers which executes the computation going through that state,
>>>> and
>>>> this in the arithmetical sense, which implied a subtle mathematical
>>>> redundancy.
>>
>>> Not at all.
>>
>> It follows from saying "yes" to a material re-incarnation. I have no
>> clue why you say so.
>
> No consequences about an immaterial re-incarnation
> follow from saying yes to a mteriali re-incarnation

The epistemological consequence that physicalism is false follows from
MGA.

>
>>> I would only say yes to a material re-incarnation.
>>
>> yes that is comp.
>
> That is CTM

Comp, is after some afterthought a more precise and more weak version
of CTM.
Comp is Arithmetical Realism, which in the present context should be
distinguished from Platonism, which I use for "platonist theology".
+ it exists a level of description such that ....
I refer you to the paper.

>
>>> I
>>> don't believe in infinities of really existing immateial numbers.
>>
>> You don't have to.
>
>
> No I don't.. I don't have to to beleive in CTM.
> And without Platonism, I cannot exist in an immaterial
> machine because there aren't any.

This is not an argument. I cold as well say: I cannot be a primitively-
material thing, because that does not exist, beyond the imagination of
materialist philosopher.

Peter, are you able to doubt about the existence of primary matter?

>
>> *That* is the MGA point. Unless you make
>> consciousness and matter into actual infinite, but then you can no
>> more say yes to a *digital* surgeon.
>
> Without Platonism, I cannot exist in an immaterial
> machine because there aren't any.

I assume arithmetical realism. It is part of the theory. I would
appreciate you tell us in which theory you are reasoning.

> Formalism
> refutes your conclusion without bringing in infinities.

Firstly: Formalism is not assumed.
Secondly: Formalism in math assumes usually arithmetical realism. This
is due to the fact that formalism use iterated application of formal
rules.

>
>>>> Then the MGA enforces that all universal machine first person
>>>> future
>>>> experience is statistically dependent of a sum on all those
>>>> computations.
>>
>>> They don't exist/
>>
>> They don't exist physically. They do exist mathematically. It is all
>> what is used.
>
> You mean they exist Platonically. For formlalists,
> such "existence" is a mere metaphor and has
> no metaphyscial consequences.

Formalism is not assumed. You don( follow the reasoning. You are
working in another theory. You don't address the point.

>
>>>> If formalism is true, there is no matter, either.
>>
>>> No,that does not follow.
>>
>> You believe in formalism for math, but not for physics. OK. Fair
>> enough.
>> I was using "formalism" in metaphysics or theology.
>
>
>
>
>>> The existence of anyhting immaterial is a metaphysical notion
>>
>> I don't see why.
>
> For the same reason that the existence of anyhting material is a
> metaphysical notion

I try to avoid philosophical or metaphysical issue. I like that very
much, but just as a hobby.

>
>> I believe that the truth of a proposition like "It
>> exist prime numbers" is a matter of mathematics, not of metaphysics.
>
> So do I. I also believe that the *meaining* of exists
> is a philosophical question (as in the papers I qutoed)
> and that your arguemnt does not go throuigh without
> takign a stance on that philosophical quesiton.

My thesis is not a work in philosophy. It is a interdisciplinary work
at the cross of computer science, cognitive science and physics, and
theology (in the original greek sense). It is a technical theoretical
point. You should read it, because I have the impression you follow
some rumors.

>
>> You seem to believe we have to do those reification, but the MGA
>> point
>> is that we don't need to do that, at least once we accept the idea
>> that "I" am not "my material" body, as we do when saying yes to a
>> doctor, even for a "material" re-incarnation, given that anything
>> material is substituted by different "tokens".
>
> There is no valid implication from "I am not
> dependent on any particular matter" to
> "I am independent of all matter".

Assuming comp, there is. It is the MGA point.

>
>> You still dodge the
>> critics of any part of the argument, by using philosophically remark
>> which you don't show the relevance *at the place of the reasoning*.
>> Science does not work like that.
>
> You are not doing science, you are doing philosohpy.

This remark witnesses your misunderstanding.

>
>
>>> How can I avoid "real" in a discussion of "real"?
>>
>> By adding "in the math sense" or "in the physical sense', etc.
>> But you define "real" by primitively material.
>
> That is false. I assert that I am real in some non-metaphorical
> sense.

1-I or 3-I ?

> I can then conclude that I am not being generated
> by a non-existent UD.

non-existent or non-physical?

> That reasoning does notr require
> the assumption that real=material. Even if I am an disemobodied
> spirirt, I am still nto being generated by a non-existent UD

3-I is generated by the physical material UD. That was the point here.

>>> You can't validly infer the actual non-existence of matter
>>> from beliefs about numbers.
>>
>> I have never done that. I show that we cannot epistemologically use a
>> notion of matter to explain the first person account of observation.
>
> Your argument does not fgo
> through on pure espistemologiy, you
> have to be makign metaphysical assumptions
> since your conclusions are metaphyical.

My conclusion are no more metaphysical than Darwin's conclusion that
life have evolved. My conclusion is that the physical laws appears and
"evolved" from the relation between numbers, and I show it is
testable. There is nothing metaphysical there.

>
>>> At some stage you have
>>> to argue that the "exists" in mathematical statemetns
>>> is metaphysically loaded
>>
>> At which stage, and why?
>
> you
> have to be makign metaphysical assumptions
> since your conclusions are metaphyical.

See above.

>
>
>>> and should be interpreted
>>> literally to mean actual existence.
>>
>> I don't see why. Arithmetical existence is quite enough.
>
> If it is no real existence at all, as formalism
> claims, it is not enough.

I don't assume formalism. Yet, I provide the AUDA which can be seen as
the formalist version of UDA.

>
>> You need to
>> reify matter, but MGA shows that such a move contradict the idea that
>> I can survive through a digital substitution. You will save our time
>> by reading the argument.
>
> The conclusion of the MGA can esaily be avoided by
> requiring that a compuation is a causally coherent sequence of
> phsycial states.

... in a way making you saying "no" to the doctor. Unless MGA is
invalid, which remains to be shown.

>
>>> And that is precisely
>>> because I cannot deny my own actual existence.
>>
>> Yes, but you can deny your material existence, given that nobody has
>> proved that primitive matter exists. This is already in the old dream
>> argument used in both the west and the east by the (objective, non
>> solipsist) idealist. You are begging the question.
>
>
>
> THat is irrelevant. Since I exist, I cannot be generatd
> by a non-existent UD. Therefore the "mathematical"
> existence of the UD has to be taken to be actual existence.

Up to the step seven, the UD is supposed to exist physically, whatever
that means.

>
>>> They are not incompatible with CTM. They are incompatible
>>> with comp because comp=CTM+Platonism. I can keep CTM and
>>> materialism by rejecting Platonism
>>
>> AR = classical logic can be appied in arithmetic (Arithmetical
>> realism)
>> Platonism = "matter emerge from math"
>
> No that is not what Platonism means

This contradicts one of your posts.

> Platonism has to be assumed, otr you cannot
> casually introduce an existing UD in step 7 as you
> do.

In step seven the UD is concrete, material, etc. You really should
read the paper before arguing.

>
>>> Everybody makes common-sense metaphysical commitments,
>>> and that includes much of science. It only becomes problematical
>>> in abstruse areas of physics. In any case, your argument is not-
>>> metaphysically
>>> non-comital, you are committed to the Platonic existence of numbers.
>>
>> Given that I am using "Platonic" in the sense of the theologian, and
>> not in the larger sense of the mathematician, it would be nice to
>> cooperate a little bit on the vocabulary so as not confusing the mind
>> of the reader.
>> I am commited to the use of the excluded middle in arithmetic, that's
>> all.
>
> That is not enough to derive your
> metaphsycial conclusions.

See above.

In your theory, which the UDA shows to be incompatible with saying
"yes" to the doctor.

> You are confusing
> the dropping of bivalence with the dorppign of Platonism

I will not comment this, because you always change the sense of
Platonism to assure the local consistency of your point, without
addressing the points stage by stage of the reasoning. It is
rhetorical, not argumentative.

>
>>> However truth
>>> alone does nto get you an existing UD, and therefore
>>> does not get my existence inside it.
>>
>> You existence in the UD* (execution of the UD in arithmetic) *in the
>> third person* sense is pretty obvious, once you say yes for the
>> "material execution".
>
> No, it doesn't follow at all without
> Platonism

It follows from Arithmetical Realism, like the existence of prime
number follows from arithmetical realism. You are the one introducing
metaphysical assumption irrelevant for the technical points.

>> It just means that something exists if "Ex P(... x ...) is provable
>> in
>> Robinson Arithmetic.
>> I cannot get a metaphysical existence of primitive matter from that.
>> But this is not a problem.
>
> YOu cannot get any metaphysics out of it, including
> Platonism

Right. But I don't do that.

>
>> Also, when I say that RA provides the ontology, this is in the frame
>> where I trust the doctor, so I don't dispute the "metaphysical (if
>> you
>> want)" existence of the first person conscious experience. saying
>> "yes" to a doctor is not part of a proof on a backboard, it is a
>> theological believe in form of material (at first, in step zero) re-
>> incarnation.
>>
>> I am astonished how much you can discuss an argument without
>> reading it.
>
>
> I am astonished you think a UD can introduced without justification

The existence of the UD is a theorem of Robinson Arithmetic. Up to
step seven, it is implemented in the physical neighborhood. MGA shows
that this concrete implementations is not relevant, nor even definable
in any absolute sense, because the physical supervenience would
entails that a movie of a physical computer would compute, which it
does not.
To understand this, technically, it is necessary to understand the
comp-supervenience, and this need a good understanding of the
mathematical notion of computation/computability, and this is the
reason I am currently explaining the seventh step with some more
technical details. We may come back on this if you are interested.

Just tell me, Peter, can you doubt the existence of primary matter?
Can you conceive arithmeticalism (or mathematicalism) to be a viable
alternative to physicalism?

