Re: The Meaning of Life

[Brent Meeker]

Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> 
> 
> On 2/24/07, *Tom Caylor* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> > wrote:
> 
> 
> On Feb 23, 3:59 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > wrote:
>  > On 2/23/07, Tom Caylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > wrote:
>  >
>  > > My point in quoting Kronecker was to simply to allude to the
> fact that
>  > > the foundations of mathematics are axiomatic in a similar way that
>  > > ultimate meaning is ultimate.  We have a feeling that the
> foundation
>  > > of math is ultimately right, even though we can't prove it.  In my
>  > > "logical reason" (reason #1 a few posts back), I am simply
> arguing for
>  > > realism (vs. positivism).  Your arguments that you are trying to
>  > > enforce here would apply equally well (if valid) to realism in
> general
>  > > (not just God), and therefore put you in the positivist camp.
>  >
>  > > Tom
>  >
>  > Positivists don't like metaphysics, but even if you allow that
> metaphysics
>  > isn't all just nonsense, you have to maintain some sort of
> standards. How do
>  > you weed out those metaphysical beliefs which *are* just nonsense?
>  >
>  > Stathis Papaioannou
> 
> I agree that positivists don't like metaphysics, and they actually
> don't believe in it either.  The problem with this is that science is
> ultimately based on (and is inescapably in the context of) some kind
> of metaphysics, since it is in the context of the universe as a whole.
> 
> There are some ways of sorting out metaphysics.  In fact these
> criteria are mostly the same as how we sort out science (since, again,
> science is based on metaphysics).  These are such things as
> fundamentality, generality and beauty.  However, the fact that science
> conventionally has been limited to the "material" (whatever that
> means!) implies that the criteria of naturality (a viscious circle
> actually!) and reproducibility (another vicious circle) that we have
> in science cannot be applied to the universe as a whole or to
> metaphysics.
> 
> [Side note: But even more important is to recognize that metaphysics,
> as well as science, is filtered for us: we are part of the universe
> and we are limited.  So this filters out almost everything.  This
> limits more than anything the amount of "sense" we can make out of
> Everything.]
> 
> However the criterion that you are trying to enforce, that of all
> things having a cause even in the context of Everything and Everyone,
> is a positivist criteria, treating metaphysics as science.  It assumes
> that Everything has to be part of this closed system of cause and
> effect.  There are plenty of criteria to sort out Everything (as I've
> mentioned above) without getting into the positivist viscious circle.
> 
> 
> The universe is not under any obligation to reveal itself to us. All we 
> can do is stumble around blindly gathering what data we can and make a 
> best guess as to what's going on. Science is just a systematisation of 
> this process, with guesses taking the form of models and theories. 
> However, it's all tentative, and the scientific method itself is 
> tentative: tomorrow pigs might sprout wings and fly, even though this 
> has never happened before. I would bet that pigs will still be 
> land-bound tomorrow, because there is no reason to think otherwise, but 
> I have to stop short of absolute certainty. A metaphysical position 
> would be that flying pigs are an absurdity or an anathema and therefore 
> pigs absolutely *cannot* fly. But it is arrogant as well as wrong to 
> create absolute certainty, absolute meaning, or absolute anything else 
> by fiat, just because that's what you fancy. If there are some things we 
> can't know with certainty or can't know at all, that may be unfortunate, 
> but it's the way the world is.
> 
> Stathis Papaioannou

You seem to take metaphysics to be an absolutist theory.  Maybe Tom does too.  
But I think of metaphysics to be the interpretation we put on top of our 
mathematical theories, e.g. Bohm's pilot wave and Feynman's multiple particle 
paths are two different metaphysics we can use to explain what the formalism of 
quantum mechanics refers to.  But we're *less* certain about them than about 
the formalism.  In fact they don't even matter in applications.  Their 
usefulness, if they have any, is in suggesting extensions to the theory.

