On Thursday, June 20, 2019 at 2:02:37 PM UTC+2, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 20 Jun 2019, at 06:36, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < > [email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > > > > On 6/19/2019 5:41 PM, Pierz wrote: > > Of course, a purely relational ontology necessarily involves an infinite >> regress of relationships, 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. >> >> >> I am not sure that a relational ontology must suffer from infinite >> regress, it can instead be self-referential. The ontology of "strange >> loops", as proposed by Hofstadter. >> > > Gotta read Hofstadter some day. I have thought of the possibility of > circular set of relationships, but then the circular system itself would be > a brute fact. Infinite regress is not necessarily something "suffered", > unless what we are hoping for is some intrinsic property, some solid ground > somewhere. > > > But if you stop worrying about what exists (where "exists" is theory > dependent anyway) and think or relationships not a things but as > explanations, then you can have a *virtuous* circle of explanation, i.e. > one that encompasses everything. To explain/understand something you start > from something you already understand and work your way around. > Empirically, that's pretty much how we learn things...you always have to > start from things you understand. > > > Absolutely, but that is the reason to not start from a circular > explanation, but from a simple non circular like one, which, if Turing > universal, will account for all circular processes. Then, this attribute > mind to machines, and kill all reductionist conception that we can have on > machines, and thus on humans too! > > You pretend that this immunizes people from evil or that such approaches were inherently more truthful, more correct for purely aesthetic ("simple") reasons. It's ambitious: you don't offer what may appeal to other folks and their sensibilities, you clothe it as "the real reason to not start circular". You confuse logic, personal truths/opinions, and taste a lot for somebody who claims to have nailed qualia and sensation. This resembles the confusion of fanatics. PGC
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