> On 18 Jun 2019, at 04:15, Pierz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I've been thinking and writing a lot recently about a conception of reality > which avoids the debates about what is fundamental in reality.
Hmm… Of course we can just enjoy life. Now, some people enjoy searching the fundamental reality and trying to get a testable refutable theory, so that they can improve their understanding by being shown wrong, or improved. In that case we bet that there is a fundamental reality, try a theory of it (the “fundamental” is taken as the “ontological” or the “primitive” that is what we have to assume to proceed. For example, with Mechanism, we have to assume at least one universal machinery, without which there is no computer, nor Mechanist hypothesis possible. In this case, we know (the logicians know) that we cannot assume less than a universal machinery, because it is impossible to derive the existence of a universal machinery without assuming one. I use elementary arithmetic, because everyone is familiar with, and since 1931, we know that this implied the existence of all computations. A reasoning shows that we cannot assume more than a universal machinery, and that we have to derive the physical reality from it, in the form of a statistics on first person experience. We have to derive physics from the psychology/theology of numbers. The theology is itself already derived from arithmetic, through the work of Gödel, Löb, Solovay and others. > It seems to me that with regards to materialism, we find it very difficult to > escape the evolutionarily evolved, inbuilt notion of "things" and "stuff" > that our brains need in order to manipulate the world. Yes. Although science is born from the doubt about that stuff, which unfortunately has come back as a dogma, but that is just typical with the humans. > Yet QM and importantly the expected dissolution of time and space as > fundamental entities in physics have made any such simple mechanistic notion > of matter obsolete - Simple and mechanistic are contradictory. I guess you use “mechanistic” in the pregödelian sense of mechanism. After Gödel, we know that neither number nor machine can have a complete theory. Tarski call such theories essentially undecidable, which really means that we must expect infinitely many surprises, new things, for which we will need new axioms. But with mechanism, the ontology is table and somehow complete: it is the sigma_1 truth, aka the universal dovetailing. > what is left of matter except mathematics and some strange thing we can only > call "instantiation” - Physics does not aboard the question of Reality. It gives tools to make predictions. It compress the description of nature. It has used in a non essential way Aristotle’s theology, which assumes that the observable is what is real. You are right that this cannot be done with quantum mechanics, nor with mechanism. That’s why quantum mechanics is far less astonishing for a computationalist than an Aristotelian believer, as we expect some mess below our substitution level. > the fact that things have specific values rather than (seeming to be) pure > abstractions? What does a sophisticated materialist today place his or her > faith in exactly? Most physicalist physicist would say that they expect a physical theory of everything:something which explains and unify all laws of physics. Then they will use, inconsistently Mechanism to say that they can explain everything. But this will not work, because if they assume mechanism, they are confronted to the UD, and understand that they laws of physics needs to be derived from the laws of computation and self-observation. > Something along the lines of the idea that the world is fundamentally > describable by mathematics, This is ambiguous. Mathematics, the *realm*, is far bigger than any mathematical *theories*. Even just the arithmetical truth can only be scratched by *any* mathematical theories. Even a so rich theory than ZF + kappa can only scratched the arithmetical reality. The use of world is also problematic. Is it the physical world? I think that when doing serious metaphysics, it is better to not commit oneself in any ontology unless it is needed. > impersonal and reducible to the operation of its simplest components. The arithmetical reality is not reducible to any effective theory. Gödel showed this to be logical impossible. > With regards to the last part - reductionism - that also seems to be hitting > a limit in the sense that, while we have some supposed candidates for > fundamental entities (whether quantum fields, branes or whatever), there is > always a problem with anything considered "fundamental" - namely the old > turtle stack problem. This is completely solved with Mechanism. As I just said above: we have to assume the combinators, or the numbers, or the lambda expression, or any other universal machinery. We cannot get them from any non universal thing. And without universal machinery or machine, we cannot express the Mechanist hypothesis. With mechanism, the they of everything is already a sub theory of all know theory used in science. > If the world is really made of any fundamental entity, then fundamentally it > is made of magic - since the properties of that fundamental thing must simply > be given rather than depending on some other set of relations. While > physicists on the one hand continually search for such an entity, on the > other they immediately reject any candidate as soon as it is found, since the > question naturally arises, why this way and not that? Physicist were hoping to get simple things, like particles, and explain all what is observable with them. That is reasonable, but does not work with mechanism. But it could work, a priori, with some non-mechanist theory, which of course is still an open option, despite the lack of evidences for it. As I said, if the three logics corresponding to the material