On 1/20/2013 7:53 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 19 Jan 2013, at 00:15, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 1/18/2013 1:08 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 17 Jan 2013, at 19:05, Stephen P. King wrote:
Dear Bruno,
I am discussing ontology, there is no such a process as Turing or
'realities' or objects yet at such a level. All is abstracted away
by the consideration of cancellation of properties. Let me just ask
you: Did the basic idea of the book, The Theory of Nothing by
Russell Standish, make sense to you? He is arguing for the same
basic idea, IMHO.
An expression like "cancellation of properties" needs already many
things to make sense.
Dear Bruno,
Baby steps. The concept that Russell Standish discusses in his
book, that is denoted by the word "Nothing": Do you accept that this
word points to a concept?
Yes. But there are as many "nothing" notion than "thing" notion. It
makes sense only when we define the things we are talking about.
Dear Bruno,
There is one overarching concept in Russell Standish 's book that
is denoted by the word Nothing:
"There is a mathematical equivalence between the
Everything, as represented by this collection of all
possible descriptions and Nothing, a state of
no information."
This "state of no information" is equivalent to my concept of the
ontologically primitive: that which has no particular properties at all.
Thus is not not a number nor matter nor any particular at all; it is the
neutral ground. But this discussion is taking the assumption of a well
founded or reductive ontology which I argue against except as a special
case. Additionally, you consider a static and changeless ontology
whereas I consider a process ontology, like that of Heraclitus, Bergson
and A.N. whitehead.
You refer to paper which use the axiomatic method all the times, but
you don't want to use it in philosophy, which, I think, doesn't help.
You seem to not understand a simple idea that is axiomatic for me.
I am trying to understand why this is. Do you understand the thesis
of Russell Standish's book and the concept of "Nothing" he describes?
Sure no problem. It is not always enough clearcut, as Russell did
acknowledge, as to see if it is coherent with comp and its reversal,
but that can evolve.
I see the evolution as multileveled, flattening everything into a
single level is causes only confusions.
Contingency is, at best, all that can be claimed, thus my
proposal that existence is necessary possiblity.
Existence of what.
Anything.
That's the object of inquiry.
OK, so go to the next step. Is the existence of a mind precede the
existence of what it might have as thoughts?
Yes.
Number ---> universal machine ---> universal machine mind (--->
physical realities).
Dear Bruno,
I see these as aspects of a cyclical relation of a process that
generates physical realities. The relation is non-monotonic as well
except of special cases such as what you consider.
Universal Machine Mind ==> Instances of physical realities
| ^
| \
| \
| \
V \
Number ---> Universal Machine
All of these aspects co-exist with each other and none is more
ontologically primitive than the rest.
"Necessary" and "possible" cannot be primitive term either. Which
modal logics? When use alone without further ado, it means the
modal logic is S5 (the system implicit in Leibniz). But S5 is the
only one standard modal logic having no arithmetical interpretation.
Wrong level. How is S5 implicit in Leibniz? Could you explain this?
With Kripke:
<>p, that is "possibly p", is true in the world alpha if p is true
in at least one world accessible from alpha.
[]p, that is "necessary p", is true in the world alpha if p is true
in all the worlds accessible from alpha.
The alethic usual sense of "metaphysically possible" and
"metaphysically necessary" can be be given by making all worlds
accessible to each other, or more simply, by dropping the
accessibility relation:
<>p, that is "possibly p", is true in the world alpha if p is true
in at least one world.
[]p, that is "necessary p", is true in the world alpha if p is true
in all the worlds.
In that case you can verify that, independently of the truth value
of p, the following propositions are true in all worlds:
[](p->q) -> ([]p -> []q)
[]p -> p
[]p -> [][]p
<>p -> []<>p
(p -> []<>p can be derived). You get the system S5, and
reciprocally S5 (that is the formula above + the necessitation rule
(p/ []p), and classical propositional calculus) is complete for all
formula true (whatever values taken by the propositional variable)
in all worlds.
To sump up, in Leibniz or Aristotle all worlds are presumed to
accessible from each others (which makes sense from a highly
abstract metaphysical view). In Kripke, or in other semantics,
worlds (states, whatever) get special relations with other worlds
(accessibility, proximity, etc.).
Good, we agree on those concepts, but we need to get back to the
impasse we have over the concept of Nothing (which I am equating to
the neutral ontological primitive) and my argument against your claim
that numbers can be ontological primitives.
I will let Russell agree or not with this. I have just no clue what
you mean by the "neutral ontological primitive", as you oppose it to
numbers, it cannot even make sense once we accept that our brain works
like a machine.
Numbers have particular properties even as a category, they are
different from colors, for example. Thus this disqualifies them to be
ontologically fundamental.
Once you oppose a philosophical idea to a scientific discovery, you
put yourself in a non defensible position, and you do bad press for
your ideas, and for "philosophy". You do the same mistake as Goethe
and Bergson, somehow.
OK, but the same advice applies to you as well!
--
Onward!
Stephen
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