On 28 Jul 2015, at 04:46, John Clark wrote:
David Deutsch Wrote::
>Many mathematicians to this day don't realize that information
is physical and that there is no such thing as an abstract computer.
Only a physical object can compute things.
Bruno Marchal Wrote:
> That approach makes mysterious mind, matter, and the relation
between.
The relationship between mind and brain is no more and no less
mysterious than the relationship between nouns verbs and
adjectives.
I will not ask you a proof, as you have shown to confuse the key
notions in play in the more particular mechanist reformulation of the
mind-body problem.
> mathematicians does not need the assumption of physicalness
to define and reason about information. Not even about quantum
information,
Then the real mystery is why mathematicians haven't become
billionaires by starting computer hardware companies with zero
manufacturing costs.
To refute what I say, you have to show a math theory which assumes
something physical. Even quantum information theory does not assume
any physical objects. They assume only mathematical relations.
Straw man, as you refute something I do not say.
> Did Landuer realized that the concept of purely abstract
natural numbers doesn't make sense?
Yes, in fact he went further, Landuer used his physical
brain to deduce that sense itself doesn't make sense without
physics. I'm not certain his deduction was correct but it very well
might be.
Sense is not assumed in elementary arithmetic. you make another of
your favorite mistake. You confuse level of explanations.
> Also, QM assumes the natural numbers. The more general theory
of waves, eve just trigonometry assumes the natural numbers.
But was that assumption correct? I don't know. There are a
infinite number of natural numbers but nobody has ever seen a
infinite number of anything and nobody has even come close.
We never know if our assumption are correct. We can just agree on the
interesting one and contemplate their explanation spectrum until we
refute them. Of course some seems irrefutable like x + 0 = x. But as
we cannot prove them from logic alone, we take them as axiom, and ask
if people agree, and proceed.
> The theory of natural numbers does not assume a physical
reality.
If the natural numbers are a human invention then they are the
result the physical reality inside the human skull.
That is the confusion between the natural numbers, and the human
conception of the natural numbers. The problem is that if you want
explain the natural numbers from the brain, you have to explain the
brain without using natural numbers, and thus without using
trigonometry, and thus without using quantum mechanics, etc.
All scientists agrees with elementary arithmetic, and uses it
everyday. Only philosophers trying to slow down science comes up with
idea like "humans create the natural numbers", which, if seen as a
scientific theory, suggests to explain the simple by the complex, and
that leads nowhere, except slowing down science.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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