ROADMARKERS ON THE ROAD NOT TAKEN (LEIBNIZ VS MATERIALISM)

[Roger Clough]

ROADMARKERS ON THE ROAD NOT TAKEN (LEIBNIZ VS MATERIALISM)

A.EXISTENCE

LEIBNIZ-- Mental (Nonphysical) + Physical

MATERIALISM-- Physical, only in spacetime

B. REALITY
LEIBNIZ-- Only mental is real

MATERIALISM- Only physical is real

C. SPACETIME
LEIBNIZ Exists only around physical bodies

MATERIALISM The nonphysical is beyond spacetime, the physical is within it.

D. IDEAS

LEIBNIZ-- Exist mentally

MATERIALISM --Do not exist , since not phjysical

E. MATHEMATICS
LEIBNIZ-- Only logic and numbers mentally exist.
MATERIALISM-- Does not exist

F. PHYSICS

LEIBNIZ--Mentally exists as descriptions of particle behavior according to God's Pre- `existing Harmony
MATERIALISM—Ill-defined. Physics seems to be embedded (?) in the particles

F. GOD

LEIBNIZ--Is the only active agent (doer and perceiver) in the universe--

and so is necessary for existence.

MATERIALISM-- Is a fairy tale.

G. NOTHING

LEIBNIZ--- The space vacuum. The absence of a particle
MATERIALISM--Can exist everywhere

H. HUMAN AFFAIRS

LEIBNIZ-- Incorporates psychology and can be applied to sociology
MATERIALISM-- Seems to avoid the subject.

I. PERCEPTION

LEIBNIZ-- The ultimate perceiver is God.

MATERIALISM-- Omits the ultimate perceiver since it cannot explain self.

J. SCIENTIFIC ACCEPTANCE

LEIBNIZ-- Unexplored by science or explored only to the extent that God, spirit, souil nd mind are seen to be necessary nonphysical entities necessary for existence. Endorsing eibniz is a career-buster.

MATERIALISM-- Enthusiastically accepted and utilized. It acts as a cult.

K. QUANTUM MECHANICS, NONLOCAL OR OTHERWISE

LEIBNIZ-- All corporeal bodies share and partcipate in the space of existence according

to their capabilities, which means that more dominant quanta dominate the less dominant

and would seem to participagte in a wider range of differences.

MATERIALISM-- QM is not possible since only physical entities exist.

L. PHYSICAL VS NONPHYSICAL

LEIBNIZ-- The physical is within spacetime, the nonphysical (the spiritual or mental orld) is outside of spacetime.

MATERIALISM-- Only the physical exists.

M. THE PARANORMAL

LEIBNIZ-- The paranormal is normal, but based on the nonphysical world outside of spacetime.

MATERIALISM-- Up front is always not to be taken seriously.

N. COSMOLOGY--ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

LEIBNIZ-- Every monad has an indestructable soul which has been here from the creation of the universe, or else has been created or destroyed by God . My personal view is that this would allow for creation of matter from mind such as in the Big Bang”.

MATERIALISM-- The classic position is that the universe has always been,

but there are modern scientific theories of the “Big Bang”.

O. LIFE

LEIBNIZ-- Everything in the universe is alive.

MATERIALISM-- There are vaious materialistic accounts of the formation of life.

P. DEATH

LEIBNIZ-- Everything in the universe is alive. Each living things “unfolds” from its soul

or monad as a seed unfolds into a living plant. At death, the rotting body stays attached to its monad, just as in

Christianity we sleep after death until resurrected with a new body in the Second Coming

MATERIALISM-- The termination of what is believed to be life.

Q. DETERMINISM

LEIBNIZ-- Every body in the universe moves according to a “Pre-established Harmony

(PEH)”. In my personal view this allows for what might be called “effective free choice”, meaning that only choices in accord with the PEH are possible.

MATERIALISM-- The termination of what is believed to be life.

R. DIVINE INTERVENTION IN THE WORLD

LEIBNIZ-- No divine intervention is possible or needed, since during the week of Creation, God drew up his Pre-established Harmony (the PEH) and rested on the 7^th day, while the universe plays out according to this script without God's interventions. Since the PEH foresaw and acted according to all events, good or bad, this would allow for prayer to work or not work. Thus the PEH can be thought of as a divine musical composition or all-knowing computer program running on its own. In a sense, the PEH is God asleep.

MATERIALISM-- Since there is no God, there can be no divine intervention.

