Discussion between jobermark and Ron Maimon

2:27 PM

1

There are no modern philosophers who continue the tradition of the Vienna circle. But you're in luck, nearly all physicists continue it, even if they never heard of the Vienna circle. The philosophy started in physics, with Mach and Carnap (who was trained in physics), and it cannot die in physic...

Ron Maimon

@labreuer: There are exactly as many exempt statements as are used to define what words mean. The verification principle is a definition of meaning, and as a definition it is exempt. Other definitions are also exempt, they are axioms that define terms precisely. It is never a problem in positivism, and it is only someone who doesn't understand the philosophy at all that can consider this a criticism (really). The idea that "verification can't be verified" is obvious to any positivist, it's not worrying, anymore than saying a "froobah" is a horse with three legs. Why? I just defined it!

I answered there, it's nothing to do with Godel. The objections are also kind of silly, the method to state positivism is as an equivalence relation between computational models of knowledge--- two systems that predict the same sense experience are equivalent. This doesn't require you to separate sense-experience and non-sense-experience, just to be able to tell when a prediction for sense-experience matches sense-experience, something you can program a computer with a camera and a microphone to do.

Look, I gave you a definition, it is equivalent to Carnap's, it resolves the stupid objections to the idea, and it works for physics. There is no other competing idea out there, and if there were it would have to be positivistically equivalent. The way I know that the things I have assigned to the "meaningless" bin are meaningless is because that's what they are, by definition. It's a very important definition that is only established by looking at the physics examples I gave (although Mach predates them). Regarding "completeness", this is a formal property which is not relevant.

It's a basic belief, and there is no different definition of "meaningful". If you think there is, give it. Besides, it's not mine, it's Mach's, and it was shared by all the positivists.

@labreuer: The question of "what is meaningful" is solved in positivism, and it is not dependent on the person, and arrogant or not arrogant, Mach got it right. There is no competing definition, and it is essential for getting on in physics, where the question "what is meaningful" comes up all the time, especially since General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

@PaulRoss: Absolute truth in mathematics is the output of computer programs. You can verify these. The formal content of mathematics includes more, it includes conceptions of geometry and continua, and proofs that certain programs do not halt. The statement of the positivist program in mathematics would be to prove higher systems are consistent using no metaphysics, only computable ordinals, the ordinals described by Kleene's O (ordinal proof theory). The rest of mathematics is chosen for convenience of expression, and questions like the continuum hypothesis are non-questions a-la Carnap.

jobermark

There have been at many points as many Catholics who ignored philosophy until it could get on board. Where did that get us? This is just asserting your right to ignorance. Feel free, but don't pretend you care.

Ron Maimon

@jobermark: I agree with the Catholics in that dispute. Also, you're right, I genuinely DON'T care about philosophy: since the demise of positivism, it has been a completely worthless and fraudulent acedemic discipline, where people smoke marijuana and make friends with powerful people instead of actually contributing new knowledge. But I also am not pretending to care, I am just answering the question asked.

jobermark

By being present here, you are pretending to care. Respect the goal of the instiutions in which you take part, or leave them alone.

Ron Maimon

@jobermark: I should rephrase--- I care to destroy the fraud, but not to read or study it. There is no point in reading fraud, your only duty is to expose it. Then it's up to others to get on board.

jobermark

2:27 PM

@RonMaimon unfortunately, you would need to prove there is a fraud, not that physicists would like to imagine there is one. Language and reality do not fit together as you pretend, and philosophers have basically proven that. Wish away Russel, pretend all of the demonstrations psychology makes that you see what you want whether it is there or not. Imagine we should have a world where the Catholics own science so that Galieo can be locked up, and we also owe you a reductivist playground.... Or make sense.... your choice.

Ron Maimon

@jobermark: I don't understand what you are saying, and I don't want anyone locked up. I am just exposing a problem: Carnap used a philosophy developed in physics to sort out nearly all the ancient problems of philosophy clearly and correctly. After a short period of acceptance, his ideas were buried, and his movement disappeared completely. There was nothing objectively wrong with the ideas, they were buried for purely political reasons, partly because the philosphers didn't understand them very well, and thought they saw contradictions, but mostly because they wanted their old problems back.