modes did not give a quantum logic, we might have reason to suppose mechanism wrong (or we are in a malevolent simulation). > What do these properties depend on? Furthermore, the fine tuning problem, > unless it can be solved by proof that the world *has* to be the way it is – a > forlorn hope it seems to me – It has to have the laws that it has. Physics is a theorem in Mechanist theology. But contingent local historic-geographical realities remains. > suggests that the idea that we can explain all of reality in terms of the > analysis of parts (emergent relationships) is likely to collapse – we will > need to invoke a cosmological context in order to explain the behaviour of > the parts. It's no wonder so many physicists hate that idea, since it runs > against the deep reductionist grain. And after all, analysis of emergent > relationships (the parts of a thing) is always so much easier than analysis > of contextual relationships (what a thing is part of). Of course with mechanism, nothing observable is made of anything. Even a little piece off the vacuum is “made -of” the whole sigma_1 truth, in some metaphoric sense only. All there is are the numbers and their partial computable relations, and a physical object is a dream object, with not ontological existence, but it does obey the arithmetical laws of the observable, which appear to be quantum-like, and “many-world” like. Of course, those are still images, as the world are only, here, set of true proposition structured by special self-referential mode. > > To get to the point then, I am considering the idea of a purely relational > ontology, one in which all that exists are relationships. There are no > entities with intrinsic properties, but only a web of relational properties. > Entities with intrinsic properties are necessary components of any finite, > bounded theory, and in fact such entities form the boundaries of the theory, > the "approximations" it necessarily invokes in order to draw a line somewhere > in the potentially unbounded phenomenological field. I think Mechanism enforced this, with the benefits that we still have simple primitive entities defining all the relations needed, including the non well founded infinite relation that some entities can have with themselves. The internal phenomenology of very elementary arithmetic is provable unbounded, and it climbs on a transfinite of layers of complexity and unsolvability. It shows that *you* are fundamentally bigger than the observable physical and non physical realities. That corroborates the fact that reductionism provably fails in the mechanist theology. With the classical definition of the greek, starting by identifying rational belief with “provable” is a sound theory containing universal number/machineries, it becomes a theorem in Peano arithmetic (and all consistent extensions in a large sense of the word) that all universal machine have a soul, that the machine knows that, and that they know that their soul is not a machine, nor anything describable in third person manner. > In economic theory for instance, we have “rational, self-interested” agents > invoked as fundamental entities with rationality and self-interest deemed > intrinsic, even though clearly such properties are, in reality, relational > properties that depend on evolutionary and psychological factors, that, when > analysed, reveal the inaccuracies and approximations of that theory. I am > claiming that all properties imagined as intrinsic are approximations of this > sort - ultimately to be revealed as derived from relations either external or > internal to that entity. You are re-inventing first order logic. In first order logic, we have the logical connectives &, V, ->, for all, it exists, and an infinity of functional and relational symbols, for each arity. F_i_j, R_i_j. The constant are given by the F_i_0. I have always written the axiom of RA in this way: For all x 0 ≠ s(x) Etc. But a strict axiomatic would be, where we use the first functional and relation symbols at our disposition: For all x R_0_0(F_0_0, F_0_1(x)) As I said, the names of the object is any symbol we want, so everything is described in a purely relation way. This can be done at a more bract level, and we get to category theory, but with mechanism, this put light only on the first person plural sharable, and get beyond complexity for the non computable part, like the Dominical categories, where the object are the universal machineries, and the morphism are the Truing morphism respecting partial computability. Today’s mathematics is axiomatic and relational, and that is true for computer science, and with mechanism, that is true for the basis of the mind, which facilitates the work of the computer programmers, which can give long name to programs! (Below I saw you know all this!) > > Of course, a purely relational ontology necessarily involves an infinite > regress of relationships, That is mainly why I have made a thread (well 10 threads) on the combinators. All recursion equation have solutions. The first recursion theorem is quais built in there. Then with the phi_i, we can use the second recursion theorem easily to get both that extensional recursion (in part) or an even more interesting intensional recursion, the one I have used in my paper “Amoeba, Planaria, and Dreaming Machine”, and which is implicit in both G and G* (the machine theology). > but it seems to me that we must choose our poison here - the magic of > intrinsic properties, or the infinite regress of only relational ones. In first order logic, there is no intrinsic properties at all. Technically, I could explain why an extremely rich Löbian machine, like ZF, can reintroduce a sort of intrinsicness in their … quantified theology qG*, due to its non countable domain of inquiry. The argument of Quine and Barcus against modal logic applies to the extremely rich Löbian machine. That is why I am not a set theoretical