Bruno

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

[m.a.]

 

A modest question. What's left of materialism (to even argue about) when orthodox theoretical physics itself sees the world in terms of virtual particles and one-dimensional strings?     m.a.

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Bruno Marchal" <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

To: <everyth...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 4:27 AM

Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

>
>

> On 14 Sep 2009, at 19:46, Flammarion wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 13 Sep, 09:02, Bruno Marchal <

marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

>>> On 12 Sep 2009, at 16:42, Flammarion wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 11 Sep, 19:34, Bruno Marchal <

marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

>>>>> On 11 Sep 2009, at 17:45, Flammarion wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Once you say "yes" to the doctor, there is a clear sense in which
>>>>> "you" (that is your third person relative computational state, the
>>>>> one
>>>>> the doctor digitalizes) exist in arithmetic, or exist 
>>>>> arithmetically,
>>>>> and this in infinite exemplars, relatively to an infinity of
>>>>> universal
>>>>> numbers which executes the computation going through that state, 
>>>>> and
>>>>> this in the arithmetical sense, which implied a subtle mathematical
>>>>> redundancy.
>>>
>>>> Not at all.
>>>
>>> It follows from saying "yes" to a material re-incarnation. I have no
>>> clue why you say so.
>>
>> No consequences about an immaterial re-incarnation
>> follow from saying yes to a mteriali re-incarnation
>
> The epistemological consequence that physicalism is false follows from

 

CLIP...

 
> MGA.
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
>

[Flammarion]

On 15 Sep, 15:19, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> A modest question. What's left of materialism (to even argue about) when orthodox theoretical physics itself sees the world in terms of virtual particles and one-dimensional strings? m.a.

What makes you think they are not material?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 15 Sep 2009, at 16:19, m.a. wrote:

 

A modest question. What's left of materialism (to even argue about) when orthodox theoretical physics itself sees the world in terms of virtual particles and one-dimensional strings?     m.a.

 

Important question. Some materialist could argue that "virtual" has not the same meaning in physics than in computer science, and that this can lead to confusion, but the question addresses the point that the notion of primitive matter is not clear already in from a purely physicist's standpoint.

Actually it is possible to be immaterialist, yet still physicalist. The MGA shows that materialism is empty of possible explanation, but UDA+MGA shows that physicalism has to be wrong. This change nothing to current physics, like Darwinism will not change the biology of the current species. It just shows that 'Darwinism' has to be extended deeply into the origin of the physical laws themselves, in a sense. It means that the relation between math and physics are more intricate than simply a question of applicability. 

And then there are the many evidence from number theory itself, that physics could be a chapter of number theory, like the Moonshine realm. But that is another topic.

Bruno

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

[David Nyman]

2009/9/14 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>:

>> They don't exist physically. They do exist mathematically. It is all
>> what is used.
>
> You mean they exist Platonically. For formlalists,
> such "existence" is a mere metaphor and has
> no metaphyscial consequences.

I find that I can't real say what the difference is supposed to be
between numbers existing mathematically and numbers existing
Platonically, other than that different labels are being used. What
precisely is the latter supposed to entail that the former does not,
and what difference is this supposed to make? Can you help, Peter?

David

[m.a.]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Flammarion" <peter...@yahoo.com>
To: "Everything List" <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology


>
>
>

> On 15 Sep, 15:19, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> A modest question. What's left of materialism (to even argue about) when

>> orthodox theoretical physics itself reduces the world to virtual

>> particles and one-dimensional strings? m.a.
>
> What makes you think they are not material?

They certainly seem to occupy a hazy border between nothing and something.





> >

[Flammarion]

On 15 Sep, 19:21, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/14 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>:

>
> >> They don't exist physically. They do exist mathematically. It is all
> >> what is used.
>
> > You mean they exist Platonically. For formlalists,
> > such "existence" is a mere metaphor and has
> > no metaphyscial consequences.
>
> I find that I can't real say what the difference is supposed to be
> between numbers existing mathematically and numbers existing
> Platonically, other than that different labels are being used. What
> precisely is the latter supposed to entail that the former does not,
> and what difference is this supposed to make? Can you help, Peter?

Existing mathematically doesn't have any ontoloigcal meaning.
Both formalists and Platonists can agree that 7 exists,
since they agree Ex:x=7 is true, but only the latter think
7 has Platonic existence.

[Flammarion]

Do they? Why would that be true of strings and not the point particles
of classical phsycis?

[David Nyman]

2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>:

>> I find that I can't real say what the difference is supposed to be
>> between numbers existing mathematically and numbers existing
>> Platonically, other than that different labels are being used. What
>> precisely is the latter supposed to entail that the former does not,
>> and what difference is this supposed to make? Can you help, Peter?
>
> Existing mathematically doesn't have any ontoloigcal meaning.
> Both formalists and Platonists can agree that 7 exists,
> since they agree Ex:x=7 is true, but only the latter think
> 7 has Platonic existence.

Yes, but I still don't see what difference the word 'ontological'
makes in this context. Surely whatever world-conjuring power numbers
may possess can't depend on which label is attached to them? If a
mathematical scheme fulfils a deep enough explanatory role (a moot
point I admit) isn't that 'ontological' enough?

David

[Flammarion]

On 16 Sep, 12:54, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>:

>
> >> I find that I can't real say what the difference is supposed to be
> >> between numbers existing mathematically and numbers existing
> >> Platonically, other than that different labels are being used. What
> >> precisely is the latter supposed to entail that the former does not,
> >> and what difference is this supposed to make? Can you help, Peter?
>
> > Existing mathematically doesn't have any ontoloigcal meaning.
> > Both formalists and Platonists can agree that 7 exists,
> > since they agree Ex:x=7 is true, but only the latter think
> > 7 has Platonic existence.
>
> Yes, but I still don't see what difference the word 'ontological'
> makes in this context. Surely whatever world-conjuring power numbers
> may possess can't depend on which label is attached to them?

The knowabilitry of a claim about what powers numbers
have can only depend on what labels are correctly attached.
Petrol is not flammable just becaue I attached the label
"flammable" to it. Petrol *Is* flammable, and that
makes the label-attachment correct.

> If a
> mathematical scheme fulfils a deep enough explanatory role (a moot
> point I admit) isn't that 'ontological' enough?

If you are claiming that the *existence* of numbers
would explain somehting empierica;, that is an abductive
argument for Platonism. Other than that sayign "Numbers
explain" is too vague. Numbers are often used to
explain things about other numbers. So what,
says the formalist, none of them exist and such
explanations are nothing but moves in a game.

[Quentin Anciaux]

2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

Well if it's a game how do you explain it fits observation ? How do you explain the predictability of physical theories (which are *only* numbers based) ?

Regards,
Quentin
 

--
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

[Flammarion]

On 16 Sep, 13:30, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>

Much of it doesn't.

>How do you
> explain the predictability of physical theories (which are *only* numbers
> based) ?

They are a subset of maths which does fit obeserved regularities.
Discarded theorie are another subset of maths that doesn't.
The Library of Babel contains history as well as fiction. Think about
it.

[Quentin Anciaux]

2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

That wasn't what I wanted to convey... please note the "which are *only* numbers based".

Regards,
Quentin Anciaux
 

[Flammarion]

At best that suggests that only the mathematical structures
exemplified
by correct physics exist (mathematical empriicsm rather than Platonism
or Formalism).

[Quentin Anciaux]

2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

Why "at best" ?

 

[Flammarion]

Because phsyics containst false theories as well as true ones. If
all mathematical structures existed, that would not be the case.

[m.a.]

>> > On 15 Sep, 15:19, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >> A modest question. What's left of materialism (to even argue about)
>> >> when
>> >> orthodox theoretical physics itself reduces the world to virtual
>> >> particles and one-dimensional strings? m.a.
>>
>> > What makes you think they are not material?
>>
>> They certainly seem to occupy a hazy border between nothing and
>> something.
>
> Do they? Why would that be true of strings and not the point particles
> of classical phsycis?

OK, strings have mass, but the ocean of virtual particles which may give
rise to all "real" particles exists somewhere between matter and thought.


> >

[Quentin Anciaux]

2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

Well unless you could observe everything and then rightfully assert that exist, that doesn't, you can't be sure that theories alla Tegmark are false.

But anyway i do not follow your "at best"... your "at best" is whishful thinking. By saying it you are commiting yourself to the PM theorie... which is metaphysical.

 

[Flammarion]

On 16 Sep, 15:51, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> the ocean of virtual particles which may give
> rise to all "real" particles exists somewhere between matter and thought.

I see no reason to believe that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle

[Flammarion]

If Tegmark is correct. there are no false physical theories.

But you can't justify Tegmarkism by appealing to a Tegmarkian
conception of physcis -- that is circular.

> But anyway i do not follow your "at best"... your "at best" is whishful
> thinking. By saying it you are commiting yourself to the PM theorie... which
> is metaphysical.

It's no more metaphysical than Platonism or Tegmarkism.

[Brent Meeker]

David Nyman wrote:
> 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>:
>
>
>>> I find that I can't real say what the difference is supposed to be
>>> between numbers existing mathematically and numbers existing
>>> Platonically, other than that different labels are being used. What
>>> precisely is the latter supposed to entail that the former does not,
>>> and what difference is this supposed to make? Can you help, Peter?
>>>
>> Existing mathematically doesn't have any ontoloigcal meaning.
>> Both formalists and Platonists can agree that 7 exists,
>> since they agree Ex:x=7 is true, but only the latter think
>> 7 has Platonic existence.
>>
>
> Yes, but I still don't see what difference the word 'ontological'
> makes in this context. Surely whatever world-conjuring power numbers
> may possess can't depend on which label is attached to them? If a
> mathematical scheme fulfils a deep enough explanatory role (a moot
> point I admit) isn't that 'ontological' enough?
>
> David

Sure. There are different models of the world. Each model takes some
things as existing and tries to explain the rest in terms of relations,
processes, interactions, or whatever. The Standard Model takes quarks
and leptons and does a pretty impressive job of explaining everything
but gravity and consciousness (which is probably what inspired Penrose
to try to explain mind in terms of gravity). String theory tries to
explain both particles and gravity in terms of strings (or branes); but
it has it's own 'white rabbit' problem. Bruno wants to take arithemetic
as basic. But so far I don't see that his theory has predicted (as
opposed to retrodicted) anything except that it has a white rabbit
problem too. The discussion seems to have gotten stuck on whether it
has been proven that physics can't be fundamental because it can't
include consciousness. I consider that a diversion. Since we don't
really have a definite idea of what consciousness is let's see what the
theory does tell us - then we can worry about where physics fits.

