Re: The past hypothesis
Brent, Thanks for keeping the phun in philosophy. marty - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 3:58 PM Subject: Re: The past hypothesis On 5/3/2010 12:39 PM, m.a. wrote: If someone hiking along the twisting highway that follows the cliffs in Northern Italy or coastal California, high above the sea, should reach a point that protrudes so far out that looking back, he can see the entire route he had traversed during the previous hour including every waypoint, landmark, outcrop, distinctive rock or tree; and he remembered passing each place sequentially, would this not count as strong evidence that the past is real? m.a. Only by sensible persons; not philosophers. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The past hypothesis
Dear Rex, I went through that long back-and-forth with Brent (not sure which meaning whom) and recalled Brono's we don't 'know': we assume (as in scinece). I also recalled my poor opinion about statistical/probabilistical judgements (because they depend on the limits of counting and sequence of counting - changeable at whim) - furthermore my denial of 'cause' - as the 'most likely initiator* within* the observed model-cut, irrespective of, maybe more relevant initiators beyond such model, -- I tend to appreciate 'relations' (we assume) instead of physical figments of action-related equational conventional science -- I tried to paraphrase your next to last par. of this post. It was: *As if we could do otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our constituent particles are doing all the work. Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could behave other than they do. In this view, the emotion we feel would seem to be an irrelevant non-causal side-effect at best. Maybe even an illusion?* ** In my paraphrasing: *As if we could think otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our assumed constituent particles are assigned to do all the work. Assuming the universe's initial conditions and the conventional 'causal' laws (which may be part of the believe system) they could be assumed to behave other than we presume 'them' to do. In such view the emotion we feel would seem to be an irrelevant (non causal? secondary?) side-effect at best.* *Maybe even an illusion (if we assign an adequate meaning to this term). * *John M* ** On 5/5/10, Rex Allen rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: On 5/3/2010 7:14 PM, Rex Allen wrote: On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 9:48 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: That's assuming I believe some things are true in some absolute sense unrelated to usefulness. I don't. I am having the experience of seeing a red book. But do you *believe* you are seeing a red book. You could be mistaken about that (in fact you've argued you're probably mistaken). No, you only believe that you are having an experience that is described as seeing a red book. But I will concede you may have confidence in such a belief (provided you know what see, red, and book mean - which requires references that are less than certain). For myself I don't formulate such beliefs, although I suppose I could say, I believe I am experiencing something that could be described as looking at a computer display. Do you really believe that you are experiencing looking at a computer display, OR, do you only believe that you believe that you are experiencing looking at a computer display? Ha! What is belief except another aspect of conscious experience? So there are blind people with anosognosia, who deny being blind and will invent visual experiences. When they claim to see a red book, what is their conscious experience? I would guess that their experience is not the same as mine, but who knows? Maybe it is the same. Maybe the sincere belief that you're having a visual experience *is* a visual experience. If so, that works for me. Maybe that explains the visual aspects of dreams? Maybe belief is all that exists? Fundamental and uncaused... OR maybe the blind anosognosiacs don't truly believe that they are seeing a red book, but their impaired condition forces them to behave as though they believed they were? OR, maybe they aren't having any experience at all. Maybe they have become zombies...? I can only work with what I know about my own experiences. But, thanks to Salvia Divinorum, I have some idea of what it's like to both believe really strange things, and to experience really strange things. If you asked me what I was seeing on one of those Salvia outings, I would have told you all sorts of crazy things. The visual experience was real, even if what I saw wasn't. It doesn't seem to be useful to obtain certainty by giving up all reference. Is that what you are doing and that's why you regard your experiences as uncaused and not referring - so you can have certainty? Well. I am trying to fit everything that I know into a single consistent, coherent framework. Why? Well...I don't know. Too much spare time on my hands? In general though, it seems like a reasonable way to pass the time. When I say time and red are aspects of consciousness, I mean it in the same way that a scientific realist means that spin is an aspect of an electron. Red and time are mathematical attributes in a model of consciousness?? Ok, what's the model? By definition, a scientific realist believes in the actual existence of electrons and of the attribute of spin. If he didn't, he wouldn't be a scientific realist. He might instead be a structural realist. On 5/1/2010 6:15 PM, Rex Allen
Re: The past hypothesis
