STEPHEN: Hi Richard, How does Vafa explain the stability/instability of compactified dimensions? My chief worry is that all of the stringy and loopy theories assume a pre-existing continuum of space-time of some sort, the very Aristotelian "substance" idea that Bruno's argument successfully attacks. The assumption of primitive substances is very problematic as it does not allow for any room for consciousness to occur or be causally effective. I do like the idea of hyper-EM fluxes, but am not so sure that they are anything more than fancy math, fiber bundles and sheaf transform groups on n-genus topological manifolds and so on.... Where are all of the sparticles and bosinos that are supposed to exist if SUSY is correct? Occam's razor keeps me from believing in them...
-- Onward! Stephen ROGER: Unlike Aristotle, Leibniz's monads do not assume that there is just one (primitive) substance, contrary to what I imagine Bruno attacked. The monads as I now see them are subjective entities that refer to physical brain domains of one function. Being subjective, they are beyond spacetime (are mental) but at the same time they refer to functional domains of the brain (point to, are related to the physical).So they seem to qualify as topics of functional brain theory (functionalism). As to causal effectiveness, the links between the monads and the brain regions they refer to are not causal, as mind cannot directly manipulate matter. Indirectly as monads they can, however. The links are thus called "bridges" and belong to bridging theories of mind. Every monad is different functional, mental, substance, and they are beginning to somewhat look like Whitehead's "occasions of experience", although there are some important differences. -- 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. -- 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.