S. INTELLIGENCE

LEIBNIZ-- The ability to make choices autonomously, not by some computer program.

Every body in the universe moves according to a “Pre-established Harmony” (PEH) .

MATERIALISM-- Matter may be intelligent, but we do not know its language.

There is something call “artificial intgelligence” used in computerbut a computer, but

e termination of what is believed to be life.

T. CONSCIOUNESS

LEIBNIZ-- Internal perception (see above), requiring a subject (self) and object.

MATERIALISM-- Seems to me to be impossible, since materialism has no self

to perceive or be conscious.

U. MIND-BODY PROBLEM

LEIBNIZ-- Since mind and body are both mental, there is no such problem.

MATERIALISM-- Seems to me to be impossible, since materialism has no self

to perceive or be conscious.

V. THE FUNDAMENTAL REALITY

LEIBNIZ-- Mind and the subjective world

MATERIALISM-- Matter and the objective world.

- Roger Clough

 

 

 

Dr. Roger Clough NIST (ret.) 6/11/2013

See my Leibniz site at

http://team.academia.edu/RogerClough

____________________________________________________________________
DreamMail - Your mistake not to try it once, but my mistake for your leaving off. use again  www.dreammail.org

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[spudb...@aol.com]

Please allow my incipid observation. Rather then invoke non-material monads, let us, for arguments sake, assume that thought is a neurochemical phenomena, and that without this neurochemical phenomena, there is no thought. Similarly, mathematics as a phenomena, doesn't exist without a human primate, writing on the soil with a stick, marking clay or wax tablets, ink on paper, or human fingers executing a computer program. All material, from beginning to end. Is there any evidence, of the existence of non-material things?

 

 

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Jun 2013, at 12:31, Spudb...@aol.com wrote:

Please allow my incipid observation. Rather then invoke non-material monads, let us, for arguments sake, assume that thought is a neurochemical phenomena, and that without this neurochemical phenomena, there is no thought. Similarly, mathematics as a phenomena, doesn't exist without a human primate, writing on the soil with a stick, marking clay or wax tablets, ink on paper, or human fingers executing a computer program. All material, from beginning to end. Is there any evidence, of the existence of non-material things?

Yes, the objectivity of arithmetic or theoretical computer science.

Are there evidences that matter has an ontological existence? (Besides the retaively self-moving entity's extrapolation in a local neighborhood)

It seems to me there are more evidence that the physical has a mathematical origin.

It is indeed a necessity in case we bet the brain/body/local universe is Turing emulable.

Matter and energy are interesting, but not necessarily a primitive notion. Physicalism is by itself a strong assumption, incompatible with a simple and elegant theory of mind (computer science/arithmetic).

Anyway, this makes comp testable, so we can test it.

Bruno

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

[meekerdb]

On 6/12/2013 3:31 AM, spudb...@aol.com wrote:

Please allow my incipid observation. Rather then invoke non-material monads, let us, for arguments sake, assume that thought is a neurochemical phenomena, and that without this neurochemical phenomena, there is no thought. Similarly, mathematics as a phenomena, doesn't exist without a human primate, writing on the soil with a stick, marking clay or wax tablets, ink on paper, or human fingers executing a computer program. All material, from beginning to end. Is there any evidence, of the existence of non-material things?

That's why there's been a discussion of whether mathematical objects exist.� They certainly exist in the sense of there being proofs of existential formula, such as Ex(x=prime and x>2 and x<4).� But I don't think satisfying an existential formula is existence in the physical sense.� Physical existence admits of ostensive definition - which mathematicians think of as not very definite.

Brent

[spudb...@aol.com]

Indeed, Dr. Marchal. But what comes to my mind would be (I suppose) to create an equation and see if it can then become, somehow, energy, or matter to thus, prove that the universe has a arithmatic basis. I understand that Max Tegmark is enthusiatic on the cosmos being mathematical, as, is, Seth Lloyd, but can we create protons, or a stone with a number, a do-while,  statement?

[meekerdb]

On 6/12/2013 1:34 PM, spudb...@aol.com wrote:

Physicalism is by itself a strong assumption, incompatible with a simple and elegant theory of mind (computer science/arithmetic).

You say that from time to time, but when pressed it seems to just be that assuming fundamental matter is, assuming comp, otiose - not incompatible.� If it were incompatible, then derivative matter would be incompatible too.

