On 20 February 2014 09:58, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > On 20 Feb 2014, at 05:06, meekerdb wrote: > > On 2/18/2014 7:10 PM, Russell Standish wrote: >> >>> On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 02:34:57PM +1300, LizR wrote: >>> >>>> On 19/02/2014, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Which ones? How can unobserved facts exist? >>>>> >>>> You can observe their consequences without observing the facts. E.g. >>>> millions of people have observed that the sun shines without >>>> understanding or knowing about nuclear fusion. >>>> >>>> Yes - but obviously nuclear fusion is an observed fact (somewhere in >>> the Multiverse). >>> >> >> No, it's part of our best theory of the world. >> >> >>> But maybe you mean how can facts exist that are not grounded in >>>> observation at some point? >>>> >>>> Yes, that is what I mean. But Brent talked about unobserved facts, so >>> we'd better let him elaborate what he means. >>> >>> >> Facts are often inferred, as who murdered Nicole Simpson, it's hard to >> even say what constitutes a fact without invoking a theory. So sure there >> are, on the same theory that allows us to infer facts, facts that are not >> observed. >> >> I think we're talking past one another. You're talking about ontology as >> the ur-stuff that's really real. I'm talking about the stuff that is >> assumed as fundamental in a theory. >> > > That's how I define "primitive". It is the intended meaning of the > primitive object assumed in the theory. >
I suspect that this is one of the things that leads to the constant confusion in the discussions with Craig. He seems to feel that the ontological postulate can only be the really real thing as distinct to a primitive theoretical object. And the consequence is, in effect, that he thinks he can dismiss both the theoretical object and anything derivable from it as not really real from the outset. I don't (really) know how to resolve this confusion in our discussions. > That definition allows some unimportant convention. For example, we might > say, with PA, that the primitive object is just 0. And consider that s(0), > s(s(0)), ... are already "emergent". Of we can assume all numbers, and then > say that the notion of prime number is emergent, or we can accept as > primitive all notions definable by a first order arithmetical formula, in > which case "'[]p" itself is primitive, and yet []p & p is still emergent. > By default I prefer to see 0, s(0), etc. as primitive, and the rest as > emergent. > > But note this: physicalism or materialism usually assumes some UR matter > as primitive in this sense. > In that case, the two notions referred in your paragraph coincide. > > I am not sure what Russell means by a fact needing to be observed to be a > fact. "111...1" (very long but definite) is either prime or not, despite I > will, plausibly, never been able to know or observe which it is. > Even with comp, there might be entire physical universe without any > self-aware or conscious observers in them, and despite the fact that matter > arise from machine self-reference in arithmetic. I would like to ask something here that is stimulated by my recent discussions with Craig and Stathis. It is clear that any viable theory must be able to resolve what would otherwise lead to paradoxes of reference and and indeed of "causal" relations. If matter, or its appearance, manifests to us as a consequence of self-reference wherein lies the *specific* justification, in the comp theory, for our ability to refer to and apparently interact with those appearances? It occurs to me here that the usual understanding of CTM is that thought is computed by the brain, which I note you avoid by stipulating rather that consciousness will be invariant for a digital substitution. One who studies the UDA might be tempted to suppose that the reversal of physics-machine psychology necessitated to retain CTM also salvages the notion that thought is computed by the brain, but this move doesn't seem capable of avoiding the paradoxes. Rather, when you say that "if we are a machine we cannot know which machine we are" this seems to imply that a brain, or any computations it might be supposed to instantiate, cannot directly represent the machine that we are. Rather we find expression through the FPI filtration of the statistics of computations that are capable of reconciling both the appearance of matter, including brains and bodies, and our causal and ostensive relations with it. IOW the brain and the body, as you sometimes say, are the means by which the person is able to manifest with respect to a particular reality. So I guess my question, assuming I haven't got hold of the wrong end of the stick entirely, is which aspects of the hypostases address these extraordinarily complex and subtle referential issues? > <snip> > Our own computations can be very mong and eep with martge "period" of non > presence of observers. I have to say that these are some of your most delightful unintentional malapropisms - they read almost like Edward Lear :) I think I can intuit what "mong" and "eep" may be (actually they sound a bit like the Siamese Twins) but what is martge? On a less frivolous note, Craig has been making some interesting comments on the necessity, in his theory, to consider the entire history leading to the (apparent) presence of something like a biological cell. But he seems to feel that the deep historical antecedents of naturally-occurring cells make any attempt to faithfully reproduce such a cell functionally by "external" intervention into a hopeless enterprise, because such antecedents cannot be created ex nihilo. This seems wrong-headed to me for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that any apparently external intervention of which we find ourselves to be capable must itself have long and deep antecedents. I wonder if your remarks above can shed any light on this question? > It is hard to say a priori. I might also miss what Russell intends to > mean. > > Bruno > > > > > > > >> Brent >> >> -- >> 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. >> > > 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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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