realist, unlike Gödel. > I prefer the latter. Me too. And it is already the way of the logicians today. There is no problem with the infinite regress, because they are soluble in the partial computable environnement, or give name to infinities in the extensional mathematical realm. > (Note that I am using a definition of relational properties that includes > emergent properties as relational, though the traditional philosophical use > of those terms probably would not. The reason is that I am interested in what > is ontologically intrinsic, not semantically intrinsic.) The ontology of Mechanism is few intrinsic that any universal machineries can be used. Two simple axioms are enough. Of course, all the interesting things is what happens in the (unbounded and untheorisable in the limit) phenomenology. Arithmetic defines a consciousness flux, initiated by each universal machine/number, and the first person singular and plural appears at the limit, by the invariance of the first person for the delays in the computation. > > What would such a conception imply in the philosophy of mind? Traditionally, > the “qualiophiles” have defined qualia as intrinsic properties, yet (while I > am no fan of eliminativism) I think Dennett has made a strong case against > this idea. Yes that is a good point. A qualia is first person intrinsic from the first person view, but already extrinsic in any view which can ascribe a mind to another. Intrinsicness, when assumed or added in a theory leads to essentialism, and is bad modal logic. Now, nuance can been made, because word as concrete and intrinsic are not so well easily definable, and in which theory? > Qualia appear to me to be properties of relationships between organisms and > their environments. Their are first person experience above all. Organism and environment refer to all all computational histories and the infinite sum of them, like to get the limit above. With Mechanism, you cannot avoid the arithmetical "Boltzmann brains”, nor the universal dovetailing aka the sigma_1 arithmetical truth. I don’t want to be rude, Pierz, but when you use word like “organism” and “environment” it is unclear if you commit or not an ontological commitment in some physical reality. With Mechanism, we can prove that phenomelonoically sthings are like that: NUMBER => CONSCIOUSNESS => PHYSICAL REALITIES => HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS > They are not fundamental, but then neither is the “stuff” of which organisms > and environments are made. OK, then :) > We simply cannot ask about fundamental properties, but must confine ourselves > to the networks of relationships we find ourselves embedded in, and from > which we, as observer-participants, cannot be extricated. “Third person” > accounts, including physics, are abstractions from aggregations of first > person accounts, and none can rise so high above the field of observation as > to entirely transcend their origins in the first person. We can try and test theories, … before being burned or buried alive of course. > Thus there are certainly objective truths, but not Objective Truths, that is > truths that are entirely unbound to any observer and which nominate the > absolute properties of real objective things. All communicable “truth” are hypothetical. Beyond “my" consciousness "here and now", we have only theories, with meta-degrees of plausibility. The earth is round is much more plausible than the Earth is flat. The theory of gas kinetics is much more plausible than the atoms of cold and heat of Lavoisier, and, I would say, Mechanism is much more plausible than Materialism, which is actually the “Vitalism" of the Aristotelian theologians (the materialist). > > Note that the “relationalism” I am proposing does not in any way imply > *relativism*, which flattens out truth claims at the level of culture. Nor > does it make consciousness “primary”, or mathematics. I cannot personally > reconcile the interior views (qualia, if you like, though I think that terms > places an unwarranted emphasis on “what experiences are like” rather than the > mere fact of experience) with a purely mathematical ontology. Nor can any machine. It is a theorem in their theology. It would be like feeling that []p is the same as []p & p. Only mad machine can reports such experience. That is how mechanism explains consciousness and qualia; they are the immediately knowable things, even indubitable for the Löbian entities, yet non capturable by any representation, or in any third person terms, even non definable, except by referring to the arithmetical truth at the meta-level, assuming mechanism, which are indirect way. > > One obvious objection to this whole idea is the counter-intuitiveness of the > idea of relationships without “things” being related. A model is given by the category theory, where you have only pints and arrows, but replaced the point by a loop or a set of loops, which is a bit ad hoc. For mechanism, all you need is anything in which you can define (mathematically) what is a computer or a universal Turing machine. See the thread on combinators to see how to derive universal machines from just two simple axioms: Kxy = x Sxyz = xz(yz) Is K intrinsic? Certainly not. Does K admits other interpretation than being something named K and doing what it does? Yes, those are provided by the model (in the logician sense) of those axioms, or of It exist k such that kxy = x It exists s such that sxyz = xz(yz) That is called combinatory algebra, and amazingly perhaps, N with the relation* defined by x * y = phi_i(y) is such a combinatory algebra. > Yet I think the fault lies with intuition here. Western thinking is deeply > intellectually addicted to the notion of “things”. David Mermin has > interpreted QM in terms of “correlations only” – correlations without > correlata as he puts it – an application of similar ideas to quantum theory. > Part of the objection I