On 09 Jan 2012, at 06:56, John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 3:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
> But naturalism want to explain things by reducing it to nature or
natural law,
If you want to explain X you say that X exists because of Y. It's
true that Y can be nothing and thus the existence of X is random,
but let's assume that Y is something;in that case if you don't want
to call Y "natural law" what do you want to call it?
In the case which concerns us, Y is elementary arithmetic.
> Computationalism asks for an explanation for the natural laws,
And if found those explanations would be yet more natural laws;
After all you can. Elementary arithmetic is the study of *natural*
numbers. But that would be a pun.
however we don't know that there is a explanation for everything,
some things might be fundamental.
Yes. In the case of elementary arithmetic, we can even explain why we
cannot explain it by something more fundamental. There are logical
reason for that. But this is not the case for matter and
consciousness, which admit an explanation from arithmetic.
I have a hunch that consciousness is fundamental and it's just the
way data feels like when it's being processed;
Then it is not fundamental, and you have to search an explanation why
some data, when processed, can lead to consciousness.
If you define consciousness by the undoubtable belief in at least one
reality, it can be explained why numbers develop such belief. But
there is a price which is also a gift: you have to explain the
appearance of matter from the numbers too, and physics is no more the
fundamental science. The gift is that we get a complete conceptual
explanation of where the physical realities come from.
the trouble is that even if consciousness is fundamental a proof of
that fact probably does not exist, so people will continue to invent
consciousness theories trying to explain it till the end of time but
none of those theories will be worth a bucket of warm spit.
That's your opinion. The fact is that we can explain, even prove, that
natural numbers are not explainable from less, and we can explain
entirely matter, and 99,9% of consciousness from the numbers too, and
this in a testable way (I'm not pretending that numbers provide the
correct explanation). And we can explain completely why it remains
"0.1% of consciousness" which cannot be explained, by pure number
logical self-reference limitation.
> This does not mean it is always meaningful to ask "what is that
made of?".
It is until you get to something fundamental,
You seem here to have difficulties to conceive that Aristotle primary
matter hypothesis might be wrong.
then all you can say is that's just the way things are. If that is
unsatisfactory then direct your rage at the universe. But perhaps
you can always find something more fundamental, but I doubt it, I
think consciousness is probably the end of the line.
That is already refuted once you take seriously the mechanist
hypothesis. Consciousness is explained by semantical fixed point of
Turing universal self-transformations. It leads to a testable theory
of qualia and quanta (X1* in my papers).
> There are no thing made of something.
Good heavens, if we can't agree even that at least sometimes
somethings are made of parts we will be chasing our intellectual
tails forever going nowhere.
Something are made of parts. But not of fundamental parts. Time,
space, energy, quantum states all belong to the imagination or tools
of numbers looking at their origin, and we can explain why (relative)
numbers develop that well founded imagination, and why some of it is
persistent and sharable among many numbers. Imagination does not mean
'unreal', but it means not ontologically primary real.
> The idea of things being made of something is still Aristotelian.
Aristotle like most philosophers liked to write about stuff that
every person on the planet knows to be obviously true and state that
fact to the world in inflated language as if he'd made a great
discovery. Of course most things are made of parts, although I'm not
too sure about electrons, they might be fundamental.
Plato invented science, including theology, by taking some distance
from the animal lasting intuition that their neighborhoods are
"primary real" or WYSIWYG.
Aristotle just came back to that animal intuition, which of course is
very satisfying for our animal natural intuition. But mechanism has
been shown to be incompatible with it. (Weak) materialism will be
abandonned, in the long run, as being a "natural superstition". Matter
is only the border of the universal mind, which is the mind of
universal numbers. The theory of mind becomes computer science (itself
branch of arithmetic), and fundamental physics becomes a sub-branch of
it.
> If mechanism is true, there are only true number *relations*.
I don't see your point. What's the difference from saying that gear
X in a clock moved because of its relation to spring Y in the same
clock, and saying that the clock is made of parts and 2 of those
parts are gear X and spring Y?