@jobermark: I understand your comment now. Russell was a proto-positivist, there is nothing wrong with him at all, he is an honest person who was buried alongside Carnap, less successfully. The statement you made about Catholics was about philosophy, not science. The Catholics were lousy to scientists, but they were good to philosophers--- they required that philosophy hew to monotheistic ethics, so that the ethical systems that justified slavery could be permanently buried. When they lost ground, Nietzsche started justifying slavery again, and Heidegger joined a slave-driving genocidal order.

jobermark

Letting scientists, or the church or any other group not concerned with actual philosophy guide philosophy is aggressive overbearing elitist nonsense. You said outright that you "agree with the Catholics in that dispute" that means Galileo goes to jail. That is one instance of 'that dispute'. If you don't know what you mean, don't say it. This kind of outsider poking in and declaring all the residents idiots is too common here, restrain yourself and rely on arguments and proof, or go away.

Ron Maimon

@jobermark: I agree with the Catholics in (most of) their disputes over philosophy, not in their disputes over science. I don't want anyone to "guide" philosophy, I am not trying to "guide" anything--- I don't have or seek power. I am just explaining stuff, it's up to others to agree.

jobermark

Science was philosophy at that time.

Ron Maimon

@jobermark: No it wasn't. It just didn't have a name yet.

jobermark

2:27 PM

And when they disagree for you to browbeat them, because you are certain you are right, and have no intention of listening.

That is sophistry. It was what people called it.

Ron Maimon

@jobermark: I have no power, no authority, so I can "browbeat" as much as I like, nobody has to listen to me, so it's not browbeating. The sophistry is ignoring the argument just because you don't like the tone. Just because people called science "natural philosophy" does not make it a branch of philosophy--- it operated by different rules of discourse right from the start, and it had objective experiments to sort out arguments, right from wrong. The philosophers didn't have an objective criterion for logic until Russell introduced formal logic and Carnap introduced Mach positivism.

jobermark

Have you read about Kuhn or Feyerabend? I have read both Carnap and those, and they make more sense. Carnap was good at ignoring important details and making things seem resolved. Folks got on to the game and started ignoring him. The reason he cannot succeed is that theories combine the meanings of terms and the assertions about their effects in an irreducible package, the terms lose their meaning unless the theory is correct, but people pretend they are still clear.

Science is a branch of philosophy. The idea of physics as a collection of laws was a philosophical discovery. The word physics with its current meaning was invented to name a book of Aristotle's.

Your biases blind you so thoroghly that you feel you need not even make arguments. You are declaring sciece to have existed before it had a name, but did you give proof. My counterassertions have proof. Get on board, and stop assuming you have the right to be respected without making cogent arguments, or go somewhere where the entire topic is not about cogent argumetns.

So Frege, Boole, Alonzo Church, DeMorgan... and all logicians before Russel make no sense whatsoever to you. The world sprang forth two centuries ago uncaused?

Russel's is not an objective criterion for logic. Godel proves he failed to provide such, that there must be logical statements without formal proofs. And modern math has futher produced instance where what you choose to consider obvious (e.g. the Axiom of Choice) is unprovable or makes other things that seem reasonable (e.g. the Axiom of Determinacy) unprovable

Ron Maimon

ok, can chat now.

The physics of Aristotle was indeed not science. It was a bunch of hooey.

jobermark

What do you consider the logical content of your argument beyond mere social pressure? Why should we bow down to pysicists who choose to ignore philosophy? Do we need their approval? We would rather have meaningful proofs.

I did not say it was. Read what I wrote.

Ron Maimon

I gave a meaningful proof, and I can't apply social pressure.

I am not in a position to do so.

jobermark

2:38 PM

What was the proof

Ron Maimon

This is why I can use forceful language without any implied threat.

jobermark

You are saying 'physicist don't like you" which is a childish form of social pressure.

Ron Maimon

So please don't get offended, it's just the quickest way to express yourself without confusions in a medium where you can't see a person, nor hear changes in tone.

jobermark

Your entire answer is in the form "You offend this group"

Ron Maimon

No, it's not about "like", it's about power. If I don't have power, I can't force you to listen, or browbeat you, there's no implied threat in saying "this idea is rubbish". All it means is "I think this idea is rubbish"

Oh, it's not that.

The answer, if you read it carefully, is that "physicists continue logical positivism", and the resolution of the paradoxes are found in that field.

