On 05 Apr 2017, at 00:33, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>> God is omnipotent and you are confused as to why I should
think such a beings should be able to convince me He exists if He
really does!
> I don't believe in such a God. I cannot make sense of
omnipotence.
If you insist on using common English words in non-standard
ways it's your own damn fault if you're constantly misunderstood!
I reassure you, I am constantly misunderstood only by people not
reading what I write, or by fundamentalist strong atheists from some
sect defending dogma.
I've never even met you and yet you've managed to convince me that
you exist, but "God" whatever the hell you mean by word, is unable
to convince me that He exist. Congratulations, you can do something
"God" cannot.
Vague imprecise language does have one advantage, it masks vague
imprecise thought.
>> Google doesn't know what "primary physical universe"
means so I'm not sure what you're asking. I can think of 3
possibilities.
1) Do I think a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws of
physics?
Yes.
> I guess you mean a person. OK. But this is trivial given that
the physical laws, or at least their formulation assume some logic.
Assumptions that have been experimentally confirmed. We've
noted that 2 trees and 2 trees make 4 trees, and 2 rocks and 2 rocks
make 4 rocks, and we use induction to assume that pattern will hold
true for 2 of anything. So far that assumption looks pretty good,
although some events at the quantum level might produce a little
unease.
>>2) Do I think a mind can derive all the laws of physics we
see and none of the laws of physics we don't see from nothing but
the laws of logic?
Maybe, but probably not.
> No. This is impossible.
If you're right (and you probably are) then physics can tell us
things about the world that logic and mathematics can not, and
therefore physics is more fundamental.
That does not follow. You talk like if we could derive arithmetic from
logic. But we can't. And with mechanism, we have to derive physics
from arithmetic, not from logic. And it works very well until now.
> 3) Do I think a mind can be derived from nothing but the laws
of logic?
No.
OK.
So we have something else that physics can do but logic alone can
not; naked logic can not make a mind but matter that obeys the laws
of physics can.
>> So you tell me, do I "believe in a primary physical
universe"?
> Only if you believe that it is possible to explain all
sciences from the laws of physics.
We both agree a mind can derive the laws of logic from the laws
of physics.
Yes, but trivially. The laws of physics, in fact any laws assume some
logic(s).
We both agree a mind probably can not derive the laws of
physics from the laws of of logic.
Yes.
and we agree that naked logic can not make a mind but matter that
obeys the laws of physics can. So if physics can't explain
something what can?
Arithmetic, or anything Church-Turing Universal.
Yu seem to miss Gödel and the end of logicism. We just can't explain
the numbers with pure logic. Arithmetic has to be assumed? Russell and
whitehead thought they could, but there was a flaw, indeed found by
Gödel.
Do you believe that physics is or could be the fundamental science?
If we both agree that physics can do things that mathematics can
not it should be obvious which is more fundamental.
Mathematics can do that, even just arithmetic. It is logic alone which
can't. You confuse logic and mathematics.
>> There is an interesting quotation from Hugh Everett, the
man who created the Many World's interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics:
"When a observer splits it is meaningless to ask which of
the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each
possess the total memory of the first, it is as foolish as
asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two".
> Can you give the reference?
That quotation came from Everett's PhD thesis where he introduced
the concept of Many Worlds, but was not in the version published in
1957. Originally Everett's thesis was 137 pages long but John
Wheeler, Everett's thesis adviser, made him cut out about half of
it including the entire chapter on information and probability
which today many consider the best part of the work. Wheeler
also didn't like the word "split" and was especially
uncomfortable with talk of conscious observers splitting.
Everett's complete thesis with no cuts was not published until
1973.
It comes from Zurek or Zeh I think. I read the long thesis of Everett
many-times, and never found an allusion to amoeba. Or give the pages.
Anyway, that quote is out of context and is ambiguous given that we
never asked which one is the original. We ask this either about the 3-
I, in which case the answer is simple and clear: both are. Or we ask
this about the 1-I, or soul, consciousness, in which case the answer
is that from their first person view, each one are but not both.
Bruno
John K Clark
c
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