Brent

[Quentin Anciaux]

2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

Well, likewise you can't justify PM by appealing to a PM conception of physics.

> But anyway i do not follow your "at best"... your "at best" is whishful
> thinking. By saying it you are commiting yourself to the PM theorie... which
> is metaphysical.

It's no more metaphysical than Platonism or Tegmarkism.

Sure, I was only pointing that your answer commit to PM theorie and that is metaphysical (as platonism or "tegmarkism" is of course).
 
Regards,
Quentin

[Brent Meeker]

Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>
> 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com
> <mailto:peter...@yahoo.com>>

>
>
>
>
> On 16 Sep, 12:54, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com

> <mailto:david.ny...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> > 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com

> <mailto:peterdjo...@yahoo.com>>:

Physical theories are not only numbers based. They are based on
operational definitions (which can be ostensive). Logical (i.e.
mathematical) descriptions are used, but they require interpretations in
terms of the operational definitions. Bruno's theory also requires
interpretation of terms like "believe" and "know" in terms of arithmetic.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

You are quite quick on this.

There is a tradition in quantum mechanics , with von Neumann, Wigner, Walker, Penrose, and in a sense Heisenberg, Pauli, Fuchs, ... to ascribe to consciousness the ability to collapse the wave, in this case field superpostion of number operator states (in the vaccuum, say).

This made essentially the (universal) state function into a (relative) knowledge state.

Of course Everettian, a fortioti computationalists, take the indexical view so that they associate the knowledge state with some self-localisation in a multiverse. This can save the knower and the known thing. They do that by realism with respect to the terms used in the language of their theories.

Comp provides an explanation where those operators come from 'elementary arithmetic seen from inside), and this in a way which respects the absolute existence of the person and its private experience *and* the stability and *partial* sharability and computability of the appearances. And it predicts the indeterminacies beyond. All that double aspect is explained through the Gödel-Löb-Solovay spliiting between provabilities (and intensional variants) and truth (about them).

I think you miss the idea entirely. It is because I don't want to be involved in philosophical issue, that I decided to assume the computationnalist hypothesis so as to translate the mind-body problem into a problem of computer science. 

Machine theology is the study of the difference between truth and what machine can prove, observe, intuit and infer. You can interpret this formally, if this is how you look at mathematics. 

AUDA is UDA, for the formalists. Instead of asking *you* to do a thought experiment, I interview a universal machine through the use of its 'guardian angels'  G and G*.

You postpone the thought experience since the beginning, you may as well focus on the fromal math instead. Machine's theology defines its own physics, and it makes 'formal comp' testable, and that's the point.

The least comp does, is to show we can be rationalist and have a conception of reality far nearer to Plato, Plotinus, and many other school in the east, than to Aristotle's primary materialism (shared by some atheists and some christians).

But are you able to doubt the existence of primary matter? To conceive another religion or reality conception?

Your unwillingness to search for an error in the argument makes me infer that you may be unable to doubt the existence of primary matter. Or are you?

Bruno

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

[m.a.]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Flammarion" <peter...@yahoo.com>
To: "Everything List" <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:25 AM
Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology


>
>
>

> On 16 Sep, 15:51, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> the ocean of virtual particles which may give
>> rise to all "real" particles exists somewhere between matter and thought.
>

> I see no reason to believe that.

I would be most interested in your view of vacuum fluctuations of virtual
particles.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
> >

[Brent Meeker]

The Wiki article is rather confused and mixes metaphorical and heuristic uses of the term
virtual particle with the actual use in physics calculations. In Feynman diagrams there
are internal lines representing interactions mediated by virtual particles, i.e. particles
that are not on the mass shell. But these diagrams are just a way of getting all the
terms in a perturbation expansion. Single diagrams don't represent something that
happens. Most physicists (who bother to think about it) don't regard the virtual
particles as 'real' because they are, by construction, not observable. They are just a
calculational device.

Brent

[David Nyman]

2009/9/16 Brent Meeker <meek...@dslextreme.com>:

> The discussion seems to have gotten stuck on whether it
> has been proven that physics can't be fundamental because it can't
> include consciousness.

Has it? I thought we were discussing whether CTM made any meaningful
commitments as a physical theory, not whether physics can or can't
include consciousness per se. Now you raise the question, I don't
believe it can, simply because in common with virtually every other
human attempt to characterise the world, its perspective is embedded
in consciousness and hence can't envision it. Comp may sheds light
both on the propositional content and observational regularities of
consciousness, which itself is important and enlightening, but
nonetheless seems just as unlikely to illuminate the medium in which
it is embedded.

> Since we don't
> really have a definite idea of what consciousness is let's see what the
> theory does tell us - then we can worry about where physics fits.

If you're still talking about CTM, then I think we can see already
that physics has nothing to do with it. But I agree wholeheartedly
that we should be completely open to what any theory may tell us at
this stage of our endarkenment.

David

[David Nyman]

2009/9/16 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>:

> The knowabilitry of a claim about what powers numbers
> have can only depend on what labels are correctly attached.
> Petrol is not flammable just becaue I attached the label
> "flammable" to it. Petrol *Is* flammable, and that
> makes the label-attachment correct.

Yes, but 'flammable' and 'exists' are horses of different colours,
surely. You and Bruno are disputing whether mathematics is a formal
abstraction from physics or vice versa. But in either case this seems
to me fundamentally a question of methodological, not ontic, priority.
We cannot hope to have any final criterion for what is really real;
rather we search for the deepest theory we can find, one that can
explain whatever we are currently persuaded needs explaining, and in
terms of which we are able to subsume subsidiary theories. Then we
feel justified in saying that our theory describes what exists. Isn't
that about the size of it?

David

[Flammarion]

Why would they differ from what he WP article says?

[m.a.]

Brent Meeker's interpretation of the WP article seems to agree with my
description.

" Most physicists (who bother to think about it) don't
regard the virtual
particles as 'real' because they are, by construction, not observable. They
are just a

calculational device." From post dated 16 Sept. 15:51
"
> >

[Bruno Marchal]

OK.

> Single diagrams don't represent something that
> happens. Most physicists (who bother to think about it) don't
> regard the virtual
> particles as 'real' because they are, by construction, not
> observable. They are just a
> calculational device.

Hmm... That is not clear for me. It would mean that the Everett non
collapse view has a different status according to the position/
momentum quantum uncertainty relation and the energy/time quantum
uncertainty relation. In my opinion this is a difficult problem which
eventually necessitates a correct quantization of time, and thus of
space-time, and thus of gravitation, which is still an unsolved
problem. Simple interference terms have also been considered as
"calculational" by those who want to think the "other universes" are
less real ....

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

Not really. I am just saying that if you say yes to the digital
doctor, then ontologically, we need no more than the mathematical
existence of the natural numbers, with their laws of addition and
multiplication. To believe that there is something more "ontological"
than this is not only absolutely undecidable, but provably irrelevant,
except for shortening the proofs (but that is already pragmatical or
epistemological).
Then for the inside/personal views, the whole of human math including
Cantor paradise cannot be enough to describe the human mind. It is
more general:
Above the "universal" threshold of complexity, all universal machines
are no more enough clever to understand themself. But above the Löbian
threshold, all universal machine are clever enough know that! They are
clever enough to understand completely why they can no more understand
themselves. And they can understand that their physical realities have
to emerge from the web of their intrinsical ignorance, etc.

> But so far I don't see that his theory has predicted (as
> opposed to retrodicted) anything except that it has a white rabbit
> problem too.

Computationalism reduces the mind body problem to the body problem,
and it reduces the body problem to a "white rabbit measure" problem.
The shape of the solution may be provided by the 8 arithmetical
hypostases, including an explanation of both measurable and sharable
quanta and measurable and non sharable qualia.
OK, up to now, nothing new in physics has been discovered from the
comp-physics. I don't expect it soon (centuries). Yet, it is the first
explanation of consciousness and its relation to matter, and this by
using one of the oldest rational theory of mind (mechanism). It comes
from India, China. But those who get the points were the rationalists,
like the platonists Greek, with an open mind for mystical experiences
(consciousness is the most basic one (we are blasé), dreams, and
entheogenic experience, or brain damaged experiences are others).
Unfortunately we are still a bit brainwashed, I' afraid, by
Aristotelian theology (used by late 88% Christians, late 70% Muslims
and 70% Jews, due to Maimonid, but 30% Buddhist, 20% Indian, according
to a rough early 20th century evaluation). It is really the Plato/
Aristotle difference, although "Aristotle" refers to the followers of
Aristotle. Aristotle himself was more Platonist than we thought today.

The problem is: "is there a universe, and the minds emerge from it"
versus "is there a mind, and the universes emerges from it". With comp
there are numbers, and from this is the mind of the universal numbers
and the (internal) explanation how those minds wreathe (braid, plait,
twine, weave) the fabric of realities.

I just try to explain that comp needs us to bactrack to the Platonists
and even the Pythagorean neoplatonist theologian. But, as you know,
the field "non confessional theology" is still a bit taboo ...
Enlightenment restituted one half of the Greek Science. The rest is
still coming ...

