On 2/14/2012 8:39 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 14 Feb 2012, at 03:55, Stephen P. King wrote:
The idea of a measure that Bruno talks about is just another way
of talking about this same kind of optimization problem without
tipping his hand that it implicitly requires a computation to be
performed to "find" it.
Because UDA+MGA shows that even if a "real" primary physical universe
exists, it cannot explain anything related to what I can feel to
observe from my 1p view.
Obviously, the appearance of a universe makes it natural to believe
that a simple explanation is that such a universe exists, but this has
been shown to not work at all, once we assume we are Turing emulable.
So f you are right, then there must be flaw in UDA+MGA, but each time
we ask you to point where it is, you come up with philosophical reason
to discard comp (without always saying it).
Hi Bruno,
The flaw is the entire structure of UDA+MGA, it assumes the
existence of the very thing that is claims cannot exist. It is a theory
that predicts that it cannot exist. How? By supposedly proving that the
physical world does not exist. Why is that a problem? Because without a
physical world, it is impossible for that theory to have any properties.
You want to get around this problem by postulating that the entities of
UDA+MGA can and does have a particular set of properties merely because
they exist. OK, but how does the existence of an entity define its
properties?
I do not blame him as this problem has been glossed over for hundred
of years in math and thus we have to play with nonsense like the
Axiom of Choice (or Zorn's Lemma) to "prove" that a solution exists,
never-mind trying to actually find the solution. This so called
'proof" come at a very steep price, it allows for all kinds of
paradox <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach-Tarski_paradox>.
This is unclear. Comp is axiom-of-choice independent. Even
arithmetical truth is entirely axiom of choice independent. ZF and ZF
+ AC proves exactly the same arithmetical truth.
"COMP is Axiom of Choice independent" ... Does this means that COMP
is independent of any particular version of AC or does it means that the
truth of a statement is just the existence of the statement as an
abstract entity in an isolated way? I am just trying to be consistent
with what I understand of UDA+MGA. UDA+MGA, as far as I can tell,
proposes that the physical world does not have an existence independent
of our experiences and since our experiences can be represented exactly
as relations between numbers, that all that exists is numbers. Correct?
If this is correct, then my questions turn on what exactly are
numbers and how do they acquire properties. 1 is a 1, a 2 is a 2, and 3
is a 3. But what is it that defines what a 1 or a 2 or a 3 is? We could
think of this as a set of different patterns of pixels on our computer
monitors, of marks on paper, or a chalkboard, or apples, bananas, or
trees. But this avoids the question of "what is it that ultimately gives
1 its one-ness?". Alternatively, we can think of these symbols as
physical representations of sets or classes of objects, but then we have
to define what that means. The easiest way to do that is to point at
objects in the world and make noises with our mouth or, if we are mute,
to make signs with our hands and/or grimaces with our faces.
Obviously, all of this is taking a 3p or objective point of view of
objects, symbols, etc. but as we know, this is a conceit as we can only
guess and bet that what we observe is "real" in that it is not just a
figment of our imagination that vanishes when we stop thinking of it. I
am being intentionally absurd to illustrate a problem that I see. If we
are going to claim that the physical world does not exist then we have
to be consistent with that claim and cannot use any concepts that
assumes the properties of a physical world. My claim is that UDA+MGA
violates this requirement by using concepts that only have a meaning
because of their relation to physical processes and yet claiming that
those very processes do not exist.
A possible solution to this problem, proposed by many even back
as far as Heraclitus, is to avoid the requirement of a solution at
the beginning. Just let the universe compute its least action
configuration as it evolves in time,
This does not work, unless you define the physical reality by
arithmetic, but this would be confusing. It seems clearer and cleare
that your "existence" axiom is the postulate that there is a physical
primary reality. But then comp is wrong.
What I see as wrong about COMP is how you are interpreting it. You
are taking its implied meaning too far. I claim that there is a limit on
its soundness as a theory or explanation of ontological nature, a
soundness that vanishes when it is taken to imply that its
communicability becomes impossible - a situation which inevitably occurs
when one interprets COMP as a claim that the physical world does not exist.
At least Craig is coherent on this. he want some primitive matter, and
he abandons comp. His theory is still unclear, but the overall shape
make sense, despite it explains nothing (given that he assume also a
primitive sense, and a primitive symmetry).
Bruno
I do not want primitive matter, as this would put us into the
situation that the material monist are in, with the epiphenomenal nature
of consciousness. I just want abstract representations and physical
object on the same level. I think that we can agree that the physical
world cannot be primitive in the ontological sense, but can you not see
that representations cannot be primitive either if only becuase to claim
that, for instance, that only numbers are primitive eliminates the
possibility that one number has a particular set of properties that
makes it somehow different from another number.
Also, you have been using the word "neutral" to mean "indifferent"
in a way that is similar to "I am indifferent to whether cows prefer
chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream". I mean neutral to mean
"not having any bias for some set of properties over any other". These
two meaning are very similar but the latter is more general than the
former because the latter is not considering the entity that might have
a particular set of properties (which implies a choice of properties and
thus my comments about the axiom of choice) while the former is taking
the case of indifference about some particular state of affairs given
from a particular point of view. It is a 1p versus a 3p difference. No?
At issue is the question of how does the definiteness of the
properties of an object, be it abstract - like the concept of a number -
or concrete - like the keyboard that I am typing on, come to be what it
is. You seem to claim that properties are defined by the mere existence
of an object. I am not understanding how you think that such is
possible. We can make claims that A exists and that A is A, but what is
A independent of any claims we might make of it?
Onward!
Stephen
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@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.