Brent Meeker

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?h

Re: The Meaning of Life

[Tom Caylor]

On Feb 23, 8:51 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 2/24/07, Tom Caylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > I agree that positivists don't like metaphysics, and they actually
> > don't believe in it either.  The problem with this is that science is
> > ultimately based on (and is inescapably in the context of) some kind
> > of metaphysics, since it is in the context of the universe as a whole.
>
> > There are some ways of sorting out metaphysics.  In fact these
> > criteria are mostly the same as how we sort out science (since, again,
> > science is based on metaphysics).  These are such things as
> > fundamentality, generality and beauty.  However, the fact that science
> > conventionally has been limited to the "material" (whatever that
> > means!) implies that the criteria of naturality (a viscious circle
> > actually!) and reproducibility (another vicious circle) that we have
> > in science cannot be applied to the universe as a whole or to
> > metaphysics.
>
> > [Side note: But even more important is to recognize that metaphysics,
> > as well as science, is filtered for us: we are part of the universe
> > and we are limited.  So this filters out almost everything.  This
> > limits more than anything the amount of "sense" we can make out of
> > Everything.]
>
> > However the criterion that you are trying to enforce, that of all
> > things having a cause even in the context of Everything and Everyone,
> > is a positivist criteria, treating metaphysics as science.  It assumes
> > that Everything has to be part of this closed system of cause and
> > effect.  There are plenty of criteria to sort out Everything (as I've
> > mentioned above) without getting into the positivist viscious circle.
>
> The universe is not under any obligation to reveal itself to us. All we can
> do is stumble around blindly gathering what data we can and make a best
> guess as to what's going on.

This is a metaphysical judgment.  There are those who strongly
disagree on rational grounds.

> Science is just a systematisation of this
> process, with guesses taking the form of models and theories.

So science is a just systematisation of a metaphysical judgment.  I
agree.

> However, it's
> all tentative, and the scientific method itself is tentative: tomorrow pigs
> might sprout wings and fly, even though this has never happened before. I
> would bet that pigs will still be land-bound tomorrow, because there is no
> reason to think otherwise, but I have to stop short of absolute certainty. A
> metaphysical position would be that flying pigs are an absurdity or an
> anathema and therefore pigs absolutely *cannot* fly. But it is arrogant as
> well as wrong to create absolute certainty, absolute meaning, or absolute
> anything else by fiat, just because that's what you fancy. If there are some
> things we can't know with certainty or can't know at all, that may be
> unfortunate, but it's the way the world is.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou

Looking over my previous post, I cannot see why you are bringing up
absolute certainty.  Also I don't know what "absolute meaning" means,
unless it means knowing meaning with absolute certainty in which case
I don't hold that view.

Tom


--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---

Re: The Meaning of Life

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 2/24/07, Tom Caylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> On Feb 23, 3:59 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On 2/23/07, Tom Caylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > My point in quoting Kronecker was to simply to allude to the fact that
> > > the foundations of mathematics are axiomatic in a similar way that
> > > ultimate meaning is ultimate.  We have a feeling that the foundation
> > > of math is ultimately right, even though we can't prove it.  In my
> > > "logical reason" (reason #1 a few posts back), I am simply arguing for
> > > realism (vs. positivism).  Your arguments that you are trying to
> > > enforce here would apply equally well (if valid) to realism in general
> > > (not just God), and therefore put you in the positivist camp.
> >
> > > Tom
> >
> > Positivists don't like metaphysics, but even if you allow that
> metaphysics
> > isn't all just nonsense, you have to maintain some sort of standards.
> How do
> > you weed out those metaphysical beliefs which *are* just nonsense?
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> I agree that positivists don't like metaphysics, and they actually
> don't believe in it either.  The problem with this is that science is
> ultimately based on (and is inescapably in the context of) some kind
> of metaphysics, since it is in the context of the universe as a whole.
>
> There are some ways of sorting out metaphysics.  In fact these
> criteria are mostly the same as how we sort out science (since, again,
> science is based on metaphysics).  These are such things as
> fundamentality, generality and beauty.  However, the fact that science
> conventionally has been limited to the "material" (whatever that
> means!) implies that the criteria of naturality (a viscious circle
> actually!) and reproducibility (another vicious circle) that we have
> in science cannot be applied to the universe as a whole or to
> metaphysics.
>
> [Side note: But even more important is to recognize that metaphysics,
> as well as science, is filtered for us: we are part of the universe
> and we are limited.  So this filters out almost everything.  This
> limits more than anything the amount of "sense" we can make out of
> Everything.]
>
> However the criterion that you are trying to enforce, that of all
> things having a cause even in the context of Everything and Everyone,
> is a positivist criteria, treating metaphysics as science.  It assumes
> that Everything has to be part of this closed system of cause and
> effect.  There are plenty of criteria to sort out Everything (as I've
> mentioned above) without getting into the positivist viscious circle.