> The discussion seems to have gotten stuck on whether it
> has been proven that physics can't be fundamental because it can't
> include consciousness. I consider that a diversion. Since we don't
> really have a definite idea of what consciousness is let's see what
> the
> theory does tell us - then we can worry about where physics fits.

In a sense, each of us (the universal being) know rather well what
consciousness is, despite we cannot define it.
But the same could be said about sensible matter.

Now what the comp theory does tell us is that whatever we observed is
a sum on infinity of computations, structured by the constraints of
self-consistency.
At first sight this predicts some solipsistic multidreams, unless
collection of independent universal entities succeed in sharing
dreams. Those dreams have to be deep (in Bennett sense) so as to be
relatively rare, and yet expands continuously in the continuum so has
to develop normally (in Gauss sense) partial computable realities.

With comp, there is a "simple" meta-definition of consciousness. The
conscious state is the "belief in a reality" state of a universal
machine. There is also a meta-definition of awakeness: it is the
"belief in *the* reality" state, and all lobian machine can prove that
if they are consistent they can never be sure to distinguish their own
consciousness and awakeness state. The Gödal-Löb-Solovay logic of self-
reference shed an incredible light on many very old debates orignating
most from the dream argument. Alas, mainly for reason of fashion,
theoretical computer science is not very well known by those concerned
I'm afraid.

Bruno

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

[David Nyman]

2009/9/17 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>:

> Then for the inside/personal views, the whole of human math including
> Cantor paradise cannot be enough to describe the human mind. It is
> more general:

In that case, what light does the comp approach shed on the 'causal
significance' of the inside view - i.e. with reference to the presumed
'causal closure' of the physical narrative and the supposed
epiphenominalism or over-determination of consciousness with respect
to behaviour - Chalmers' zombies etc? I have the feeling in advance
that you may say something that will re-define or negate the question
rather than answer it directly, but no matter, I'm still interested.
I suppose I'm asking what comp says about the relation between direct
first person experience (as opposed to formulations of belief and
other propositional or dispositional factors) and action in the third
person sphere.

David

[Flammarion]

On 17 Sep, 00:52, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>:
>

> > The knowabilitry of a claim about what powers numbers
> > have can only depend on what labels are correctly attached.
> > Petrol is not flammable just becaue I attached the label
> > "flammable" to it. Petrol *Is* flammable, and that
> > makes the label-attachment correct.
>
> Yes, but 'flammable' and 'exists' are horses of different colours,
> surely.  You and Bruno are disputing whether mathematics is a formal
> abstraction from physics or vice versa.  But in either case this seems
> to me fundamentally a question of methodological, not ontic, priority.

In either case the conclusion is ontological , so the assumptions
must be.

>  We cannot hope to have any final criterion for what is really real;
> rather we search for the deepest theory we can find, one that can
> explain whatever we are currently persuaded needs explaining, and in
> terms of which we are able to subsume subsidiary theories.  Then we
> feel justified in saying that our theory describes what exists.  Isn't
> that about the size of it?

Yep, and if the conclusion is ontological, the process that reaches it
is ontological.

Bruno thinks he can reach an ontological assumption starting with pure
maths.
But he can't. "mathematical existence" means that mathematicians take
certain "exists" statements to be true. Whether "exists" should be
taken
literally in the mathematical context is an ontological question, as
the material
in the first posting indicates

[Flammarion]

On 17 Sep, 00:02, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Has it?  I thought we were discussing whether CTM made any meaningful
> commitments as a physical theory, not whether physics can or can't
> include consciousness per se.  Now you raise the question, I don't
> believe it can, simply because in common with virtually every other
> human attempt to characterise the world, its perspective is embedded
> in consciousness and hence can't envision it.

Unless consciousnes is just the very thing that envision itself.

[Flammarion]

On 17 Sep, 14:12, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Flammarion" <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>
> To: "Everything List" <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 6:17 AM
> Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology
>
> > On 16 Sep, 21:42, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Flammarion" <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>
> >> To: "Everything List" <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
> >> Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:25 AM
> >> Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology
>
> >> > On 16 Sep, 15:51, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> >>  the ocean of virtual particles which may give
> >> >> rise to all "real" particles exists somewhere between matter and
> >> >> thought.
>
> >> > I see no reason to believe that.
>
> >> I would be most interested in your view of vacuum fluctuations of virtual
> >> particles.
>
> > Why would they differ from what he WP article says?
>
> Brent Meeker's interpretation of the WP article seems to agree with my
> description.

that virtual particles might not exist, does not establish that
there is some immaterial thing that does exist.

[David Nyman]

2009/9/17 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>:

> Yep, and if the conclusion is ontological, the process that reaches it
> is ontological.
>
> Bruno thinks he can reach an ontological assumption starting with pure
> maths.
> But he can't. "mathematical existence" means that mathematicians take
> certain "exists" statements to be true. Whether "exists" should be
> taken
> literally in the mathematical context is an ontological question, as
> the material
> in the first posting indicates

But surely what is 'literally' the case depends critically on one's
starting assumptions. If one starts with a theoretical commitment to
the primacy of the physical, then the status of mathematics is
obviously rendered formal or metaphorical with respect to this. OTOH
if one starts from the theoretical primacy of number - irrespective of
whether one labels such primacy 'arithmetical' or 'platonic' - the
opposite is the case, and indeed Bruno argues precisely how and why,
on the basis of the MGA, one cannot take the status of matter (as
opposed to its appearances) 'literally' from the perspective of
computational theory.

In either case there may be what one considers defensible grounds for
a commitment to a particular direction of inference, but ISTM that
further insistence on the metaphysical 'primitiveness' of one's point
of departure is entirely tangential to the distinctiveness of either
explanatory scheme. The opinions cited in the first posting assume
the first of these theoretical commitments and hence choose to take
the primacy of matter as their inferential fons et origo. Comp takes
the opposite position. The rest is a research programme, isn't it?

David

[David Nyman]

Just so. But what is opaque is its relation to physics.

David

[m.a.]

If they don't exist, how can they produce real particles? Or are you saying
that those particles themselves might not exist? Are you following Bruno's
idea that the world is immaterial (in the conventional sense) because it is
composed of numbers?

[Brent Meeker]

Who said virtual particles produce real particles. They are
computational terms in perturbation expansions. Whether vacuum
fluctuations exist is less clear, but all theories point to the total
energy of the universe being zero, the positive energy of matter being
just balanced by the negative potential energy of gravity - which would
imply that particles and the rest of the universe can come out of nothing.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Sep 2009, at 18:35, David Nyman wrote:

>
> 2009/9/17 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>:
>
>> Then for the inside/personal views, the whole of human math including
>> Cantor paradise cannot be enough to describe the human mind. It is
>> more general:
>
> In that case, what light does the comp approach shed on the 'causal
> significance' of the inside view - i.e. with reference to the presumed
> 'causal closure' of the physical narrative and the supposed
> epiphenominalism or over-determination of consciousness with respect
> to behaviour - Chalmers' zombies etc? I have the feeling in advance
> that you may say something that will re-define or negate the question
> rather than answer it directly, but no matter, I'm still interested.
> I suppose I'm asking what comp says about the relation between direct
> first person experience (as opposed to formulations of belief and
> other propositional or dispositional factors) and action in the third
> person sphere.

The direct phenomenal experience belongs to the non communicable or
non believable part of the gap between G and G*, or their intensional
variants. This is close to Descartes' idea that (put in a modern way)
consciousness is the fixed point of the doubt.
There is of course no closure of the physical, given that the physical
does not exist "ontologically": it is a production of the mind of the
universal numbers (relatively to addition and multiplication). In
particular consciousness is not epiphenomenal at all: its role is in
self-speeding up universal being relatively to their most probable
(normal) computational computation. This can be related to Gödel and
Blum speed-up theorem in computer science.
Your question is very vast. Hope this can help. We may come back on
this if we progress in the seventh step serie thread and beyond. I
search a way to explain this without being technical, but when I do
that, I realize Plato and Plotinus has already done that, in a way;
and today, it just look a bit shocking because it is hard to abandon
the Aristotelianist constructions.
I know that what I say is unbelievable. Indeed I show why it has to be
unbelievable. That is why I insist so much on the fact that saying yes
to the doctor ask for an act of faith, then all what I say becomes
relatively explainable from that act of faith.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 17 Sep 2009, at 23:55, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 17 Sep, 00:52, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2009/9/16 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>:
>>
>>> The knowabilitry of a claim about what powers numbers
>>> have can only depend on what labels are correctly attached.
>>> Petrol is not flammable just becaue I attached the label
>>> "flammable" to it. Petrol *Is* flammable, and that
>>> makes the label-attachment correct.
>>
>> Yes, but 'flammable' and 'exists' are horses of different colours,
>> surely. You and Bruno are disputing whether mathematics is a formal
>> abstraction from physics or vice versa. But in either case this
>> seems
>> to me fundamentally a question of methodological, not ontic,
>> priority.
>
> In either case the conclusion is ontological , so the assumptions
> must be.

No, the conclusion is epistemological. Physics becomes a branch of
computer science/number theory.
The ontological "conclusion" is a consequence of Occam Razor, and is
*optional*.

>
>> We cannot hope to have any final criterion for what is really real;
>> rather we search for the deepest theory we can find, one that can
>> explain whatever we are currently persuaded needs explaining, and in
>> terms of which we are able to subsume subsidiary theories. Then we
>> feel justified in saying that our theory describes what exists.
>> Isn't
>> that about the size of it?
>
> Yep, and if the conclusion is ontological, the process that reaches it
> is ontological.
>
> Bruno thinks he can reach an ontological assumption starting with pure
> maths.

I start from pure cognitive science. Saying "yes" to the doctor is not
pure math.
I'm afraid you are continuing to systematically confuse the
consequences of comp and comp itself.