Brent

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 3:34 PM, <spudb...@aol.com> wrote:

Indeed, Dr. Marchal. But what comes to my mind would be (I suppose) to create an equation and see if it can then become, somehow, energy, or matter to thus, prove that the universe has a arithmatic basis. I understand that Max Tegmark is enthusiatic on the cosmos being mathematical, as, is, Seth Lloyd, but can we create protons, or a stone with a number, a do-while,  statement?

Computers and simulation enable us to create reality.  In truth we are not creating anything, only exploring what was already there.

Think of any computer game, they are comparatively simple simulations and lead to new realities we can go to and explore. Likewise, the entire Earth, or Milkyway could be accessed by someone with sufficient computing power.  Or you could say they exist already as relations between numbers that exist in math.  For illustration, consider the recursive function that goes from binary number to the next in a way that is identical to John Conway's Game of Life.  Theis relation implies an infinite series of successive states starting from the initial number.  Starting with the right initial number, this GoL simulation could contain a Turing machine running the universal dovetailer.  It would execute all possible programs and all conscious observers are contained in that number relation (assuming computationalism), including you and me who believe in protons and electrons.

Jason

[spudb...@aol.com]

Dr. Clough, so observation by this Observer, entails creation? This all sort of runs along with Shrodingers (sp) Cats, and, and High Everetts' Many Worlds, and so forth. Lenny Susslind at Stanford postulated huge amounts of observers arising in the universe, which he called Boltzmann Brains. It's an insane concept-but I like it anyway.

 

 

Jason, yes, many thinkers have seen what you have said in one manner or another. Yet, its not like I can write out a beautiful equation, throw the paper in the air, and as if wafts to ground, a wondrous new world emerges-so to speak. Dr. Clough's special Observer can do this, but not I. If you are suggesting that a simulation, complex enough, with enough computing power, and cycling time, is the same this as a Creation-I will give you no argument. Because from the viewpoint of one of the critters on Conway's screen, it is the world.  Your text also suggests the thinking of Stephen Wolfram who once wrote (paraphrasing) "Why search the skies for ETI's when we could make a computing system that could, by programing and algorithms' uncover all that they know."  This has always puzzled me, on the how, we can do this? It may have just been a very dry joke, by Wolfram-but it does sort of highlight your point about recursion, math, Turing, and so forth.

 

-Mitch 

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 6:21 PM, <spudb...@aol.com> wrote:

Dr. Clough, so observation by this Observer, entails creation? This all sort of runs along with Shrodingers (sp) Cats, and, and High Everetts' Many Worlds, and so forth. Lenny Susslind at Stanford postulated huge amounts of observers arising in the universe, which he called Boltzmann Brains. It's an insane concept-but I like it anyway.

 

 

Jason, yes, many thinkers have seen what you have said in one manner or another. Yet, its not like I can write out a beautiful equation, throw the paper in the air, and as if wafts to ground, a wondrous new world emerges-so to speak. Dr. Clough's special Observer can do this, but not I. If you are suggesting that a simulation, complex enough, with enough computing power, and cycling time, is the same this as a Creation-I will give you no argument. Because from the viewpoint of one of the critters on Conway's screen, it is the world.  Your text also suggests the thinking of Stephen Wolfram who once wrote (paraphrasing) "Why search the skies for ETI's when we could make a computing system that could, by programing and algorithms' uncover all that they know."  This has always puzzled me, on the how, we can do this? It may have just been a very dry joke, by Wolfram-but it does sort of highlight your point about recursion, math, Turing, and so forth.

I think it is legitimate, and simulation may be the only viable method for exploration.  Especially if you consider the computing power of a Matrioshka brain ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain ).  It would be able to simulate the 4 billion year history of all life on Earth in less than a few years (likely hours).  Compare this to observation by telescope: It would take billions of years of looking at a planet through a telescope with an aperture that would need to be millions of miles across just to get a few megapixels of resolution looking at an Earth-sized planet 1000 light years away.  Or instead of building the computer, you could travel there and camp out (hopefully picking an interesting planet.  Information would dribble in so slowly into this solar-system sized brain it would go bad from boredom.  On the other hand, if it used a fraction of its computing power it could spend all of eternity exploring any part of reality it could imagine, other worlds, physics of other possible universes, new forms of life not possible in our universe, etc.

