On 20 Feb 2014, at 18:15, meekerdb wrote:
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.
That is not so important, but still a bit weird. It is like saying
that in the set {Paul, Arthur} there are three person, Paul, Arthur,
and the father of Arthur (which happens to be Paul).
But that is not important.
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.
Well, I am not criticizing physicists, only physicalists. That is the
point.
Materialist physics doesn't assume any particular ur-stuff and in
fact, as Russell points out, doesn't much care what it is.
Physics doesn't care, but "materialists" do.
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.
No problem with physicists. My point is "metaphysical" or
"theological", not "physical", at the start. That is part of the
subject, and result: we can't have both computationalism and
materialism (with the usual weak Occam razor).
Bruno
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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