Bruno

> But he can't. "mathematical existence" means that mathematicians take
> certain "exists" statements to be true. Whether "exists" should be
> taken
> literally in the mathematical context is an ontological question, as
> the material
> in the first posting indicates
> >

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

[Flammarion]

On 17 Sep, 17:35, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/17 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>:

>
> > Then for the inside/personal views, the whole of human math including
> > Cantor paradise cannot be enough to describe the human mind. It is
> > more general:
>
> In that case, what light does the comp approach shed on the 'causal
> significance' of the inside view - i.e. with reference to the presumed
> 'causal closure' of the physical narrative and the supposed
> epiphenominalism or over-determination of consciousness with respect
> to behaviour - Chalmers' zombies etc?

Standard CTM holds that tokens of computation are identical to
tokens of physical activity, so they have whatever causal
powers their physical realisers have.

[Flammarion]

On 16 Sep, 18:52, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 16 Sep 2009, at 17:25, Flammarion wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 16 Sep, 15:51, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> the ocean of virtual particles which may give
> >> rise to all "real" particles exists somewhere between matter and  
> >> thought.
>
> > I see no reason to believe that
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
>
> You are quite quick on this.
>
> There is a tradition in quantum mechanics , with von Neumann, Wigner,  
> Walker, Penrose, and in a sense Heisenberg, Pauli, Fuchs, ... to  
> ascribe to consciousness the ability to collapse the wave, in this  
> case field superpostion of number operator states (in the vaccuum, say).
> This made essentially the (universal) state function into a (relative)  
> knowledge state.

It is not a view in much favour nowadays, and it is not
a view that has much to do with recent developments.
It goes back to Bohr's writings which predate virtual particles, whcih
arrived with Dirac's and Feynmans's work some decades later.

[Bruno Marchal]

I was not saying you were wrong, but only that you were quick.
The views accepted nowadays, is the same, except that they are using
an intuitive version of comp for defining the observer, so that
consciousness is no more required to collapse the wave, but only to
select the universe from the multiverse, like self-localization after
a self-duplicating experiment. Now, my point is that such view leads
to the reversal physics/psychology, or physics/theology. There is
still an important resistance in physics, even against the multiverse,
and they are searching and defending a psychological interpretation of
the wave function (see the work by Christopher Fuchs on arXiv.org).
Comp, when taken seriously, marries the two views.

Bruno

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

[David Nyman]

2009/9/18 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>:

>> In that case, what light does the comp approach shed on the 'causal
>> significance' of the inside view - i.e. with reference to the presumed
>> 'causal closure' of the physical narrative and the supposed
>> epiphenominalism or over-determination of consciousness with respect
>> to behaviour - Chalmers' zombies etc?
>
> Standard CTM holds that tokens of computation are identical to
> tokens of physical activity, so they have whatever causal
> powers their physical realisers have.

What are the ontological consequences for materialism of such a view
of computational-physical identity? Is there a logically or
contingently possible material world that contains structurally
identical computational zombies, in your view?

David

[m.a.]

Bruno,
I don't really remember what saying yes to the doctor entails.
If it signifies a willingness to be cloned by computation, shouldn't we be
saying yes to the Star Trek technician who controls the transporter? m.a.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruno Marchal" <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
To: <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 3:10 AM
Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

SNIP...

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Marty,

On 19 Sep 2009, at 02:37, m.a. wrote:

> I don't really remember what saying yes to the doctor
> entails.
> If it signifies a willingness to be cloned by computation, shouldn't
> we be
> saying yes to the Star Trek technician who controls the
> transporter? m.a.

I am not sure I have seen the precise technic of Star Trek
transporter, but if I remember well, the original is always
annihilated, a bit like in quantum teleportation, which is something
very different from the classical comp transportation. With this one,
like with the digital doctor, you are 'read and cut', and then pasted
somewhere in virtue of your classical machine functioning, at some
level of description. Saying "yes" to the comp-doctor is a sort of
quasi operational way to accept the digital mechanist hypothesis. It
helps to understand how *you* are immaterial relatively to your
probable neighborhood, given that you could in principle change your
body every morning. Then you are duplicable, like a piece of software,
and this leads to the comp indeterminacy.
Eventually you can understand that a digital machine cannot see the
difference between "reality", "virtuality", and "arithmetic" (with the
Movie Graph Argument).
Technically, the reasoning goes through even if we are quantum
machine, despite the fact that they are not clonable, because they
need only to be "preparable" in the quantum sense, but this is
something we can go back later.
I don't see how comp can be false without introducing actual infinite
minds and matters.

OK?

Bruno

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

[m.a.]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brent Meeker" <meek...@dslextreme.com>
To: <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology


>

> m.a. wrote:
>> >>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Flammarion" <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>
>>>>> To: "Everything List" <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:25 AM
>>>>> Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 16 Sep, 15:51, "m.a." <marty...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> the ocean of virtual particles which may give
>>>>>>> rise to all "real" particles exists somewhere between matter and
>>>>>>> thought.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> I see no reason to believe that.
>>>>>>
>>>>> I would be most interested in your view of vacuum fluctuations of
>>>>> virtual
>>>>> particles.
>>>>>
>>>> Why would they differ from what he WP article says?
>>>>
>>> Brent Meeker's interpretation of the WP article seems to agree with my

>>> description.that virtual particles might not exist, does not establish

>>> that
>> there is some immaterial thing that does exist. If they don't exist, how
>> can they produce real particles?


> Who said virtual particles produce real particles. They are
> computational terms in perturbation expansions. Whether vacuum
> fluctuations exist is less clear, but all theories point to the total
> energy of the universe being zero, the positive energy of matter being
> just balanced by the negative potential energy of gravity - which would
> imply that particles and the rest of the universe can come out of nothing.
>
> Brent

Brent, I apologize for misrepresenting your position but I don't see where
it undermines mine. I
said that virtual particles exist between matter and thought. You say they
are "computational terms" and the rest of the universe came out of nothing.
Perhaps I should just have said that they are pure thought...as are
computational terms. No?
marty a.



>>>>
>>
>>
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
> >

[Brent Meeker]

So does being "pure thought" mean "without a reference", i.e. a
fiction? As in "Sherlock Holmes" is a pure thought?

Brent

> marty a.

[m.a.]

I feel I may still have an argument but lack the philo-physical "chops" to
make it, so I'll stifle here.
>
>> marty a.
>
>
> >

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Sep 2009, at 02:49, Brent Meeker wrote:

So does being "pure thought" mean "without a reference", i.e. a
fiction?  As in "Sherlock Holmes" is a pure thought?

Consider the Many world theory of Everett, or the many histories of comp. Does it make sense to say that Sherlock Holmes exists in such structure? The problem is that a fiction like Sherlock Holmes is not well defined. It is a bit like unicorns. I would not compare such essentially fictional construction with a mathematical object, like a computation or like a number, which admits forms of realism. 17 is prime in all consistent extension of arithmetic, for example. And it makes sense to say that 17 is prime independently of my own thought process, or of any thought process, but it is not clear such independence can be define for fictional object. Any one looking like Sherlock Holmes in the UD* will be just like that: it looks like Holmes, but Conan Doyle could always object by saying that it is not the "real" Holmes. There is a lack of identity criterion. And if you decide to give a (non contradictory) identify criteria for Holmes (like clever detective living in the UK and having solved such an such case ...), then it is no more a "pure thought" and it will exist somewhere in some UD*-history, or in some quantum branch.

Bruno

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

[Brent Meeker]

But doesn't "not well defined" apply to just about everything beyond mathematics and those
things we can define ostensively. I can point and perhaps succeed in defining "that
chair", but "chairs" is bound to have a fuzzy meaning not quite well defined at the edges.
I agree that fictional constructions like Sherlock Holmes are different from mathematical
constructions because the latter are constrained to be logically consistent (whereas
Holmes companion is sometimes John Watson and sometimes James Watson). But it seems to me
that being well defined might be the meta-definition of things that don't exist
physically. It is by abstracting away all the fuzziness of what constitutes a pair of
shoes, a married couple, twins, two apples, etc...that we arrive at the 'well defined'
number 2.

Brent

[ronaldheld]

Bruno and others, here is how a Star Trek transporter work(taken from
Memory Alpha):

A typical transport sequence began with a coordinate lock, during
which the destination was verified and programmed, via the targeting
scanners. Obtaining or maintaining a transporter lock enables the
transporter operator to know the subject's location, even in motion,
allowing the beaming process to start more quickly. This is an
essential safety precaution when a starship away team enters a
potentially dangerous situation that would require an emergency beam-
out.

A transporter lock is usually maintained by tracing the homing signal
of a communicator or combadge. When there is a risk that such devices
would be lost in the field or are otherwise unavailable, personnel may
be implanted with a subcutaneous transponder before an away mission to
still provide a means to maintain a transporter lock. Alternatively,
sensors may be used to scan for the biosign or energy signature of a
subject, which can then be fed into the transporter's targeting
scanner for a lock.

Next, the lifeform or object to be beamed was scanned on the quantum
level using a molecular imaging scanner. At this point, Heisenberg
compensators take into account the position and direction of all
subatomic particles composing the object or individual and create a
map of the physical structure being disassembled amounting to billions
of kiloquads of data.

Simultaneously, the object is broken down into a stream of subatomic
particles, also called the matter stream. The matter stream is briefly
stored in a pattern buffer while the system compensates for Doppler
shift to the destination.

The matter stream is then transmitted to its destination via a
subspace frequency. As with any type of transmission of energy or
radiation, scattering and degradation of the signal must be monitored
closely. The annular confinement beam (ACB) acts to maintain the
integrity of the information contained in the beam. Finally, the
initial process is reversed and the object or individual is
reassembled at the destination.

[m.a.]

And when pressed as to exactly how the Heisenberg compensators worked, the spokesman replied, "Very well, thank you."

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "ronaldheld" <ronal...@gmail.com>

To: "Everything List" <everyth...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 4:30 PM

Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology

>

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 Sep 2009, at 23:48, m.a. wrote:

And when pressed as to exactly how the Heisenberg compensators worked, the spokesman replied, "Very well, thank you."