Surely right now looking through telescopes seems like the best way to gather knowledge, but give computing power a few more decades of doubling every year, and by the end of the century there will be AI's that have a billion times the computing power of the human brain.  All the hard problems humans struggle with in trying to figure out the laws of physics, etc. will seem like child's play, and new sources of puzzles and realms of exploration will be required.

Jason

[spudb...@aol.com]

Ah! Now this would be a Singularity, indeed. Disadvantage, Internal (to Newtonian Space) life and civilizations would emerge, and perish in a pico-second, without even being noticed by a Newtonian observer. In fact, how could an external observer even see anything processing? It's a cross between Fermi's Great Silence and Dr. Suess's Horton Hears a Who.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Jun 2013, at 21:13, meekerdb wrote:

On 6/12/2013 3:31 AM, spudb...@aol.com wrote:

Please allow my incipid observation. Rather then invoke non-material monads, let us, for arguments sake, assume that thought is a neurochemical phenomena, and that without this neurochemical phenomena, there is no thought. Similarly, mathematics as a phenomena, doesn't exist without a human primate, writing on the soil with a stick, marking clay or wax tablets, ink on paper, or human fingers executing a computer program. All material, from beginning to end. Is there any evidence, of the existence of non-material things?

That's why there's been a discussion of whether mathematical objects exist.  They certainly exist in the sense of there being proofs of existential formula, such as Ex(x=prime and x>2 and x<4).  But I don't think satisfying an existential formula is existence in the physical sense.

I can't agree more. 

  Physical existence admits of ostensive definition - which mathematicians think of as not very definite.

Physical existence is about physical reality. 

With comp, physical existence is about an internal view of a mathematical phenomenon occurring from arithmetic when seen from inside. 

A collective dream, if you want. It would be an error to put physical existence as mathematical existence. It is more a psychological or theological existence. 

Bruno

Brent

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Jun 2013, at 22:34, spudb...@aol.com wrote:

Indeed, Dr. Marchal. But what comes to my mind would be (I suppose) to create an equation and see if it can then become, somehow, energy, or matter to thus, prove that the universe has a arithmatic basis.

Assuming there is some energy somewhere. But we don't need that assumption, once we can explain where the observation of stable and coherent beliefs in such things develop, and are locally correct.

If the brain is Turing emulable, there is an explanation why we cannot emulate matter at all. The apparent matter is the result of an indeterminacy on infinities of computational histories. 

I understand that Max Tegmark is enthusiatic on the cosmos being mathematical, as, is, Seth Lloyd,

I hope you understand that comp makes them wrong on this a priori, at least. Unless you extent the sense of mathematical a lot (which would make math inconsistent, again a priori, because you can use non standard set theories to try to make sense of such ideas).

With comp, arithmetic seen from inside is *quite* beyond the whole of math and physics.

but can we create protons, or a stone with a number, a do-while,  statement?

Comp predicts that we can't.

I see you have missed that comp entails a reversal between physics and machine's psychology/theology.

With comp you can't fail a machine for long, on matter. It is super-exponentially costly. To simulate matter exactly, you need to simulate the universal dovetailing in a short finite time. With a quantum computer you can simulate matter exactly, but this is explained by comp by the fact that it uses the "universal dovetailing" already there (the indeterminacy on all computations).

So there is no equation "creating" matter. But there is a simple arithmetic to explain how such matter emerges necessarily in some stable and sharable dreams by numbers.

You might need to study and grasp the UDA and all that, to see precisely the point.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 12 Jun 2013, at 22:38, meekerdb wrote:

On 6/12/2013 1:34 PM, spudb...@aol.com wrote:

Physicalism is by itself a strong assumption, incompatible with a simple and elegant theory of mind (computer science/arithmetic).

You say that from time to time, but when pressed it seems to just be that assuming fundamental matter is, assuming comp, otiose - not incompatible. 

They are epistemologically incompatible, or if you prefer, incompatible with the use of Occam razor, which I assume in the search of the TOE. (I have explained this already, so to be short, I just "say incompatible").

If it were incompatible, then derivative matter would be incompatible too.

Of course.

Bruno

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

[Alberto G. Corona]

What "exist" means?

2013/6/13 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 13 Jun 2013, at 21:48, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

What "exist" means?

What do you mean?

Such a question will depend on the TOE used.

What can exist, by definition or by assumption, will be the elements in the basic ontology of the TOE.  (Either articles, fields, numbers, consciousness, perhaps, ... )

With comp, a reasonable TOE assumes only that 0 exists, s(0) exists, s(s(0)) exists, etc.