The precise resolutions to the specific problems of Quine I gave in another answer on this site.

jobermark

2:40 PM

But the resolution of Russel's paradox, for instance is not found in that field.

Ron Maimon

I'll explain it here, but give me a seccond.

Huh?

jobermark

Ignoring facts is not explaining them'

Ron Maimon

Russell's paradox is resolved by modern logic and axiomatic set theory.

It's not a paradox anymore.

It's precise form is Godel's theorem now.

jobermark

The paradox remains unresolved. It can be evaded by conventions

Ron Maimon

What are you talking about? It's not a paradox in modern set theory.

jobermark

2:41 PM

Those conventions are not a solution

Ron Maimon

Do you mean "The set of all sets that don't contain themselves?"

That one?

jobermark

Yes.

Ron Maimon

The "set of all sets" is the ill defined notion. It's not allowed. This was known already to Cantor.

Russell was pointing out that this presented a problem with formalisation.

He solved it with the theory of types in Principia Mathematica.

jobermark

We talk now about categories of groups, and applications of monad theory to categories, which indicates we are still using collections that are not sets in the sense of formal set theory all the time

Ron Maimon

Sure, but you can define these things as computational objects.

jobermark

2:42 PM

"Not allowed" is not an answer, it is an evasion for personal psychological comfot

You can imagine doing so, the paradox just moves elsewhere every time someone does

Ron Maimon

"Not allowed" is a syntactical notion. It's like saying that a "green, heavy, purple table" is not a paradox, it's not allowed as a well formed sentence.

There is no paradox anymore, you can assert it's there, but it's not.

jobermark

You want to reduce philosophy to physics by mandating that things that are true be ignored

Ron Maimon

By that I mean we have a computer program that can list deductions in axiomatic set theory without any contradiction.

The paradoxical notion is just using a term that is not well-defined.

jobermark

That is not what we mean, though.

Ron Maimon

That's what I mean.

I don't know what you mean.

If you mean there is such a thing as "the set of all sets", that's weird.

jobermark

2:44 PM

You can mandate that that is what everyone means. But that is just evasion.

Ron Maimon

I am not mandating, I am just describing the ideas.

I have no power to mandate anything.

Do you think the concept "the set of all sets" is a sensible notion to speak about?

If you do, what is the set of all subsets of the set of all sets?

This set is a higher cardinality, but it can't be, because it's a set. This is Cantor's paradox.

jobermark

If I could resolve the paradox it would not be a paradox

Ron Maimon

But Russell resolved the paradox in the 1920s.

With the formulation of mathematical logic, and the theory of types.

jobermark

No, he did not . He invented a way of avoiding it

I prefer Intuitionism as a soluion.

Russel prefers types. Quine prefers layering of self-references.

Ron Maimon

What do you mean? This is nonsense--- he resolved it! It's not "avoided". Intuitionism is a solution to a different problem, the problem that there are theorems you can prove where you can't compute the object you prove to exist.

jobermark

2:48 PM

No intiuitionism is a different way of looking at negation.

Ron Maimon

I don't know Quine, but he can't possibly be doing something mathematically rigorous.

jobermark

Which was initially proposed to resolve Russel's paradox

Quine gives a set theory that involves the opposite of Zorn's Lemma as an axiom

It works.

Ron Maimon

I KNOW it's a different way of looking at negation, but the REASON you look at negation differently is because you want to make sure that when you prove "There exists x such that P(x)" you can CONSTRUCT x so that P(x). That's what the main theorem of intuitionist logic is.

I have a hard time discussing with you, because I don't think you know anything about mathematical logic (not an insult).

jobermark

That is why you might now. But it is not Brower's notion. Constructivism is not Intuitionism

I have a Master's with concentration in Symbolic Logic

Ron Maimon

I DON'T CARE what Brouwer said. I understand the theorems. This is not about opinions.

jobermark

2:50 PM

The ideas don't matter, as long as you have been handed the solutions. How open-minded of you.

Options not opinions.

Ron Maimon

Look, do you understand that when you have an intuitionisitic proof in Heyting Arithmetic (Peano Axioms + Intuitionistic logic) that "there exists x such that P(x)" you also have a construction of x such that P(x)?

jobermark

You assue the community chose the right option. And you are happy with that,

Ron Maimon

By "opinions" I meant informal blah-blah-blah.

