Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

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Atla
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Atla »

Steve3007 wrote: July 9th, 2020, 1:00 pm I'm not sure I agree in the case of the real universe
Yeah I actually find the standard idea that our universe is expanding to be.. unlikely to be correct. It's probably a supernatural idea but who knows, maybe the universe really behaves in an insane way and expands.

I treat expansion as illusory, again, things probably exist in relation to each other within the universe, and maybe as disorder goes up around here, we percieve space to expand around here. But But that's just a guess, I haven't been able to figure out yet what an illusion of expansion could be linked to.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: July 9th, 2020, 1:00 pm
Atla wrote:nor that a universe can actually grow (as I think that change is a supernatural idea)
I've only got time to look at this one part for now. I can see why you would think that the idea that a universe can grow would be "supernatural". I'm not sure I agree in the case of the real universe, but I agree with respect to TS's single homogeneous particle universe. That's one of my objections to the coherence of that thought experiment.
Ghosts, vampires, etc. are supernatural by most accounts. That doesn't at all stop us from doing thought experiments based on ghosts or vampires.
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The Beast
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by The Beast »

I do like experiments. I might participate if I get to be a werewolf looking at the moon. The orange is whole and there is no magic arrow. Behold, there comes a strange howling: Ghosts are immaterial, and Vampires do not exist. It is absurd to talk about an orange without a proposal.
Atla
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Atla »

Steve3007 wrote: July 9th, 2020, 11:12 am
Atla wrote:Ontological truth: the universe has no parts.
(truth = as far as we can tell right now etc. etc.)

But it's pretty much impossible to do any study in any field without dividing the universe into parts.
OK. So you're talking about the epistemological necessity for reductionism.
No not really, by the way. I was talking about the forgotten step before that.
First we divide the universe into made-up parts that stand on their own (something that may not be doable without information loss). Then comes reductionism, we can reduce these made-up parts, these systems to their constituents (smaller made-up parts of the universe, maybe resulting in even more information loss).
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Steve3007
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Steve3007 »

Atla wrote:No not really, by the way. I was talking about the forgotten step before that.
First we divide the universe into made-up parts that stand on their own (something that may not be doable without information loss). Then comes reductionism, we can reduce these made-up parts, these systems to their constituents (smaller made-up parts of the universe, maybe resulting in even more information loss).
OK. But that is my understanding of Reductionism. It is the process of attempting to create descriptive and predictive theories about a complex system by considering parts of that system either in isolation from each other or with well defined, simplified interfaces to each other. I think it's what happens whenever we make a conceptual model of the world.

So your view seems to be that ontologically the universe has no parts because the distinctions which define the parts are things that we overlay on the universe in order to try to understand it. i.e. The distinctions are part of the map and not the territory. To be honest, I don't really have a strong view on that view. I neither agree with it nor disagree with it because it doesn't look like a factual claim so much as a way of viewing the world. A holistic way I suppose. I prefer to just remember that models are models.
Atla
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Atla »

Steve3007 wrote: July 15th, 2020, 2:30 am
Atla wrote:No not really, by the way. I was talking about the forgotten step before that.
First we divide the universe into made-up parts that stand on their own (something that may not be doable without information loss). Then comes reductionism, we can reduce these made-up parts, these systems to their constituents (smaller made-up parts of the universe, maybe resulting in even more information loss).
OK. But that is my understanding of Reductionism. It is the process of attempting to create descriptive and predictive theories about a complex system by considering parts of that system either in isolation from each other or with well defined, simplified interfaces to each other. I think it's what happens whenever we make a conceptual model of the world.

So your view seems to be that ontologically the universe has no parts because the distinctions which define the parts are things that we overlay on the universe in order to try to understand it. i.e. The distinctions are part of the map and not the territory. To be honest, I don't really have a strong view on that view. I neither agree with it nor disagree with it because it doesn't look like a factual claim so much as a way of viewing the world. A holistic way I suppose. I prefer to just remember that models are models.
Ehh of course it's a fact, not some arbitrary way of viewing the world. Anyway I wasn't trying to start a conversation.
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Steve3007
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Steve3007 »

Atla wrote:Anyway I wasn't trying to start a conversation.
OK
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The Beast
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by The Beast »

The terminology is equivalent. Predication can have functionality. In treating numbers as objects one can deny or assert the premise. In the case of 1+1 = 2 the predication matters to deny or assert the proposition.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by Sculptor1 »

The Beast wrote: July 20th, 2020, 1:28 pm The terminology is equivalent. Predication can have functionality. In treating numbers as objects one can deny or assert the premise. In the case of 1+1 = 2 the predication matters to deny or assert the proposition.
Numbers are not relevant to this thread since they are wholly ideal.
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The Beast
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Re: Can Physicalism be defined non-instrumentally?

Post by The Beast »

The suggestion is from Boole’s identity of numbers as objects.
Ψ, Φ, ξ are parametric letters use by Frege.
According to Frege senses are mind and language independent of which a mind can be directly aware. The division of ideas is one of subjective and psychological and one objective and psychological (senses)
So… the denial expression in your post is a subjective/psychological idea with undefined true value. It is not mind independent.
By the way. Metalanguages do intrinsic programming. The most advanced languages have reflection and are models of higher order logic, so their self-programming is particularly good.
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