On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> LizR wrote: > >> On 23 April 2015 at 13:24, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net >> So is chess real? >> >> No, chess is an agreed-upon set of conventions invented by the human >> mind. It didn't exist before people, and it has rules which can be changed >> without it kicking back (Castling, the pawn's two-square starting move - >> and hence en passant - were introduced to speed up the game). >> > > So how do you respond to this paragraph from Pigliucci: > > The obvious example that is most close to mathematics (and logic?) itself > is provided by board games: “When a game like chess is invented a whole > bundle of facts become demonstrable, some of which indeed are theorems that > become provable through straightforward mathematical reasoning. As we do > not believe in timeless Platonic realities, we do not want to say that > chess always existed — in our view of the world, chess came into existence > at the moment the rules were codified. This means we have to say that all > the facts about it became not only demonstrable, but true, at that moment > as well … Once evoked, the facts about chess are objective, in that if any > one person can demonstrate one, anyone can. And they are independent of > time or particular context: they will be the same facts no matter who > considers them or when they are considered” (p. 423). > > And how does chess, once defined, differ from mathematics? > > How do other universes we can't see differ from mathematics, or objects in mathematics? In both cases, between them: size is incomparable, time is incomparable, distance is incomparable, communication is impossible, change is impossible and yet we can prove things about them, simulate them, discover things about them, think about them, etc. To any self-aware-substructure (SAS) in that alternate universe we discover and think about/simulate, our universe would seem just as abstract. In fact, we might simulate a that SAS living in his world in his universe, and find him to be simulating you on our planet in our universe. Would that SAS be correct in concluding our universe is only abstract? We could analyze what his brain does and know his thoughts, he might even do the same to you and your brain, and find that you've wrongly concluded that the SAS's universe is only abstract and not real. How rude you are! Perhaps he changes his mind and credits you with some degree of concreteness. Jason -- 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/d/optout.