NO!

I am totally unhappy with the choice of mathematicians.

For reasons similar to Brouwer.

jobermark

You are using ther position to tell me i am saying nothing. Either accept or reject, don't play games with me.

Ron Maimon

I am saying you are misunderstanding the motivations.

jobermark

2:52 PM

but you don't care about Brower's stated motivations

So how can I, who have read him, misunderstand them less than you, who have declared them irrelevant before the fact.

Ron Maimon

I don't care to discuss your interpretation of Brouwer's stated motivations, because I read Brouwer too, and what you are saying is not what Brouwer was saying, but a misinterpretation based on the drift of meanings of words with time.

jobermark

The difference between our grasp on Logic is that mine is from 30 years ago

Ron Maimon

It makes no difference, nothing much changed.

Logic has been stagnant since the late 80s.

jobermark

So closer to the fact, the meanings were wrong, and they have gotten righer?

Your bias is so strong that all I can do is keep saying the same crap over and over in different ways while you don't accept it has any meaning,

Ron Maimon

It's not that, it's that when people worried about things, they were worried about the same things we worry about, they just expressed themselves differently back then. Brouwer said he was after "intuition", so that you construct mathematical objects as objects of direct intuition.

jobermark

2:55 PM

Defend Carnap against Kuhn.

Ron Maimon

What he MEANT (as is clear today, but only because we have terms for these concepts, he didn't) is that the integers are a COMPUTATIONAL MODEL, with numerals, and when you prove "There exists x such that P(x)" you need to have a computation to produce the numerals of x from the numerals of all the variables appearing in P.

He couldn't say that, because the notion of computation wasn't formulated. So instead, he says "The integers are a set given to us by intuition in one fell swoop", and "The theorems have to refer to the constructions in our intuition".

jobermark

Brower thought other things, like abstract notions of convergence that can be modeledin the form of streams of digits that are not computable were intuitive,

The words drift, and lose their meaning as the theory changes. So a fixed logic with acrtual meaning is so context-dependent as to be useless,

Ron Maimon

He didn't have a formalization of the intuition, because he didn't know how to say 'computational model', because the concept of computer hadn't been formulated.

jobermark

So Constructivism and Intuitionism are not the sme.

Your formalism changes the meaning of what was said into something that was not meant.

Ron Maimon

I didn't say they were exactly the same, but intuitionism is the main tool for implementing a program where everything that can be proved to exist can also be computed.

That didn't happen by accident, it was the design of the system.

Brouwer's conception of real numbers is not so clear.

He considered his own fixed point theorem NOT intuitive, even though there is a simple stream-of-digit computation which is not always computable to find his fixed point. The reason is possibly that he didn't see the computational formulation, but I am more inclined to believe because of the fact that to compute the fixed point, you need to decide a whole bunch of possibly undecidable questions about these digit sequences.

His philosophy of the reals is basically superseded by the invention of the computer. The intuitionist school in the 1960s and 1970s defined real functions as "computable real functions", so that you can compute the output to finite number of places from the input to a finite number of places. Then they proved "all functions are continuous" (meaning all computable functions), and mathematicians lost interest.

But this is not really a stumbling block.

Look, I went through this headache when I was younger, because I was uncomfortable with axiomatized mathematics, because it proved theorems that were obviously false to my own intuition: namely that the reals could be well ordered. I could just "sense" that the reals could not be well ordered, but I couldn't give a good argument until many years later.

jobermark

3:03 PM

And I did not intend for this to move entirely onto Logic, but it is a place I am comfortable.

Back to Carnap vs Kuhn and Feyerabend, or even Desassure or Lacan. Basically, anyone who cares about intention and meaning over convention.

You are writing off a big set of powerful thinkers by demanding that meaning be far more specific than it can logically be even in mathematics.

And you are not addressing them, you are writing them off with a stated bias. Why should we listen?

Just because you insist on talking a lot?

Take the opposition seriously, or just retreat into your own little world and leave us alone.

I do not feel like I am being taken seriously here, and neither to any of your other interlocutors.

I agree with the notion of Intuitionism, I do not accept Constructivism as a proper model of Intuitionism because I do think these are mental and not computational models.