The universe is not under any obligation to reveal itself to us. All we can
do is stumble around blindly gathering what data we can and make a best
guess as to what's going on. Science is just a systematisation of this
process, with guesses taking the form of models and theories. However, it's
all tentative, and the scientific method itself is tentative: tomorrow pigs
might sprout wings and fly, even though this has never happened before. I
would bet that pigs will still be land-bound tomorrow, because there is no
reason to think otherwise, but I have to stop short of absolute certainty. A
metaphysical position would be that flying pigs are an absurdity or an
anathema and therefore pigs absolutely *cannot* fly. But it is arrogant as
well as wrong to create absolute certainty, absolute meaning, or absolute
anything else by fiat, just because that's what you fancy. If there are some
things we can't know with certainty or can't know at all, that may be
unfortunate, but it's the way the world is.

Stathis Papaioannou

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---

Re: The Meaning of Life

[Tom Caylor]

On Feb 23, 3:59 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 2/23/07, Tom Caylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > My point in quoting Kronecker was to simply to allude to the fact that
> > the foundations of mathematics are axiomatic in a similar way that
> > ultimate meaning is ultimate.  We have a feeling that the foundation
> > of math is ultimately right, even though we can't prove it.  In my
> > "logical reason" (reason #1 a few posts back), I am simply arguing for
> > realism (vs. positivism).  Your arguments that you are trying to
> > enforce here would apply equally well (if valid) to realism in general
> > (not just God), and therefore put you in the positivist camp.
>
> > Tom
>
> Positivists don't like metaphysics, but even if you allow that metaphysics
> isn't all just nonsense, you have to maintain some sort of standards. How do
> you weed out those metaphysical beliefs which *are* just nonsense?
>
> Stathis Papaioannou

I agree that positivists don't like metaphysics, and they actually
don't believe in it either.  The problem with this is that science is
ultimately based on (and is inescapably in the context of) some kind
of metaphysics, since it is in the context of the universe as a whole.

There are some ways of sorting out metaphysics.  In fact these
criteria are mostly the same as how we sort out science (since, again,
science is based on metaphysics).  These are such things as
fundamentality, generality and beauty.  However, the fact that science
conventionally has been limited to the "material" (whatever that
means!) implies that the criteria of naturality (a viscious circle
actually!) and reproducibility (another vicious circle) that we have
in science cannot be applied to the universe as a whole or to
metaphysics.

[Side note: But even more important is to recognize that metaphysics,
as well as science, is filtered for us: we are part of the universe
and we are limited.  So this filters out almost everything.  This
limits more than anything the amount of "sense" we can make out of
Everything.]

However the criterion that you are trying to enforce, that of all
things having a cause even in the context of Everything and Everyone,
is a positivist criteria, treating metaphysics as science.  It assumes
that Everything has to be part of this closed system of cause and
effect.  There are plenty of criteria to sort out Everything (as I've
mentioned above) without getting into the positivist viscious circle.

Tom


--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---

Re: "IF we are (digital) machine then "the physical world" is in our head "

[Bruno Marchal]

Hello Stephen,


Le 22-févr.-07, à 02:08, Stephen Paul King a écrit :

>
> Hi Bruno,
>
> I read all of your posts with interest and after reading your 
> responce
> to Hal's latest post, where you make a statement about your theory, I 
> again
> have a question: How do you account for the multiplicity of "minds" 
> (each
> having a different "PoV of the "physical world") such that your theory 
> is
> not just a very sophisticated version of Solipsism?


In the thought experiments (UDA), the mutiplicity of minds, or the 
possibility of such a multiplicity, is given by the duplication of 
population of individuals, and the fact that people there can share a 
notion of first person indeterminacy. Just imagine the whole of 
belgians duplicated into Washington and Moscow. They can make bets!
I usually refer to this with the notion of first person plural 
indeterminacy.

In the lobian interview, the question is more difficult. First person 
plural is given, approximately, by the Bp & Dp (provable p and 
consistent p) person point of view. This gives an arithmetical quantum 
logic. But quantum logics are known to be insufficient to define a 
natural tensor product or entanglement, needed for "entangling" the 
computations.

Thanks to relation between knot theory and quantum information, I begin 
to see more clearly how QM escapes solipsism, and this provides hints 
how comp will solve it, or being refuted by not allowing it.

