Hi Brent, > I didn't use the term - it is one being attributed to me simply because I > question the adequacy of logic and mathematics to instantiate physics.
That is ok - there are different versions of materialism/physicalism etc. > I don't accept any such esoteric theories - I merely entertain them. That is well put, I agree - as rational people we all hold tentatively, we entertain - with "accept" I mean that it passes enough tests that it can be entertained - versus other theories that are so unprobable that one does not have the time to concern oneself with them...(although one never knows ;-) > But the problem reappears as the body-problem. Why is materialism so > successful > as a model of the world? No, the problem is of a quite different nature than the mind-body problem. I would not call the white rabbit problem as a body problem. Besides, materialism also faces this issue in an infinite universe if you accept unification of mind states (remember the Bostrom paper?). > It seems somewhat gratuitous to call this a "substance". I'd say materialism > holds (on simple empirical grounds) that some things exist and some don't. Hmm, that is too little I think to distinguish materialism from, say, Pythagorean views or even Platonic views. Saying that "everything" exists does not quite capture what Everythingers believe. Everything never means everything conceivable - but everything that is possible. What is possible, is, of course, the question. > Why should some things exist and others not - because if everything existed > there would be no distinction between "exist" and "not-exist" With the restriction to "everything possible" (and not plain everything) exists, we still have to distinguish accessible regions. Or do you mean "can influence us causally" by exists? But then you would deny existence to parts outside the observable universe - which is of course dependent from where you look (Earth), so I think it is not a good criterion for existence. But if we accept that "material" things exist which can never affect us causally, why not accept that there are other, mathematically even more remote entitities? Or, consider decoherence - here mathematically very similar branches are suddenly inaccessible. > I don't think it has "moved beyond". MWI is attractive for several reasons, > but it is well short > of Tegmarkia. Of course - what I mean that it has "moved beyond" is a lot of Absolutes: absolute space, absolute time etc - what remains are relations. And there _are_ defenders in philosophy of physics which retain some anthropomorphic Absolutes, but I think they are fighting a losing battle. > I think Tegmark grounded his "everything" by supposing that the lowest level > was > uncomputable. Ok thanks I missed that, will have to read the paper again. > Materialism has been very effective in not only explaining, but in predicting > things. That doesn't prove it's right, but I could ask what explanatory power > does "everything exists" hold. Remember that a theory that could explain > anything, fails to explain at all. Indeed, and that is what makes materialism very enticing, but then the question immediately crops up: why this, and not something else? I think materialism would have a much better stance if one would find one set of equations which describes our universe (that is, of logical necessity), but it doesn't look likely. And every contingent description leads to multiversal concepts. Best Wishes, Günther --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