:)

That's the problem. Star strek teleportation has been invented well before Bennett & Al. discovered quantum teleportation, and a priori, from the vague description of how teleportation works in Star Strek, we can say nothing, except that it looks like classical teleportation. Actually the Heisenberg compensators, if they compensate really the Heisenberg uncertainties, would make such machine impossible: you just cannot compensate the Heisenberg uncertainties, unless those compensators send the classical bits needed to effectuate a quantum teleportation, and this would explain, retrospectively, why in star strek those devices always (?) annihilate the "original"... and why Star Strek did not exploit the self-duplication and self-indeterminacy, unlike the movie "the prestige" for example.

This is not relevant for comp, note, because the "global" comp indeterminacy bears on the states generated by the UD, and if quantum cloning is impossible, the multiple preparation of similar states is quantum possible and effectively done by the Universal Dovetailer. You current quantum state is provably generated by the UD, an infinite number of times, at all level of substitution. Remember that quantum mechanics is Turing emulable. By quantum linearity, slight errors does not grow up, so that, in a sense, quantum mechanics is more easy to emulate than classical physics where chaos can make some need of infinite precision. Some classical analog machine will be not Turing emulable. Brains are well described by classical analog machines, but then to make it stable and robust, have a big redundancy to *compensate* sub-level discrepancies, making us most plausibly Turing emulable. If not, just smoking a cigarette would destroy our identity.

Bruno 

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

[Brent Meeker]

Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 21 Sep 2009, at 23:48, m.a. wrote:
>

>> *And when pressed as to exactly how the Heisenberg compensators
>> worked, the spokesman replied, "Very well, thank you."*

>
> :)
>
> That's the problem. Star strek teleportation has been invented well
> before Bennett & Al. discovered quantum teleportation, and a priori,
> from the vague description of how teleportation works in Star Strek,
> we can say nothing, except that it looks like classical teleportation.
> Actually the Heisenberg compensators, if they compensate really the
> Heisenberg uncertainties, would make such machine impossible: you just
> cannot compensate the Heisenberg uncertainties, unless those
> compensators send the classical bits needed to effectuate a quantum
> teleportation, and this would explain, retrospectively, why in star
> strek those devices always (?) annihilate the "original"... and why
> Star Strek did not exploit the self-duplication and
> self-indeterminacy, unlike the movie "the prestige" for example.
>
> This is not relevant for comp, note, because the "global" comp
> indeterminacy bears on the states generated by the UD, and if quantum
> cloning is impossible, the multiple preparation of similar states is
> quantum possible and effectively done by the Universal Dovetailer. You
> current quantum state is provably generated by the UD, an infinite
> number of times, at all level of substitution.

That raises a question which has bothered me. Since the UD and it's
operations and states exist in the sense of abstract mathematics, then
the same state/calculation can only occur once - there are no different
instances of the number 2.

Brent

[Flammarion]

On 18 Sep, 00:26, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/17 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>:

>
> > Yep, and if the conclusion is ontological, the process that reaches it
> > is ontological.
>
> > Bruno thinks he can reach an ontological assumption starting with pure
> > maths.
> > But he can't. "mathematical existence" means that mathematicians take
> > certain "exists" statements to be true. Whether "exists" should be
> > taken
> > literally in the mathematical context  is an ontological question, as
> > the material
> > in the first posting indicates
>
> But surely what is 'literally' the case depends critically on one's
> starting assumptions.  If one starts with a theoretical commitment to
> the primacy of the physical, then the status of mathematics is
> obviously rendered formal or metaphorical with respect to this.  OTOH
> if one starts from the theoretical primacy of number - irrespective of
> whether one labels such primacy 'arithmetical' or 'platonic' - the
> opposite is the case,

That is pretty much what I have been saying. But note that
there is a difference between assuming something because you
think it is incontrovertible (deduction) and assuming it because
its consequences match observation (abduction)

> and indeed Bruno argues precisely how and why,
> on the basis of the MGA, one cannot take the status of matter (as
> opposed to its appearances) 'literally' from the perspective of
> computational theory.

No he doesn't. His arguments have to assume Platonism as
well as CTM.

> In either case there may be what one considers defensible grounds for
> a commitment to a particular direction of inference, but ISTM that
> further insistence on the metaphysical 'primitiveness' of one's point
> of departure is entirely tangential to the distinctiveness of either
> explanatory scheme.

Who's been doing that?

>  The opinions cited in the first posting assume
> the first of these theoretical commitments and hence choose to take
> the primacy of matter as their inferential fons et origo.  Comp takes
> the opposite position.  The rest is a research programme, isn't it?

Yes. For my money, metaphysics is a subject-matter.
It is not an epistemological modus-operandi involving declarations of
irrefutable certainty.

[Flammarion]

On 18 Sep, 00:31, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 17, 11:17 pm, Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > Has it?  I thought we were discussing whether CTM made any meaningful
> > > commitments as a physical theory, not whether physics can or can't
> > > include consciousness per se.  Now you raise the question, I don't
> > > believe it can, simply because in common with virtually every other
> > > human attempt to characterise the world, its perspective is embedded
> > > in consciousness and hence can't envision it.
>
> > Unless consciousnes is just the very thing that envision itself.
>
> Just so.  But what is opaque is its relation to physics.

That opacity can''t be explained by some general law that nothing
can be self-referential or understand itself. It's all in the details.

[Flammarion]

On 18 Sep, 08:33, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> I start from pure cognitive science. Saying "yes" to the doctor is not  
> pure math.

Saying yes to the doctor does not show
that i am being run on an immateial UD.
The existence of an immaterial UD needs
to be argued separately.

[Quentin Anciaux]

It does show that you're nothing more than a program... which exists (mathematically) independantly of any of it's instantiation.

Regards,
Quentin

2009/9/22 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

--
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

[Flammarion]

On 22 Sep, 12:07, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It does show that you're nothing more than a program... which exists
> (mathematically) independantly of any of it's instantiation.

Such existence is blatant Platonism.

[Quentin Anciaux]

2009/9/22 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

No it's what a program is... Would you be different if instantiated on a x86 computer than on an ARM based one ?
 

[Flammarion]

On 22 Sep, 12:59, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/22 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>

>
>
>
> > On 22 Sep, 12:07, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It does show that you're nothing more than a program... which exists
> > > (mathematically) independantly of any of it's instantiation.
>
> > Such existence is blatant Platonism.
>
> No it's what a program is... Would you be different if instantiated on a x86
> computer than on an ARM based one ?

There's a difference between being independent of any
specific instantiation and being independent of all instantiations.
Platonism is not proved by multiple realisability.

[Quentin Anciaux]

Is mathematic dependant on human being from your point of view ?

That's what I understand.

2009/9/22 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>

[Flammarion]

On 22 Sep, 13:15, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is mathematic dependant on human being from your point of view ?
>
> That's what I understand.

Yes, exactly.

[David Nyman]

2009/9/22 Flammarion <peter...@yahoo.com>:

>> But surely what is 'literally' the case depends critically on one's
>> starting assumptions. If one starts with a theoretical commitment to
>> the primacy of the physical, then the status of mathematics is
>> obviously rendered formal or metaphorical with respect to this. OTOH
>> if one starts from the theoretical primacy of number - irrespective of
>> whether one labels such primacy 'arithmetical' or 'platonic' - the
>> opposite is the case,
>
> That is pretty much what I have been saying. But note that
> there is a difference between assuming something because you
> think it is incontrovertible (deduction) and assuming it because
> its consequences match observation (abduction)

One might indeed adduce this distinction in preferring one approach
over the other, but it isn't forced. Indeed, in the case of the MGA,
if one accepts the deduction and retains one's commitment to CTM, then
the abduction is only to be expected. But if you agree with my
formulation, I'm confused by what you go on to say below:

>> and indeed Bruno argues precisely how and why,
>> on the basis of the MGA, one cannot take the status of matter (as
>> opposed to its appearances) 'literally' from the perspective of
>> computational theory.
>
>
> No he doesn't. His arguments have to assume Platonism as
> well as CTM.

Bruno argues that an experiential-computational type can't be
plausibly associated with one of its valid physical tokens in at least
one case. If you can show where he goes wrong, you may consider
CTM+PM has been defended. OTOH if one agrees with him, this obscures
the association of consciousness with physics 'qua computatio'. In
this case, one could choose to abandon either CTM or PM. If the
latter, the move from MGA to UDA requires the reversal of the
theoretical primacy of matter and (at least a branch of) mathematics.

When you respond "That is pretty much what I have been saying" you are
agreeing, aren't you, that what you mean by Platonism - whether or not
you accept the MGA as motivating its entailment by CTM - is just a
theoretical commitment to the primacy of the mathematical, as opposed
to the material? And this seems pretty much indistinguishable from
Arithmetical Realism to me.

>> In either case there may be what one considers defensible grounds for
>> a commitment to a particular direction of inference, but ISTM that
>> further insistence on the metaphysical 'primitiveness' of one's point
>> of departure is entirely tangential to the distinctiveness of either
>> explanatory scheme.
>
> Who's been doing that?

This seems an odd question at this stage. I thought you were
insisting that Bruno needs some metaphysically primitive sense of
Platonism to justify the UDA.

>> The opinions cited in the first posting assume
>> the first of these theoretical commitments and hence choose to take
>> the primacy of matter as their inferential fons et origo. Comp takes
>> the opposite position. The rest is a research programme, isn't it?
>
> Yes. For my money, metaphysics is a subject-matter.
> It is not an epistemological modus-operandi involving declarations of
> irrefutable certainty.