Knots and braids seems to me to be the best intermediary structures 
between quantum realities and numbers. But for the "qualium" realities 
(the person and their inner observation), the logic of self-reference 
seems to me the only way to keep them "intact" ...





> Is the word "head" (in your statement) a derivative/representation 
> of
> some aspect of the "measure" you mention in your papers and if so how?


I don't think so. "head" was used a bit poetically, to show up the 
relation between the machine self-reference logics and the inward 
looking of the mystics (like Plotinus).

Your "head" is in your "head" too :-)

I assure you that if comp leads to solipsism, I will take that as a 
definitive refutation of comp. But this should not be confused with the 
problem of the number of persons. Even if there is really only one 
person, it would not mean solipsism is true. It would mean we are all 
the same person (in different context), not that "I" am the only one. 
With comp the number of first person is an open problem.


Bon week-end,

Bruno

PS My paper on Plotinus I talked about has been accepted.
http://www.amsta.leeds.ac.uk/~pmt6sbc/cie07.contr.html
About my other paper relating knots and the Bp & Dp stases, I talked 
about too, well, ...  I found an error by myself, and I am a bit 
stucked, although I have just made some progress. I have understood 
that if physics is really derivable from arithmetical introspection 
(and this follows from comp by UDA), then it should be easier to derive 
a topological quantum universal machine in the neighborhood of almost 
all universal machine, than physics per se  The relation between G 
and Z (corresponding to Plotinus' mirror between intelligible matter 
and the divine intellect) gives rise to a structure relating braids and 
quantum information, but a bit too trivial. Not enough for getting 
quantum entanglement, nor quantum universality, and still less the 
first person plural notion you ask me for. I hope this comes from my 
incompetence, not a symptom of a comp solipsism!





http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---

Re: The Meaning of Life

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 2/23/07, Tom Caylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> On Feb 20, 3:47 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On 2/20/07, Tom Caylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > Ultimate meaning is analogous to axioms or arithmetic truth (e.g. 42
> > > is not prime).  In fact the famous quote of Kronecker "God created the
> > > integers" makes this point.  I think Bruno takes arithmetic truth as
> > > his ultimate source of meaning.  If you ask the same positivist
> > > questions of arithmetic truth, you also have the same problem.  The
> > > problem lies in the positivist view that there can be no given truth.
> >
> > > Tom
> >
> > This is indeed related to the ontological argument, first formulated by
> > Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century: We say that God is a being
> than
> > which nothing more perfect can be imagined. If God did not exist, then
> we
> > can imagine an entity just like God, but with the additional attribute
> of
> > existence - which is absurd, because we would then be imagining
> something
> > more perfect than that than which nothing more perfect can be imagined.
> > Therefore, God the most perfect being imaginable must necessarily have
> > existence as one of his attributes. Versions of the argument from first
> > cause and the argument from design also reduce to the ontological
> argument,
> > answering the question "who made God?" with the assertion that God
> exists
> > necessarily, with no need for the creator/designer (or, you might add,
> > external source of meaning) that the merely contingents things in the
> > universe need.
> >
> > The problem with defining God in this way as something which necessarily
> > exists is that you can use the same trick to conjure up anything you
> like:
> > an "existent pink elephant" can't be non-existent any more than a
> bachelor
> > can be married. This objection pales a little if we admit that imagined
> > existence (i.e Platonia and the conscious computations therein) is all
> the
> > existence there is, but I am not sure that you would be happy with this
> > explanation as despite the Kronecker quote (which I always understood as
> > rhetorical anyway) mathematical truths are beyond even God's power to
> > change.
> >
> > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> My point in quoting Kronecker was to simply to allude to the fact that
> the foundations of mathematics are axiomatic in a similar way that
> ultimate meaning is ultimate.  We have a feeling that the foundation
> of math is ultimately right, even though we can't prove it.  In my
> "logical reason" (reason #1 a few posts back), I am simply arguing for
> realism (vs. positivism).  Your arguments that you are trying to
> enforce here would apply equally well (if valid) to realism in general
> (not just God), and therefore put you in the positivist camp.
>
> Tom


Positivists don't like metaphysics, but even if you allow that metaphysics
isn't all just nonsense, you have to maintain some sort of standards. How do
you weed out those metaphysical beliefs which *are* just nonsense?

Stathis Papaioannou

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---