think lies in the semantics of the word > “relationship”, which automatically causes us to imagine two things on either > side of the relation. It would be better to think in terms of a web, then, > than individual, related entities. Or simply say that the related entities > are themselves sets of relationships. Mathematics provides a good example of > such a purely relational domain – a number exists solely by virtue of its > relationships with other numbers. It has no intrinsic properties. Perfect! So, why assume anything intrinsic? The problem of the physicalists (not the physicists) is that they introduce a primary matter which becomes their intrinsic fundamental terms. But that is exactly the mistake Aristotle did, by non understanding Plato. That is basically how Plotinus corrected this mistake, and getting a neopythagorean theology isomorphic to the one of the universal machine. The problem is that we are plausibly wrong in theology, and it is taboo to just reason in this field. Bandits and liars of course prefer obscurantism than light, which would show them. > > Yet what then of the problem of specific values – the instantiation aspect of > materialism? To quote Hedda Mørch: “… physical structure must be realized or > implemented by some stuff or substance that is itself not purely structural. > Otherwise, there would be no clear difference between physical and mere > mathematical structure, or between the concrete universe and a mere > abstraction.” They put their ontology before reflexion. A concrete universe is a number dream seen by the dreamer. But there is no concrete universe, only concrete theories, which eventually are determined by infinitely concrete natural numbers, which can make the looking very complex, needing abstraction to make usable sense. Why to introduce the idea of a primary physical universe in the first place? It is an obvious impediment for metaphysics (as mechanism proves) but also for physics, independently of any metaphysics. > > We can overcome such an objection by invoking the first person perspective. > Mørch credits the specific values of entities in our environment (some > specific electron having this position, that momentum and so on) to some > property of “being instantiated in something intrinsic”, harking back to > Kant’s Ding an Sich. Yet there is an alternative way of viewing the > situation. Let us imagine that each integer was conscious and able to survey > its context in the field of all numbers. Take some number, let us say 7965. > When number 7965 looks around, it sees the number 7964 right behind it, and > the number 7966 right ahead. Trying to understand itself and the nature of > its world, it starts doing arithmetic and finds that everything around it > can be understood purely in terms of relational properties. Yet it says to > itself, how can this be? Like the guy after the annihilation and duplication I Helsinki, and find itself in Washington. Why Washington? And the guy in Moscow can ask “why Moscow?”, but of course, as a mindful computationalist, he expected that. OK. > Why do the numbers around me have the specific values they do? What “breathes > fire” into those arithmetical relations to instantiate the specific world I > see? Yet 7965 is wrong. It is ignoring the significance of the first-person > relation that places it within a specific context that defines both it and > the world it sees. You got the main thing, yes. > > Note that I am not, like Bruno, actually suggesting that numbers are > conscious. The point of the thought experiment is merely to show how specific > values can exist within a first person account, without us needing to invoke > some unknowable thing-in-itself or substrate of intrinsic properties. > > Grateful for any comments/critiques. > Very good :) Now, if you are willing to bet, like Descartes, Darwin, … that biology is explainable mechanically, and even digitally, like the existence of DNA suggests, that is, if you are willing to say “yes” to a doctor, then, your metaphor above came true. It is a theorem of already Peano Arithmetic that computations and all computations exist in a tiny segment of the arithmetical reality. They semantically realised by what the logiciens called the models of arithmetic. It is realised in a tiny segment of the standard model, that is, the least model of RA or PA. Model is used in the logician sense: a mathematical structure, with a notion of satisfaction of arithmetical formula. By incompleteness, no machine at al, if consistent or sound, can even define its model, which plays, for it, the notion of internal god, then external with mechanism. For a computation to exists you need many conditions, explaining the how and the why, and the counterfactuals, of a “concrete” computations. It does not matter if you represent a memory by a physical object, or a number, and the richness of the additive+multiplicative relations entails the existence I-of all concrete computation is that tiny segment of the arithmetical reality. Number do no more think than machine or brains. Only person thinks, and a person is a complex abstract type, of a machine/number interpreted by some universal number. The theory predict that below our substation level, we are confronted to a infinity of universal numbers in “competition” (so to speak), and above that levels we are confronted to finitely many universal numbers (called family, friend, colleagues, but also cells, and many subset of the physical reality). Apology for criticising the paragraphs that you eventually criticised well yourself after! Bruno > -- > 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 [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/868bd041-299a-4618-9586-4b6362755cd7%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/868bd041-299a-4618-9586-4b6362755cd7%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9B75B841-FAA3-479B-8AC8-22A3D49C896B%40ulb.ac.be.