Ron Maimon

I am not taking the opposition seriously because I understand Carnap's philosophy. I should say I never really read Carnap in depth, I just developed the philosophy myself, and noticed that it matches Carnap. it didn't take long, and I understand it my own way, and some things Carnap says are too formal and wrong (only a few).

jobermark

But you just cant believe such a position exists. Not that you argue against it, you just dismiss it as untenable without consideration.

Ron Maimon

I don't dismiss it as "untenable".

jobermark

You tell me that I have to mean what you mean because that is what it means,

Ron Maimon

I dismiss it as "meaningless" or "imprecisely stated", and I am saying that the distinction vanishes when you state it precisely. The distinction between "mental" and "computational" models is not a clear distinction, you need to give a definition for how to distinguish mental from computational models.

jobermark

3:09 PM

You assume they are the same, based upon an unproved thesis.

Ron Maimon

This is what Carnap was after--- a precise way of speaking, so that you don't waste time on meaningless pseudo-distinction, like if I use the word 'computational' and you use the word 'mental', and they mean exactly the same thing, but we argue for years without getting anywhere.

It's not an unproven thesis, you just don't like the proof.

jobermark

What is the proof?

Ron Maimon

Ok, first the axiom?

jobermark

Turing's Thesis is an axiom of computer science, not a proven statement.

Ron Maimon

I meant the axiomatic framework for logical positivism. This is the following: two sets of ideas that produce identical sense impressions are to be identified as being "the same ideas".

jobermark

3:11 PM

So does Church before him.

Ron Maimon

The Turing ideas are a particular application of this idea.

jobermark

He proposes a model of computation and says 'see that is what thinking is like'

Ron Maimon

Yes, but you need to go look at the positivism first.

jobermark

Address someone other than Carnap. Admit anyone else could possibly be right but yourself.

Ron Maimon

The axiom of logical positivism is this: if you have idea X and idea Y, and the two ideas are the same regarding all sense impressions, then they are the same idea.

It has nothing to do with individual people.

It's not about people, the ideas are on their own.

jobermark

3:12 PM

Nothing is ever blue, then.

Ron Maimon

Huh?

I didn't get it.

jobermark

Because we know that any given wavelenght does not consistently produce the same sense impressions.

Ron Maimon

Something is blue because when you look at it, it is blue.

I didn't say anything about wavelengths of light. That's not a sense impression.

Sense impressions are the primitive sense data coming in to your mind. Like "I see a blue splotch". It has nothing to do with the concept of the wavelength of light.

jobermark

Your definition of sense impression is weaker than my distinction between thought and computation.

Ron Maimon

That's right!

It's a very weak definition to start.

It gets stronger when you make it more precise.

First, you should understand the primitive idea, due to Mach.

jobermark

3:14 PM

So you reject my stronger position from a weaker one, and I am supposed to just go along...

Ron Maimon

Oh, please, just bear with me, I'll explain it.

jobermark

I understand. I have read the lot. I disagree it has meaning, It requires too much convention.

Ron Maimon

The point is not that you are "deriving" stronger propositions, but you are starting with a vague idea, and making it gradually more precise.

It's not enough to read them, you need to understand them deeply.

I can explain it in 2 minutes.

jobermark

And you have to understand those you argue against equally deeply or there is no reason to waste time on you.

Not if I get to be as obstructionist as you have been so far in this argument.

Ron Maimon

You don't have to understand anything else, because once you become precise, it is trivial to understand all the others.

jobermark

3:16 PM

That is asinine

Ron Maimon

It may be asinine, but it's true.

jobermark

Yogis say the same thing. Everyone who does is biased.

Ron Maimon

Ok, whatever. I'll explain it, and you'll see.

jobermark

And that position just means you will never listen.

No. You no listen, me no listen.

Ron Maimon

I understand it--- why do I need to listen.

What do you want to say?

I'm listening.

Have I been ignoring you this whole conversation?

jobermark

3:18 PM

I have asked you to consider a broad range of othe positions, and your answer is just NO

Ron Maimon

What do you mean "consider"?

jobermark

What do you mean "sense impressions"?

Ron Maimon

RIght.

jobermark

Some things just have to be taken to have meaning,

I mean consider

Ron Maimon

That's tough, because it's a primitive concept in Mach's philosophy.