Well then, surely we can agree. One finds grounds for preferring a
theoretical point of departure, and then one gets down to work. Comp
is open to empirical refutation, so it's research. Is your problem
that MGA is a "declaration of irrefutable certainty"? If so, it
shouldn't be. Like any deductive argument, it is open to refutation
if one can find an error. Further, even if one can't, this doesn't
force a commitment to Arithmetical Realism, it simply puts the
coherency of CTM+PM into doubt. Either conclusion might motivate a
preference for one research approach over another.

David

[Flammarion]

On 22 Sep, 14:37, David Nyman <david.ny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/9/22 Flammarion <peterdjo...@yahoo.com>:

>
> >> But surely what is 'literally' the case depends critically on one's
> >> starting assumptions. If one starts with a theoretical commitment to
> >> the primacy of the physical, then the status of mathematics is
> >> obviously rendered formal or metaphorical with respect to this. OTOH
> >> if one starts from the theoretical primacy of number - irrespective of
> >> whether one labels such primacy 'arithmetical' or 'platonic' - the
> >> opposite is the case,
>
> > That is pretty much what I have been saying. But note that
> > there is a difference between assuming something because you
> > think it is incontrovertible (deduction) and assuming it because
> > its consequences match observation (abduction)
>
> One might indeed adduce this distinction in preferring one approach
> over the other, but it isn't forced. Indeed, in the case of the MGA,
> if one accepts the deduction and retains one's commitment to CTM, then
> the abduction is only to be expected.

I don;t follow that. The MGA is an attempted reductio -- ie it does
not
need premises of its own but negates the premises of its
counterargumetns.
Not
that I accept it

> But if you agree with my
> formulation, I'm confused by what you go on to say below:
>
> >> and indeed Bruno argues precisely how and why,
> >> on the basis of the MGA, one cannot take the status of matter (as
> >> opposed to its appearances) 'literally' from the perspective of
> >> computational theory.
>
> > No he doesn't. His arguments have to assume Platonism as
> > well as CTM.
>
> Bruno argues that an experiential-computational type can't be
> plausibly associated with one of its valid physical tokens in at least
> one case.

He goes on to conclude that I am being generated by an immaterial
UD. That is not possible if there are no immaterial entities.

>If you can show where he goes wrong, you may consider
> CTM+PM has been defended. OTOH if one agrees with him, this obscures
> the association of consciousness with physics 'qua computatio'. In
> this case, one could choose to abandon either CTM or PM. If the
> latter, the move from MGA to UDA requires the reversal of the
> theoretical primacy of matter and (at least a branch of) mathematics.

There is no UDA without a Platonic UD.

> When you respond "That is pretty much what I have been saying" you are
> agreeing, aren't you, that what you mean by Platonism - whether or not
> you accept the MGA as motivating its entailment by CTM - is just a
> theoretical commitment to the primacy of the mathematical, as opposed
> to the material?

Yes.

>And this seems pretty much indistinguishable from
> Arithmetical Realism to me.

I think Bruno's use fo AR is ambiguous. Sometimes he uses
it to mean Platonism. sometimes he uses it to mean bivalence.

> >> In either case there may be what one considers defensible grounds for
> >> a commitment to a particular direction of inference, but ISTM that
> >> further insistence on the metaphysical 'primitiveness' of one's point
> >> of departure is entirely tangential to the distinctiveness of either
> >> explanatory scheme.
>
> > Who's been doing that?
>
> This seems an odd question at this stage. I thought you were
> insisting that Bruno needs some metaphysically primitive sense of
> Platonism to justify the UDA

He needs to make it clear he is assuming it. He
may justify the assumption apriori or he may justify it abductively.

> >> The opinions cited in the first posting assume
> >> the first of these theoretical commitments and hence choose to take
> >> the primacy of matter as their inferential fons et origo. Comp takes
> >> the opposite position. The rest is a research programme, isn't it?
>
> > Yes. For my money, metaphysics is a subject-matter.
> > It is not an epistemological modus-operandi involving declarations of
> > irrefutable certainty.
>
> Well then, surely we can agree. One finds grounds for preferring a
> theoretical point of departure, and then one gets down to work. Comp
> is open to empirical refutation, so it's research. Is your problem
> that MGA is a "declaration of irrefutable certainty"?

No. But is has assumptions of its own.

>If so, it
> shouldn't be. Like any deductive argument, it is open to refutation
> if one can find an error. Further, even if one can't, this doesn't
> force a commitment to Arithmetical Realism, it simply puts the
> coherency of CTM+PM into doubt.

Which could lead to PM-CTM as in Maudlin's argument.
Maudlin of course is *not* assuming Platonism.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2009, at 10:50, Flammarion wrote:

> No he doesn't. His arguments have to assume Platonism as
> well as CTM.

CTM needs Church thesis (to define the C of CTM). This requires
Arithmetical Realism, that is the belief that classical logic can be
applied in the number realm. (and there is an intuitionist variant
which works as well).

I make clear Arithmetical realism to avoid lengthy discussion with
exotic philososophies of mathematics, like utltrafinitism, abusive
formalism, etc.

I prefer to reserve Platonism for the deeper (neo)platonist idea that
what we see and measure is the border, shadow or projection of
something else. And that is part of the *consequences* of UDA1-8.

I have never met any defenders of CTM who is not an arithmetical
realist, which is not so astonishing, given that the mere acquaintance
with the idea of programming a computer, and reasoning on computers
relies on this very usual and common notion, more or less taught in
school.

Then the seven first step of UDA relies on CTM. Actually only the
seventh requires Church Thesis.

And it is at the eigth steps, the ancien preamble which can be read
independently, which 'reminds us' that linking consciousness to
physical activity (physical supervenience thesis) is just
epistemologically incompatible with the CTM idea, unless you
(re)define the physical as the border of the universal machine first
person (plural) indeterminacies.

This is mathematically definable, and its makes the comp theory
testable. Comp is just a weaker and preciser version than Putnam
functionalism. The existence of the level is itself a non constructive
existence, which necessitates the realism.

You did not answer my question: can you doubt about the existence of
primary matter?

Would you be so astonished if the physicists themselves would resume
the unification of forces by a relation among natural numbers?

I could have use the combinators. I made a try on the list. No need to
be sanguine on the positive integers. I could have use real numbers +
a trigonometric function. To be realist about them consists in
believing that their digital computations stop or does not stop
independently of any consideration.
You introduce confusion by using the term "Platonism" here. I know
that mathematicians use sometimes Platonism in that sense (of
accepting classical logic, and the truth of mathematical statements,
including the non constructive one), but in the present context it
hides the main facts which is that MGA makes it necessary to redefine
the notion of matter. Observable Matter becomes an invariant for a
digital notion of universal machine's observation.

After the seventh thread, we will come back on the eight step. I
suggest you follow that, and tell us where you object.

You have said nothing about the seventh first steps, which does not
invoke the materiality issue. Any problem there?

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2009, at 10:57, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 18 Sep, 08:33, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
>> I start from pure cognitive science. Saying "yes" to the doctor is
>> not
>> pure math.
>
> Saying yes to the doctor does not show
> that i am being run on an immateial UD.

That is why I use a material UD up to step seven. This provides the
main part of the "reversal".

> The existence of an immaterial UD needs
> to be argued separately.

No. The existence of the "immaterial UD" is a consequence of Church
thesis. That such an immaterial UD is necessarily enough is argued
separately in step 8 (MGA).

Bruno

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

[Flammarion]

On 22 Sep, 15:10, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 22 Sep 2009, at 10:50, Flammarion wrote:
>
> > No he doesn't. His arguments have to assume Platonism as
> > well as CTM.
>
> CTM needs Church thesis (to define the C of CTM). This requires
> Arithmetical Realism, that is the belief that classical logic can be
> applied in the number realm. (and there is an intuitionist variant
> which works as well).

Classical logic doesn't give you an immaterial UD

> I make clear Arithmetical realism to avoid lengthy discussion with
> exotic philososophies of mathematics, like utltrafinitism, abusive
> formalism, etc.

A justification of the assimption that numbers exist immaterially
is just what is needed.

> I prefer to reserve Platonism for the deeper (neo)platonist idea that
> what we see and measure is the border, shadow or projection of
> something else. And that is part of the *consequences* of UDA1-8.

"Platonism" is often used just to mean that numbers exist
immaterially.,
e.g by Penrose.

> I have never met any defenders of CTM who is not an arithmetical
> realist, which is not so astonishing, given that the mere acquaintance
> with the idea of programming a computer, and reasoning on computers
> relies on this very usual and common notion, more or less taught in
> school.

If realism means bivalence, that is probably true. The
problem is using bivalence to smuggle in Platonism.

> Then the seven first step of UDA relies on CTM. Actually only the
> seventh requires Church Thesis.
>
> And it is at the eigth steps, the ancien preamble which can be read
> independently, which 'reminds us' that linking consciousness to
> physical activity (physical supervenience thesis) is just
> epistemologically incompatible with the CTM idea, unless you
> (re)define the physical as the border of the universal machine first
> person (plural) indeterminacies.

That CTM and phsycialism are incopatible is a philsophical
arguemnt, not a mathematical proof, and it has counter-arguments,
eg. Colin Klein's response to Maudlin's Olympia.

> This is mathematically definable, and its makes the comp theory
> testable. Comp is just a weaker and preciser version than Putnam
> functionalism. The existence of the level is itself a non constructive
> existence, which necessitates the realism.
>
> You did not answer my question: can you doubt about the existence of
> primary matter?

Yes. Can you doubt the actual existence of numbers?

> Would you be so astonished if the physicists themselves would resume
> the unification of forces by a relation among natural numbers?
>
> I could have use the combinators. I made a try on the list. No need to
> be sanguine on the positive integers. I could have use real numbers +
> a trigonometric function. To be realist about them consists in
> believing that their digital computations stop or does not stop
> independently of any consideration.
> You introduce confusion by using the term "Platonism" here. I know
> that mathematicians use sometimes Platonism in that sense (of
> accepting classical logic, and the truth of mathematical statements,
> including the non constructive one), but in the present context it
> hides the main facts which is that MGA makes it necessary to redefine
> the notion of matter. Observable Matter becomes an invariant for a
> digital notion of universal machine's observation.
>
> After the seventh thread, we will come back on the eight step. I
> suggest you follow that, and tell us where you object.
>
> You have said nothing about the seventh first steps, which does not
> invoke the materiality issue. Any problem there?