On 06 May 2010, at 04:24, Rex Allen wrote: On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 2:54 PM, Rex Allen rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: We haven't changed the relative number of Rexs and not-Rexs, we've just labeled them with an extra property and then rearranged them according to that additional property. They retain their original properties though. So, we still have a countable infinity of Rexs, and a countable infinity of not-Rexs. Who can be placed into one-to-one correspondence. SO...what difference does the measure make when deciding, as Carroll put it, which infinity wins? To me this sounds very similar to the Tristram Shandy Paradox. Yes? No? http://www.suitcaseofdreams.net/Tristram_Shandy.htm Nice page. I think people should find there enough to conclude that cardinality if on no help in probability measure problems. Assuming digital mechanism intuitively, with the rule Y = II, the measure is on a non enumerable set: the set of all computations, including their dovetailing on infinite algebraic structures (like the reals), and all what we (the lobian entities) can say is that the measure one obeys sort of arithmetical quantum logic of credibility. Bruno 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-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The past hypothesis
Ha! Indeed, these nesting levels do get fairly obscure. On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 10:49 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Rex, I tried to paraphrase your next to last par. of this post. It was: As if we could do otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our constituent particles are doing all the work. Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could behave other than they do. In this view, the emotion we feel would seem to be an irrelevant non-causal side-effect at best. Maybe even an illusion? I made a typo there that kind of spoiled the point I was trying to make: Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could behave other than they do. SHOULD HAVE BEEN: Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could NOT behave other than they do. Sorry about that! In my paraphrasing: As if we could think otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our assumed constituent particles are assigned to do all the work. Assuming the universe's initial conditions and the conventional 'causal' laws (which may be part of the believe system) they could be assumed to behave other than we presume 'them' to do. In such view the emotion we feel would seem to be an irrelevant (non causal? secondary?) side-effect at best. Maybe even an illusion (if we assign an adequate meaning to this term). So you've taken my ontological statement and translated it into it's epistemological equivalent? Are you saying that ontological speculation is pointless? If so, I tend to agree. But of course, in unguarded moments we inevitably slip back into ontological speculation anyway. BUT, taking your epistemological equivalent and then adding the belief that ontological speculation is ultimately pointless - and then translating *that* back into ontology gives us Kant's transcendental idealism (or maybe just pure idealism), not physicalism. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The past hypothesis
On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 May 2010, at 04:24, Rex Allen wrote: On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 2:54 PM, Rex Allen rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: We haven't changed the relative number of Rexs and not-Rexs, we've just labeled them with an extra property and then rearranged them according to that additional property. They retain their original properties though. So, we still have a countable infinity of Rexs, and a countable infinity of not-Rexs. Who can be placed into one-to-one correspondence. SO...what difference does the measure make when deciding, as Carroll put it, which infinity wins? To me this sounds very similar to the Tristram Shandy Paradox. Yes? No? http://www.suitcaseofdreams.net/Tristram_Shandy.htm Nice page. I think people should find there enough to conclude that cardinality if on no help in probability measure problems. What I get out of it is that measure is irrelevant to ontological questions involving infinity. Even though events happen more frequently that completed autobiographical entries, ultimately every event has it's associated entry. At least according to Bertrand Russell. Translating back to Normal brains, Boltzmann brains, and eternal recurrence - ultimately every normal brain can be paired with a Boltzmann brain, so anthropic reasoning is irrelevant in that case. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The past hypothesis
On 06 May 2010, at 04:13, Rex Allen wrote: What is belief except another aspect of conscious experience? OK. Well. I am trying to fit everything that I know into a single consistent, coherent framework. Me too. Maybe belief is all that exists? Fundamental and uncaused... It makes no sense, assuming DM. You may try to say that, for example, numbers does not exist, and only believe in number exist, like the believe in the number one, the believe in the number two, etc. But this will be ad hoc, and for saying yes genuinely qua computation (= without praying for more than Arithmetical truth), somehow you will have to accept for true some of those belief in numbers. And if you believe that the diophantine x^2 + y^2 = z^2 admits infinitely many solutions, and that 2x^2 = y^2 has none (except the x = y = 0), then you are an arithmetical realist (I have never met a non arithmetical realist except among philosophers, especially when understanding UDA). I can only work with what I know about my own experiences. But, thanks to Salvia Divinorum, I have some idea of what it's like to both believe really strange things, and to experience really strange things. You can do statistical statitistics on reports of experience, but personal experience, even when theorizing on personal experience (which we can do, with different definition of persons, etc.) are of no use in the communication (as opposed to the personal investigations). By definition, a scientific realist believes in the actual existence of electrons and of the attribute of spin. Hmm... I am not sure. I would say a naive physicalist realist believes that. I prefer to define realism before the choice of what we can be realist on. I am an arithmetical realist. This means only that I believe that the truth of 17 is prime is not a function of points in space time structures. On the contrary, I can figure out ideas like space and time thanks to my belief in proposition like 14 is not prime. If he didn't, he wouldn't be a scientific realist. He might instead be a structural realist. You talk like if scientific = physicalist. I don't follow you here. So if a physical law is deterministic then under it's influence Event A will cause Result X 100% of the time. Only in the third person description. In the first person description like in the iterated self-duplication W M, the personal outcome will be for most persons fifty fifty W or M. Why does Event A always lead to Result X? Because that's the law. There is no deeper reason. There is one. Where does the law come from? If a physical law is indeterministic, If that happens I will follow Einstein in becoming a plumber. As if we could do otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our constituent particles are doing all the work. Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could behave other than they do. In this view, the emotion we feel would seem to be an irrelevant non-causal side-effect at best. Maybe even an illusion? It is a difficulty of physicalism indeed. Not of mechanism, and most physicalist relies on the mechanist theory of mind through the notion of physical implementation of computation. This is quite awkward to define, and if uda is valid, just impossible. Emotions and persons are not illusion, the physical neither, but both emerge epistemologically, or more simply, can be explained from the internal numbers views of arithmetical truth. Bruno 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-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The past hypothesis
Rex, you may have made a typo, but in my thinking it does not make a difference: when I translate the 'physicalist' surety into hypothetical (agnostic, assumed) possibilities it leads to the same uncertainty if translated from YES or from NO. My main point is the *given the universe's initial condition* (what I deny *as fixed* in the so called Big Bang Theory). Furthermore: the *propagation*from ANY conceivable origin into today's condition follows chaotic (nonlinear) ways, yet it is *retrograded* by linear steps. The cosmologic marvels of *'inflation' *(space) and 'events' timed at *sec.#1^-43*, or * ^-32* etc (as in time) are products to make the calculative mistakes in that theory irrelevant - when applying today's *physics of the present conditions* to a fundamentally different system with zillion-times bigger temperature, pressures, zillion-times smnaller extensions and concentrated effects into eggs that did not hatched yet. I substituted in my *narrative* (Origination of our world from 'a' Plenitude - not a theory) the inflation by the initiation of SPACE from the originally *a-spatial* (no extension) source and the incredible marvels at incredibly small* first* time-fractions by the transitional state from the a-temporal (= timeless source) into our time-governed universe. The rest is the attempt of the conventional physicality to write matching equations and theory-abiding calculations to some *story* of explaining the unexplainable. (My narrative: in Karl Jaspers Forum TA-62MIK 2003). * *Your remark on Ontology:* the static view of the existence? the attempt of *conventional science* (with its translated philosophy) to valuate/validate those *snapshots* taken at certain instants from the ever changing complexity of the world. The changing dynamics is represented (I did not say IS) in the epistemic view - still as we see it every one of us for himself. (OUR perceived world). This, again, is no 'theory', just a way I can look at the world of lesser paradoxicalities than the conventional sciences. Without omniscience we cannot comprehend (not even encompass) the entirety (totality, wholenss) of the interrelated ever changing complexity: the world. You remarked: *But of course, in unguarded moments we inevitably slip back into ontological speculation anyway. *And so we slip back into conventional * model-view* of the so far learned conventional scientific arguments as well. We are humans. That's how our mind works, especially in 'unguarded moments'. In trying to overcome such back-slips I do not see much principle difference between Kant's idealism and conventional physicalism. Or the Anthropocentric Intelligent Design either. John M On 5/6/10, Rex Allen rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: Ha! Indeed, these nesting levels do get fairly obscure. On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 10:49 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Rex, I tried to paraphrase your next to last par. of this post. It was: As if we could do otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our constituent particles are doing all the work. Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could behave other than they do. In this view, the emotion we feel would seem to be an irrelevant non-causal side-effect at best. Maybe even an illusion? I made a typo there that kind of spoiled the point I was trying to make: Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could behave other than they do. SHOULD HAVE BEEN: Given the universe's initial conditions and causal laws (which may be probabilistic), they could NOT behave other than they do. Sorry about that! In my paraphrasing: As if we could think otherwise. If we assume physicalism, then our assumed constituent particles are assigned to do all the work. Assuming the universe's initial conditions and the conventional 'causal' laws (which may be part of the believe system) they could be assumed to behave other than we presume 'them' to do. In such view the emotion we feel would seem to be an irrelevant (non causal? secondary?) side-effect at best. Maybe even an illusion (if we assign an adequate meaning to this term). So you've taken my ontological statement and translated it into it's epistemological equivalent? Are you saying that ontological speculation is pointless? If so, I tend to agree. But of course, in unguarded moments we inevitably slip back into ontological speculation anyway. BUT, taking your epistemological equivalent and then adding the belief that ontological speculation is ultimately pointless - and then translating *that* back into ontology gives us Kant's transcendental idealism (or maybe just pure idealism), not physicalism. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to