I can give a better definition, more precise, but you need to understand the intuitive ideas to understand the precise formulation.

jobermark

3:19 PM

I mean compare them to your position and see why they are wrong, not just assume they are wrong and insist I am the one not listening

Ron Maimon

I do compare them, and it's not that they are wrong, it's that they are imprecise.

jobermark

The notion of comparing sense impressions fails because meaning is theoretically embedded.

Ron Maimon

What does that mean?

jobermark

Your senses are not the same as they would naturally be, because you are raised in a given way,

Ron Maimon

So what?

I don't understand why that is a problem.

jobermark

3:20 PM

Theory is convention and blinds you to other alternatives,

So if you hold to a convention, you lose a lot of other peoples' meaning.

Ron Maimon

There aren't any other alternatives, just feelings of other alternatives.

jobermark

And you stay wrong about everything you see.

That is unproven. I have cited numerous other alternatives from Kuhn to Wittgenstein, who study how these positions change across time.

Ron Maimon

I understand what vague things other people mean when they speak, more or less, it is just that they are talking imprecisely, and there's no reason. You can talk precisely too, if you try to distill the process of meaning to it's operational forms.

jobermark

If the theory changes, and therefore the meaning changes, it was not right to begin with.

Ron Maimon

These are not alternatives, these are simply people making words that give the feeling of alternatives.

jobermark

3:22 PM

That is a spooky evasion based upon a closed mind

Ron Maimon

The "meaning" is not a primitive concept, I don't know what "meaning" means.

jobermark

Yogis again, say the same thing.

And thay are no more wrong than you are.

Ron Maimon

Closed or open is completely unimportant. And I have nothing against Yogis.

Why do you keep making Yogis sound bad?

jobermark

My train is pulling it, I have to go.

Because their position is far, far fom Carnaps

Ron Maimon

You haven't even listened to one nontrivial idea!

Yogi's positions can be made consistent with positivism.

You just have to learn how to do it.

jobermark

3:24 PM

That is a religion, not a philosophy.

Ron Maimon

A positivist in a Yoga class just reinterprets the Yogi's thoughts in a positivist framework (from experience).

jobermark

Philosophy convinces based on logic

Ron Maimon

What is a religion?

I haven't SAID ANYTHING YET!

You keep interrupting with rhetorical points.

jobermark

Positivism, and physicalism in general

Ron Maimon

It takes a few pages to describe the idea.

Positivism is not physicalism exactly.

It's about sense impressions, about computations.

Not about matter.

jobermark

3:25 PM

You have said I must accept something about sense impressions. The term is meaningless, I have given a reason,

Ron Maimon

What was that reason? I didn't see one.

jobermark

You have just said -- oh, ignore that reaon

Ron Maimon

What reason?

jobermark

Sense impressions are shaped by convention and theory.

Ron Maimon

Oh, you mean "Sense impressions change due to environment"

jobermark

3:26 PM

They are different all the time

They are not consistent as a basis for anything

Ron Maimon

That's not important. I am talking about THOSE THINGS, the ones that are shaped by environment.

I am not talking about idealized sense impressions. I am talking about your ACTUAL sense impressions.

The reason they are primitive is because they are the only inputs you ever get from the outside.

jobermark

But our actual sense impressions vary between individuals

Ron Maimon

Yes, ok.

That's also not important.

jobermark

And that is where the theory gets in,

Ron Maimon

I am talking about all those variated sense impressions.

That's not theory!

I am telling you to consider the variety of sense impressions of yourself, or someone else.

jobermark

3:27 PM

Which conflict. So all facts conflict.

Ron Maimon

I HAVEN'T SAID ANYTHING YET!

All I said was "consider your sense impressions".

And I didn't say anything further.

jobermark

Do you have to define "consider" as you made me?

Ron Maimon

I am saying "think about sense impressions"--- nothing is well defined yet.

jobermark

I have read Carnap. I do not need a lesson in your failed philosophy

Goodbye

Ron Maimon

I am giving you an intuitive picture first.

The precision comes later.

I'll explain it completely here, I didn't read Carnap by the way, I just made it up when I was a little kid.

jobermark

3:34 PM

And you have said tons. You have told me that the whole of phlosophy since the 1930s is nonsense. That is pretty much.

