On 31 Dec 2013, at 22:27, meekerdb wrote:
On 12/31/2013 2:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 30 Dec 2013, at 21:43, Stephen Paul King wrote:
Dear LizR and Brent,
I will try to go at this from a different direction. What
exactly does "fundamental level" mean? Does there have to be
"something fundamental"?
Fundamental is often used in two senses. either as "very
important". In that sense physics and math are fundamental.
Or is the sense of "primitive", that is, what we have to assume at
the start, like the primitive symbol in a theory, intended to
denote what we admit to exist at the start. We need them because we
cannot derive anything from nothing. Even in the "nothing
theories", we need the mathematical axioms to handle some notion of
nothing.
There is another way that avoids assuming that there is something
"fundamental". It is a sort of ring of explanation (actually
suggested by Bruno):
Math->Physics->Biology->Evolution->Humans->Culture->Science->Math
Of course it is objected that this is viciously circular; but I
counter that if the circle is big enough to take everything in, then
it is virtuously circular.
Such circles recur in the UD*, but to define the UD, you still need to
postulate a universal base. You need at least the assumption of the
laws of addition and multiplication, or abstraction and application
(with the combinators). But then you don't need, nor can use, anything
else, in the ontology. Physics and psychology can be explained from
there (even easily if comp is invoked at the metalevel, but this is no
more needed "after "the UDA is understood (normally).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
