On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 2:19 AM, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au
> wrote:
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 06:45:51PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 29 Sep 2014, at 02:22, Russell Standish wrote:
>
> >
> >I introduced the term "urstuff" as a way of referring to what is
> >ontologically real. "primitive urstuff" is a tautology, of
course, as
> >urstuff is primitive by definition.
I have already patent on "platonically malleable urstuff". So don't
go introducing my stuff any further.
> >
> >Urstuff could be matter, or it could be a platonic system like the
> >integers. Since we can never know what it is, we should
Wittgensteinly
> >shut our traps about it, but since we don't seem to be able to do
> >that, we need a label to talk about it.
What's wrong with the usual "primitive objects/entities" in some
theory/ontology etc?
>
>
> But stuff is so much connotated to matter. Matter seems even more
> abstract than stuff. Some people makes the error that physics
Only in my grandmother's English. She would say stuff is material - ie
specifically the fabric that you make clothes, or curtains out of. But
already by my generation, "stuff" is roughly synonymous with
"things". A thing needn't be material. My son's generation, would
probably use the word "junk" in the same way.
...and in some rather particular other ways as well.
> becomes arithmetic, which is against comp, where physics is a
> modality of observation (the FPI bet "one" obeys the quantum logic
> S4Grz1, or Z1*).
>
> Again, this is just vocabulary, but to say that numbers are stuff
> seems to me to easily lead to the error of confusing math and
> physics (which some people do when using comp naively).
>
I don't think so. But in any case, I'm using a new word "urstuff",
which is definitely not my grandmother's "stuff".
Yes, it's my stuff.
> I think that insisting that number are not physical, not stuffy, not
> material, we are closer to your "nothing" intuition, given this
> makes clear that there is nothing physical, except in the internal
> self-emerging semantic in arithmetic, on arithmetic.
>
In English, "stuffy" refers to a personality type - someone who is
rigid and formal might be called "stuffy". You're the only person I
know of using it as an adjective meaning "made of matter".
Mass, heaviness. A stuffy person isn't erm... light or easy.
You do have an important point that the ontological number base is not
the same as the empirical world, a distinction captured by Kant's
noumenon-phenomenon dichotomy.
Here you speak in absolute terms... But I can see how in comp
numbers and the like become "stuff/entity" by definition and rules
of the game, in similar way as matter in appropriate contexts.
With the FPI discovery, you can
demonstrate this quite formally. But to insist that number aren't
physical up front probably doesn't help, as most people don't have a
good idea what physical is to start with. With your reversal result,
and insisting that physical means what is observed as phenomena, you
can then conclude that the arithmetical reality is not phenomena.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>It demonstrates an inconsistency between physical supervenience
and
> >>>computational supervenience, notably that physical supervenience
> >>>entails that certain very simple computations, such as the
replaying
> >>>of a recording, will be conscious.
> >>>
> >>>This only works in a non-robust universe, however, a point that
is
> >>>often overlooked in treatments of this.
> >>
> >>
> >>It seems to me that the MGA makes the robust/non-robustness
> >>irrelevant. It is enough that elementary arithmetic, or the
> >>combinators, is a robust reality.
> >>
> >
> >I agree. The whole non-robust universe move is a rejection of
your AR
> >postulate. But it does seem reasonable to ask what might happen
if not
> >all possible programs could exist, ie that the Turing model of
> >computation is constrained in some way. I guess essential if you
> >really want to tackle Aristotelianism in its home ground.
>
> I mention the sub-universal more often called sub-creative) set of
> computable function. That might be interesting indeed. But if we
> assume the usual computationalist assumption, for theology and
> physics, introuicing such a restriction would already be like doing
> terachery. If such a restriction plays a role (as I am sure it
> does), that has to be extracted from self-reference to exploit the
> G/G* distinction, and get both qualia and quanta.
>
>
>
>
> >
> >>The ultrafinitist physicalism has still to endow his "existing
> >>matter" with magical non-Turing emulable to make its reality doing
> >>the selection it seems to me.
> >>
> >
> >I agree it is non-Turing, but magical might be a bit too strong an
> >epithet. The argument, presumably, is that some computations
require
> >too great a resource in order to be instantiated. (By analogy with
> >Norm Wildberger's main argument against infinity).
> >
>
>
> Comp does not allow infinity in its basic ontology. All of 0, 1, 2,
> 3, ... are finite.
That's weird because of "..." as pointer to infinite.
[0, 1, 2, 3, ...} is already in the mind of some
> machines, like ZF. It shorten the proofs, and enlighten the picture
> from inside. Comp, as Judson Webb analyse it, is a finitism.
His book is too expensive so have to go to library (hint: anybody
with pdf?)
> is Norm Wildberger an utltrafinitist in math? He look like a
> materialist, and ultrafinitist in physics, but normally that is what
> the MGA shows it can't really work (unless adding the "magic
> "needed). That magic is more than non Turing emulable, it is also
> not FPI recoverable. I have no idea what that could be except as
> something incomprehensible (primitive matter) introduced to make
> something else (machine's mind) incomprehensible.
>
I haven't chatted with Norm personally about this - his views have
evolved considerably in the years since I was regularly in the
department. All I know is what he presented in that seminar, and also
what was written in that New Scientist article.
ISTM that that the MGA presents choices:
1) COMP is false
2) Physical supervenience is false (that's hard to square with
evidence)
Especially when considering that comp assumption, as far as I can
tell, emphasizes theology of machines bearing on this question, i.e.
what it considers evidence.
3) We live in a robust reality (such as AR)
Still don't get relation between comp and resolution of finite,
infinite controversy; especially given "..." attribute today of
supposedly finite comp.
And I'm going to stay quite obtuse (at least -obtuse, if I have to
quantify) on this so bring it on, either way.
4) Some recordings are conscious
Not from 3p, which drives MGA I'd say. PGC
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