Your personal psuychology is not philosophy. Trying to align it with everyone else is the philosophy. That involves hearing those contrasting views. Anything else is a religion, not a philosophy.

You have not taken seriously anything I am saying, why should i go step by step through exactly what you have decided I should know?

So, accept how hostile you are being. Given that, I will put up with this inane nonsense, but not passively accept everything you declare not to matter does in fact not matter.

You fail to believe you can be offensive and arrogant without having power. That implies respect has no value. If respect has no value, then I do not have to listen. You ask me not to get angry, but you go all ALL CAPS on me? Get over yourself.

Ron Maimon

I am saying that it becomes imprecise when you know positivism.

jobermark

You insist that every alternative be precise, but I am to accept your imprecision. Get the insult.

Ron Maimon

I may offend you, but that's you getting offended without me having any power over you. So it's really your thing, in your own head.

I will GET precise.

jobermark

OK, so I can consider my sense impressions.

Ron Maimon

I am starting out imprecise.

jobermark

3:40 PM

But no argumet against you is allowed to start out imprecise.

Ron Maimon

The idea is that this is the only input to your mind (imprecise), so that your mind can only decide between alternative formalisms if they differ on sense impressions.

jobermark

Or you will not listen. As demonstrated by your dismissal of all attempts to address you as 'imprecise'

Ron Maimon

Arguments against me are allowed to start off imprecise.

I AM LISTENING. I just happen to be typing as you respond.

jobermark

Formalisms are stupic

Ron Maimon

Because you keep interrupting, I can't compose anything longer than one sentence of two.

jobermark

3:41 PM

Hmmm, famiilisr

Ron Maimon

I will be quiet if you have something long to say.

jobermark

Did it. Didn't happen that way.

Ron Maimon

The point is that the arguments against positivism start off imprecise, and stay imprecise (use underline instead of caps, it's just to indicate emphasis).

I don't mean to shout.

jobermark

OK, I consider formalisms stupid. They capture knowledge for communication, but they are always wrong

Ron Maimon

How do you know that?

jobermark

3:43 PM

So why would I bother to concentrate on formalisms

Ron Maimon

Because maybe they aren't always wrong.

jobermark

Experience with language indicates that meaning is not captured properly by grammar

It can get close, but i have never seen it succeed, even when the language is the joint work of thousands over generation.

Experience with language indicates that meaning is not captured properly by grammar

Ron Maimon

Right. That's a propertly of grammar.

That's why formal logic is not just grammar, it's more.

jobermark

OK, so why focus on formalisms, if it is an aspect of grammar to always be wrong

Formal logic is grammar

It attempts to capture intiution, but fails, mainly because it is a grammar

Ron Maimon

Because it's not at all clear that it is an aspect of grammar to always be wrong. This is experience you have with extremely simple grammars that you are generalizing improperly.

When the grammar gets super complex, you don't know if it captures meaning or not, you simply have no experience.

jobermark

3:45 PM

So vast experience is not relevant because your personal bias says so

Ron Maimon

What you're saying, that's Wittgenstein's argument, more or less, repeated by Searle.

jobermark

Yes, I buy Wittgenstein competely

Ron Maimon

No, vast experience is not vast, because your experience is with extremely limited grammars, corresponding to computations of a few kilobytes.

jobermark

I tried to inject him erlier.

Ron Maimon

The mental states of a person are computations of billions of terabytes.

jobermark

3:47 PM

Or with milliions of lines of computer code that never quite fit requirements.

Ron Maimon

The order of magnitude is completely wrong, your exprience is limited.

jobermark

More complexity, in this experience, does not improve fit

Ron Maimon

Millions of lines of computer code is also too simple.

jobermark

so why extrapolate up

Ron Maimon

That's not clear.

Because I am telling you that it does fit at the right size.

That's an argument that I need to make.

jobermark

3:48 PM

Yes, but more lines makes for more bugs, not less. More complexity creates more diffiucuty communicaing

Ron Maimon

It's a nontrivial proposition.

That's a property of human-written code.

Your brain wasn't written by a programmer.

jobermark

That is a property of grammar attempting to capture intention

Ron Maimon

Programming a computer is not the same as abstract computation.

jobermark

My brain was written by a program, its genetic code

Ron Maimon

That's a property of crappy computer languages making it difficult to express things.

jobermark

3:48 PM

That is less powerful than a programmer

Ron Maimon

Sort of, it's not written, however, it's evolved.

jobermark

That is an excuse

Ron Maimon

Your brain goes through a process of evolution.

