> On 20 Jul 2019, at 22:32, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On 7/20/2019 3:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >>> On 19 Jul 2019, at 22:48, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List >>> <[email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On 7/19/2019 12:33 AM, Philip Thrift wrote: >>>> "I’m happy to be described as a monist. There aren’t multiple different >>>> kinds of things; there is only the wave function of the universe. As an >>>> emergent approximation it’s useful to characterize the wave function as >>>> describing multiple worlds." >>>> >>>> So for Sean Carroll, reality is a mathematical entity: a wave function. >>>> At least Thales believed in stuff (matter). >>> >>> "Stuff" is sufficiently vague that the wave-function could qualify as >>> "stuff". The contentious question seems to be where conscious thoughts >>> fall in the ontology. Are they processes realized by stuff (Vic), or do >>> they exist in a separate Platonic real(Bruno), >> >> Elementary arithmetic is that realm, and I ask you: how it could be >> separated, and mostly: from what? > > From others metaphysical ontologies: materialism, idealism, theism,…
OK. So the point here is that when we assume Mechanism, those other realm can no more be used. It will like adding something in the ontology, which becomes incapable of linking our experience with it. It is like adding an ontology to claim that the theory is incomplete because it fails to explain that ontology (in the case where we got a phenomenological explanation, like with Mechanism). > >> From your irreducible material universe in which you seem to believe? > > Where did I say "irreducible"? I'm not in the belief business. I'm in the > finding out business. A scientist can only propose a theory, and means of verification, and a finite number of evidences for it. Someone doubting the interest of the theory must either refute it, or find something simpler, or something with wider range of explanations. I think we agree on all this. > >> >> Why invoke such a thing. > > I didn't invoke anything. I just attempted to clarify the different theories > at play. > >> It is not used in physics. It is used in physicalism, which until now just >> put the mind-body problem under the rug. With mechanism, we have a “simple” >> explanation of consciousness, and a “simple” explanation of where the >> observable comes from, and we can test it. >> >> Your use of metaphysics is like the pseudo-religious one. You claim that >> your god (Matter) is enough to not do the experimental testing. > > And you sound like a theist seeking out heretics. Maybe I was wrong, but it seems that sometimes you assume more than elementary arithmetic in your argument. I might have been wrong and confuse with the post of someone else, in which case I apologise. (I fail to see your point, as it looked critical with respect of what I am trying to convey). I might have made a general remark on the materialists, who very often take the ontological universe for granted, or talk like some “science” would have decided between Plato’s conception of reality-and-reserach and Aristotle’s materialist theology (Aristotle makes utterly clear that it assumes a primitive physical universe, in its Metaphysics Treatises, notably when mocking Plato for its alleged duplication of "the real object in nature” and they immaterial universal (mathematical) shape or number. There are no heretics. There are people who reason validly and people who reason non validly (in diverse, possibly large, domain of investigation). My point is just that when we assume a very weak form of digital mechanism (the one already used by Darwin), then the metaphysical assumption of weak Materialism (the ontological existence of a matter irreducible to anything else), or physicalism (the doctrine according to which the fundamental metaphysical-ontological science is physics) are no more defensible. The physical laws have a reason, an origin, an explanation. And the Löbian machine finds it “in its head”, and find the means and the needs to distinguish the justifiable parts, from the non justifiable parts, and the many hybrids. The “real bomb” is Gödel-Post-Turing-Kleene-Church discovery of the universal machineries and the universal machines. The rest is mathematical logic, or, just by adding YD to make things more vivid, mathematical theology. The only act of faith, and link with consciousness, is in the "Yes Doctor" act of faith. No machine can provably find its own code, and if the doctor claims to know which machine you are, you know that it is a con-artist. Bruno > > Brent > > -- > 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/0b2a40aa-dbb8-3fad-6108-79fb17aed475%40verizon.net > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/0b2a40aa-dbb8-3fad-6108-79fb17aed475%40verizon.net?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/92E5DADC-DF3B-45B2-8ACC-D32DA8358207%40ulb.ac.be.
