On 2/20/2014 1:58 AM, Bruno Marchal 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.
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.
I would say that the relations and operators, like s() and [], are also part of
the ontology.
But note this: physicalism or materialism usually assumes some UR matter as primitive in
this sense.
But this is an example of what you accuse of atheists of doing with respect to God: you
defend a view of physics in order to criticize it. Materialist physics doesn't assume any
particular ur-stuff and in fact, as Russell points out, doesn't much care what it is.
It's just concerned with the relations and dynamics and predictions that come from it.
Physicists have hypothetically considered particles, fields, strings, spacetime loops,
information, etc as the ur-stuff.
Brent
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. Those of course will be "non accessible to us", but might
play some indirect role in the FPI statistics. Our own computations can be very mong and
eep with martge "period" of non presence of observers. It is hard to say a priori. I
might also miss what Russell intends to mean.
Bruno
Brent
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