It's not an excuse, because we can program computers to evolve too.

jobermark

I am not an idiot, you know exactly what I meant

Ron Maimon

The evolution is a seriously important aspect.

You aren't an idiot, I didn't imply it anywhere.

What did I say that offended you?

The statement "complex formal rules capture meaning"

jobermark

3:50 PM

You are askng me to take this on faith, contrary to experience, and have not indicated the flaw in the experience. If communication is hard, and only gets harder with scale, why would I follow you up in scale?

Ron Maimon

is very nontrivial, it requires a detailed argument. I didn't make one yet.

jobermark

You are dismissing my argument, not meeting it.

Ron Maimon

Your argument is intuitively convincing to people. To argue against it you need to go through the steps by which we construct meaning, and then see if the same steps can be applied to a formal reasoning device.

I agree it is contrary to exprience, but the experience is very limited, it is only with small computations.

jobermark

You pointed out this is Wittegenstein's argument, and my personal experience. Meet one with honest consideration.

Ron Maimon

Yes, I will.

jobermark

3:52 PM

So do. Do not just tell me to bear with you, meet the objection

Ron Maimon

It takes a few minutes to type. The counter-argument is the uncontested observation that the computer, appropriately programmed (dumbly, not even a lot of code)

jobermark

You are expecting tons more patience than you accorded any argument of mine.

Ron Maimon

Can simulate any Newtonian particle dynamics.

Oh, please, it's 30 seconds I'm asking for.

jobermark

Fine, get on with it. I accept you can simulate Newton in a machine.

At least eventually.

Ron Maimon

A computer can simulate any collection of particles, including particles that can simulate molecular events in a cell. The simulation of a collection of cells will, in a precise way, reproduce the behavior of actual cells (to the extent that you can ignore quantum mechanics, which is perfect in reality).

The cells together can be simulated, in such a way that they reproduce the behavior of a human being.

jobermark

3:54 PM

OK, simulations are possible, with a strict limit on the degree of fit.

Ron Maimon

The reproduction of behavior in positivism is equivalent to reproduction of the thing.

This is the argument, it is the complete argument, and I don't have a different one.

So if you wish to argue against the argument, argue against this.

jobermark

First of all Newton is slightly wrong. There is no reason to believe a computer can simluate QM including Heisenberg. There is a limit to the precision of arithmetic that does not matter in Newton, and does in QM

Ron Maimon

The point is that the computation is enormous, much larger than anything you can imagine. To simulate one brain would take all the processors on Earth, communicating together with a faster internet.

Newton is slightly wrong, but in the case of the brain, the error can be simulated by injecting random jitter in the particle motion.

This is not a major impediment.

jobermark

It is still not infinite, and it will still lack randomness.

Ron Maimon

Ah yes!

That's important!

jobermark

3:57 PM

No computer can generate a truly random number

Ron Maimon

Randomness is assumed in the model of computation I am using.

jobermark

It is still not infinite, and it will still lack randomness.

Ron Maimon

I assume your computer is given a random oracle.

jobermark

Then how is it a model of computation?

Ron Maimon

No, when I say "computer" in this discussion, it means something stronger than Turing computation--- it's Turing computation with a random oracle.

I am not sure if a normal Turing computer is capable of simulating a brain.

jobermark

3:58 PM

I can just push all the world into the oracle and have a religion that totally models my own personal world.

Ron Maimon

The "proper" model of computation is this slightly expanded one, but it's only a slight difference.

jobermark

That makes the rest of the simulation window-dressing.

Ron Maimon

No, the oracle is just a list of random bits.

It doesn't have any knowledge--- it's an infinite list of 0's and 1's with probability 50%.

jobermark

OK, what of precision?

Ron Maimon

That's the model I use for computation in my head. It's slightly stronger than Turing's.

jobermark

3:59 PM

Does it also have infinitely-long real memoy entries?

Ron Maimon

Precision is not a problem, but you need to understand why.

It's not hard to understand, but it takes 30 seconds to type.

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Discussion between jobermark and Ron …