"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). "

[Bruno Marchal]

If this where true, comp would predict white noise in all
circumstances. The measure on a computational states is only a
relative measure on the computations going through that states.
It is a consequence of the structure of the phi_i that all computable
(partial) functions are represented by infinitely many programs,
including "stupid chains" of universal systems simulating universal
systems. Actually there is a formidable redundancy in UD*. It is a
deep object, unlike its Chaitin-Solovay-Kolmogorov compression. Its
border can be compared to the border of the Mandelbrot set, with
everything resumed in every part, but disposed in geometrical elegant
patterns.
In the UD* stories, the number two, not just you and me, will get
infinitely many relative incarnations, in infinitely many contexts.
Comp predicts that below our (common) substitution level, we should
met the (sharable) comp indeterminacy, and somehow Everett QM confirms
this. AUDA makes this more precise formally, but intuitively Everett
physics is a lucky event for comp, even through just UDA, if I can
say. Like Church and Gödel.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote:

>> You have said nothing about the seventh first steps, which does not
>> invoke the materiality issue. Any problem there?
>
> "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). "

This is in the eight step.

I don't know which game you are playing, Peter, you never address the
point.

I have no clue what you mean by an immaterial UD, or actual existing
numbers.
I believe that to say yes to someone who will replace my brain by a
digital machine, in this in the sense of believing that it is the
computation that matter at some level, I have to trust a minimal
amount of computer science.

If you agree that the proof of the existence of two irrational numbers
such that x^y is rational does provide information, then by MG
Argument you may understand the point or find a flaw, fatal or not.
Who knows?

I think you agree that dreamy-consciousness can supervene on the
physical laser-boolean graph activity. Does dreamy-consciousness
supervenes on the movie of the laser-boolean graph activity?

Bruno

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

[Flammarion]

On 22 Sep, 16:05, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 22 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote:
>
> >> You have said nothing about the seventh first steps, which does not
> >> invoke the materiality issue. Any problem there?
>
> > "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). "
>
> This is in the eight step.
>
> I don't know which game you are playing, Peter, you never address the
> point.
>
> I have no clue what you mean by an immaterial UD, or actual existing
> numbers.

I mean exactly what you mean by "existing forever in the arithmetical

Platonia which is accepted as
existing independently of our selves with arithmetical realism"

> I believe that to say yes to someone who will replace my brain by a
> digital machine, in this in the sense of believing that it is the
> computation that matter at some level, I have to trust a minimal
> amount of computer science.



> If you agree that the proof of the existence of two irrational numbers
> such that x^y is rational does provide information, then by MG
> Argument you may understand the point or find a flaw, fatal or not.
> Who knows?

How do you get from providing information to an immaterial UD?

> I think you agree that dreamy-consciousness can supervene on the
> physical laser-boolean graph activity. Does dreamy-consciousness
> supervenes on the movie of the laser-boolean graph activity?

I don't beleive it supervenes on causally-disconnected frames, no.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2009, at 15:51, Flammarion wrote:

> He goes on to conclude that I am being generated by an immaterial
> UD. That is not possible if there are no immaterial entities.

You are in a third person way. If you are a program relatively to any
"real world", you are 'executed' infinitely often by the material UD,
and by the arithmetical UD too in the corresponding third person sense).

And MGA makes the need of a material UD non sensical, for anything
epistemological.

Then, what you call "primary matter" is explained by the appearances
of some irreductible invariant in universal 'dreams'. The real
question is "why is it so symmetrical", is information preserved, is
the empirical world coherent with the comp physics, etc.

Some people can argue that MGA is not needed. They believe that it is
obvious that consciousness is not something material at all, and that
it is a waste of time of both trying to attach consciousness to
matter, or to argue with those who believes that is possible (with or
without comp).

Do you see the different 'big' picture (as opposed to believe it
follows from comp)?

Bruno

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

[Flammarion]

On 22 Sep, 16:29, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 22 Sep 2009, at 15:51, Flammarion wrote:
>
> > He goes on to conclude that I am being generated by an immaterial
> > UD. That is not possible if there are no immaterial entities.
>
> You are in a third person way.

That is still not possible if there are no immaterial entities.

>If you are a program relatively to any
> "real world", you are 'executed' infinitely often by the material UD,
> and by the arithmetical UD too in the corresponding third person sense).

Not if there is no immaterial (or as you call it, arithmetic) UD.

> And MGA makes the need of a material UD non sensical, for anything
> epistemological.

A material UD cannot be redundant unless there is an immaterial
one to take its place.

> Some people can argue that MGA is not needed. They believe that it is
> obvious that consciousness is not something material at all, and that
> it is a waste of time of both trying to attach consciousness to
> matter, or to argue with those who believes that is possible (with or
> without comp).
>
> Do you see the different 'big' picture (as opposed to believe it
> follows from comp)?

There is no problem attaching consc to PM. There is a problem
attachign consc. to mathematical structures, whether phsycially
emodied
or not.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2009, at 17:18, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 22 Sep, 16:05, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> On 22 Sep 2009, at 16:32, Flammarion wrote:
>>
>>>> You have said nothing about the seventh first steps, which does not
>>>> invoke the materiality issue. Any problem there?
>>
>>> "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). "
>>
>> This is in the eight step.
>>
>> I don't know which game you are playing, Peter, you never address the
>> point.
>>
>> I have no clue what you mean by an immaterial UD, or actual existing
>> numbers.
>
> I mean exactly what you mean by "existing forever in the arithmetical
> Platonia which is accepted as
> existing independently of our selves with arithmetical realism"

I mean that the truth status of statement having the shape ExP(x),
with P written in first order arithmetic is true or false
independently of me or of any consideration.

>
>> I believe that to say yes to someone who will replace my brain by a
>> digital machine, in this in the sense of believing that it is the
>> computation that matter at some level, I have to trust a minimal
>> amount of computer science.
>
>
>
>> If you agree that the proof of the existence of two irrational
>> numbers
>> such that x^y is rational does provide information, then by MG
>> Argument you may understand the point or find a flaw, fatal or not.
>> Who knows?
>
> How do you get from providing information to an immaterial UD?

It is program without input which generates all the Pi, that is
programs computing the phi_i, together with their arguments and
dovetel on the execution of the computations. It is equivalent with
the finite + infinite proof of the Sigma_1 sentences (those with the
shape ExP(x) with P decidable).

>
>> I think you agree that dreamy-consciousness can supervene on the
>> physical laser-boolean graph activity. Does dreamy-consciousness
>> supervenes on the movie of the laser-boolean graph activity?
>
> I don't beleive it supervenes on causally-disconnected frames, no.

I agree with you. The movie cannot bring consciousness through comp,
yet the physical activity of the movie can be made similar to the
physical activity of the boolean graph. That is why if we want to keep
the causal connectness relevant for having a computation, we have to
replace the physical supervenience by the computaitonal supervenience,
which is a very solid mathematical (even arithmetical,
combinatoric, ...) notions, thanks to that unexpected Church thesis.
But then physical connection get blurred below our substitution level
where an infinity of computations compete.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 Sep 2009, at 17:46, Flammarion wrote:

>
>
>
> On 22 Sep, 16:29, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> On 22 Sep 2009, at 15:51, Flammarion wrote:
>>
>>> He goes on to conclude that I am being generated by an immaterial
>>> UD. That is not possible if there are no immaterial entities.
>>
>> You are in a third person way.
>
> That is still not possible if there are no immaterial entities.

I agree. But as far as I look to what is sharable among us I see only
numbers.
All papers in physics relies on theories relating measurable numbers
through mathematical relation. the e-rest is already instinctive bets
and qualia. But I see immaterial entities all the time: people,
images, games, nations, programs, melodies, planets, galaxies, plants,
and the famous bosons and fermions, which are famous for taking
formalism so seriously .... :)

>
>> If you are a program relatively to any
>> "real world", you are 'executed' infinitely often by the material UD,
>> and by the arithmetical UD too in the corresponding third person
>> sense).
>
> Not if there is no immaterial (or as you call it, arithmetic) UD.

But it is a theorem of arithmetic that the UD exists. (accepting
Church thesis, I mean CT is not a theorem of arithmetic, and probably
false from an (arithmetical) first person point of view like Bp & p).

>
>> And MGA makes the need of a material UD non sensical, for anything
>> epistemological.
>
> A material UD cannot be redundant unless there is an immaterial
> one to take its place.

It exists like PI, gamma, and some constructive real, but it is
probably richer in the internal information.
It does not mean that we have to believe in some immaterial realm, but
only that we have to trust classical logic on arithmetical proposition.

>
>
>> Some people can argue that MGA is not needed. They believe that it is
>> obvious that consciousness is not something material at all, and that
>> it is a waste of time of both trying to attach consciousness to
>> matter, or to argue with those who believes that is possible (with or
>> without comp).
>>
>> Do you see the different 'big' picture (as opposed to believe it
>> follows from comp)?
>
> There is no problem attaching consc to PM. There is a problem
> attachign consc. to mathematical structures, whether phsycially
> emodied
> or not.

To attach mind on Matter? there is a sort of consensus that with or
without comp, the mind body problem is unsolved. the closer to the
comp consequence, on the consciousness issue (not on matter) is Colin
McGuin (the mysterianist).

Then you seem to forget that computer science provide a very clean
theory of self-reference, and (immaterial) machine themselves proves
interesting things about what they can prove (know, observe, bet
on...). Everett made QM intelligible by a use of comp. With Matter,
except for quantum computation, the notion of computation is still not
clearly defined (as we can expect from UDA/MGA).


Bruno



> >

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