You have to study the proof. Clocks are dreamed objects, like all
"physical objects", and all "physical events".
I don't know if that is true, but I know that this follows from the
comp assumption. I can explain if you are interested, patient and
serious enough.
> I am not sure things can be random, nor what that would mean.
It would mean a event without a cause and I don't see why that is
more illogical that a event with a cause.
An event without a cause/reason, is no better than creationism. It is
a way of saying "don't ask", unless you can explain why it has to be
so (and get some meta-reason for absence of cause/reason, like we have
for the natural numbers).
> If mechanism is correct, physics becomes independent of the choice
of the fundamental level,
Choice of the fundamental level? There can only be one fundamental
level, or none at all.
Up to a recursive isomorphism. With mechanism, physics is retrievable
by the postulation of any mathematical Turing universal system. The
laws of physics and consciousness are independent of the choice of
that universal system, and we have to explain why some seems to be
statistically winning, like the quantum machinery.
> for the numbers (or the first order specification of a universal
system) I can prove we cannot derive it from something simpler.[...]
I can't find something more fundamental than the natural numbers
OK then numbers are fundamental, and the lifeblood of computers are
those very same numbers, so if asked how computers produce
consciousness there may be nothing to say except that's just what
numbers do.
Why? On the contrary, you can explain, by using only the laws of
addition and multiplication, why and how some numbers (the relatively
universal one) discover both matter and consciousness when
introspecting themselves, and this in a so precise way that it makes
the number physics comparable with the observations.
> actual QM (à-la Everett/Deutsch) assumes computationalism and the
SWE. But computationalism has to explain the SWE.
Numbers can certainly describe the Schrodinger Wave Equation, the
question you're really asking is why does the universe operate
according to that equation and not another?
Yes.
Everett has a answer, it may or may not be the correct answer but at
least it's a answer, because that's the universe you happen to be
living in and you've got to live in some universe.
Everett is wrong here. because, by UDA, once you postulate comp (as
Everett does practically) we are not living in physical universes.
Physical universes becomes more abstract gluing arithmetical number's
dream conditions. Everett, like many, is still under the
Aristotelian's spell. But his conception of physical reality is the
closer to the necessary comp conception. UDA really explains this, and
AUDA explains UDA entirely in arithmetic.
Another explanation is that the link between Schrodinger's equation
and matter is fundamental, after all, you said numbers are
fundamental but you didn't say that's the only thing that is.
Numbers (up to logical equivalence) are provably fundamental. You
really cannot explain them from less, for logical reason.
> God created the natural numbers, all the rest are (sharable)
dreams by and among relative numbers. I am not saying that this
is true, but that it follows from the belief that consciousness is
invariant for digital functional substitution
OK, I'm not sure I agree but I see your point. I suppose it comes
back to the old question, were the imaginary and irrational numbers
invented or discovered?
Except that now we have the answer, at least if we believe that
consciousness is invariant for digital functional substitution. In
that case we know that everything is *discovered*, and are either
numbers, or necessary numbers tools (from irrational numbers to
analysis and physics) that the numbers discover when trying to
understand themselves. This leads to a simpler theory of everything
than QM, for example elementary arithmetic. The theory of everything
becomes:
Ax ~(0 = s(x)) (For all number x the successor of x is different from
zero).
AxAy ~(x = y) -> ~(s(x) = s(y)) (different numbers have different
successors)
the addition laws:
Ax x + 0 = x (0 adds nothing)
AxAy x + s(y) = s(x + y) ( meaning x + (y +1) = (x + y) +1)
and the multiplication laws
Ax x *0 = 0
AxAy x*s(y) = x*y + x
In that theory QM (swe) is false or redundant. You need also to accept
the classical theory of knowledge and belief (the modern rendering
form, made possible by Church thesis, of the Theaetetus' idea
described by Plato).
Pythagorus was right. Assuming we are digitalizable machine, there is
no choice in that matter, by UDA.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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