Such objects obeys two laws, that we assume: the laws of addition and multiplication, and some succession axioms (like 0 ≠ s(x), to avoid finite fields).

This entails the existence of an" indra net of numbers dreams", like the UD*, or the (structured) set of true sigma_1 sentences, from which we have to explain the emergence of physical reality/realities, consciousness, etc.

Bruno

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

[Alberto G. Corona]

This is a question in relation to the question of wether mathematical objects exist or not. I think that this is not a fundamental question and a loss of time. Mathematics are.

 

Existence is not much. Better to get rid of this concept. As you said, to say that the pysical world, or the mind or mathematics exist or not is more a question of positioning each concept deeper in the chain of causalities or explanations. Of course the three exist in the sense that they are. But it may be that the fundamental things are not the concepts but the relations between concepts. And maybe different chains of causalities or explanations are compatible with the reality.

 

There is no absolute way to argue in favour of one or the other  existential beliefs except in terms of predictive or explanatory power.In the long term the ones who have the best explanations outnumber these that don´t. Truth and existence and what is good converge in the long term. That is why, in an implicit recognition of that long term effect, the cornerstone of the acceptance of something is the explanatory power, that has two aspects: what happens an will happen for one side, and in the other side, what would never happen and if it happens then the theory is not worth the pain.

 

To argue about the existence of naked mathematics and the bare mind or "matter" as such is mostly aesthetical, because they don´t have predictive power. unless we add special metaphisical attributes to them such are inmutable laws, Evolution, or a creator mind and a Revelation. Then these theories adquire predictive and explanatory power.

 

What is frustrating is that most of the discussions are not about explanations or predictions, but about aesthetical matters such are the less possible number of axioms to explain everithing, the possible and the impossible, with no falsability criteria.

 

For me an explanation for everything is not an explanation, because it can not be argued agains. It is true that if everything goes and everything may potentially exist, then a selection criteria can filter out what is impossible. An omniexplicative theory must include then this selection criteria to be a true theory of everything. this selection criteria is the part that can be tested.

 

2013/6/14 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

--
Alberto.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 Jun 2013, at 11:00, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

This is a question in relation to the question of wether mathematical objects exist or not. I think that this is not a fundamental question and a loss of time. Mathematics are.

 

Existence is not much. Better to get rid of this concept. As you said, to say that the pysical world, or the mind or mathematics exist or not is more a question of positioning each concept deeper in the chain of causalities or explanations. Of course the three exist in the sense that they are. But it may be that the fundamental things are not the concepts but the relations between concepts. And maybe different chains of causalities or explanations are compatible with the reality.

 

There is no absolute way to argue in favour of one or the other  existential beliefs except in terms of predictive or explanatory power.In the long term the ones who have the best explanations outnumber these that don´t. Truth and existence and what is good converge in the long term. That is why, in an implicit recognition of that long term effect, the cornerstone of the acceptance of something is the explanatory power, that has two aspects: what happens an will happen for one side, and in the other side, what would never happen and if it happens then the theory is not worth the pain.

 

To argue about the existence of naked mathematics and the bare mind or "matter" as such is mostly aesthetical, because they don´t have predictive power. unless we add special metaphisical attributes to them such are inmutable laws, Evolution, or a creator mind and a Revelation. Then these theories adquire predictive and explanatory power.

 

What is frustrating is that most of the discussions are not about explanations or predictions, but about aesthetical matters such are the less possible number of axioms to explain everithing, the possible and the impossible, with no falsability criteria.

 

For me an explanation for everything is not an explanation, because it can not be argued agains. It is true that if everything goes and everything may potentially exist, then a selection criteria can filter out what is impossible. An omniexplicative theory must include then this selection criteria to be a true theory of everything. this selection criteria is the part that can be tested.

I agree with you on all point. Not sure you really got mine, if that was a critic.

QM works at first sight, but it needs comp to justify the self-selection.

But then comp makes bigger the domain of indeterminacy, and it can work only if physics (the wave and the collapse if QM is correct) emerge from the FPI, or consciousness selection, on all computations.

And we can argue again, and indeed refute it by comparing the physics of the average universal machine with our empirical physics.

Old QM:

Wave

collapse

Unintelligible theories of mind.

Everett QM

Wave

Comp theory of mind.

Machine's QM:

Comp theory of mind.

And my point is only that such theory is testable. 

Bruno

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