[Fis] New Perspectives. Reply to Bruno's. Inverse Phenomenology

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear All,

Thanks to Joseph for his useful interpretation on Bruno's points. In my 
impression, theoretical physics (mostly people working on string and 
superstring theory) are doing exactly that: committing themselves to a 
mathematical formulation, rather esoteric, and looking whether some 
physical phenomena may be obtained. Changing the topic, I was also 
intrigued by Joseph's comment in a previous posting "...Starting with 
Heidegger’s critique of hermeneutics and the basing of philosophy on 
human life..." My thin philosophical basis, mostly due to the works of 
Jose Ortega y Gaset (well known internationally in the 40s and 50s by 
his "Rebellion of the Masses", particularly the essay "The barbarianism 
of [scientific] specialization", curiously the essay was cited by Paul 
Verschure in the recent San Francisco Conference) inclines me precisely 
in that direction. My question, that I developed in a paper a couple of 
years ago, is whether the new biomolecular knowledge on how the life 
cycle is organized in unicellulars and in multicellulars (we included), 
coupled with some new neuroscience,  may provide an original response 
--or a new way of advancement-- to that secular problem that also 
touches on the conceptions of information. In any case, I was also 
surprised reading Steve Pinker (I cannot locate the specific book right 
now) that he was carefully dismantling Ortega's anchoring of philosophy 
on human life, both biographically and historically. He was 
contra-posing (if I remember well) both cognitive science and 
evolutionary psychology.

Well, I will try to prepare better my arguments in a next occasion, as I 
also want to discuss Pinker's mythology of the Enlightenment, 
"enchantment" it seems... and the role of technologies versus the role 
of ideas and discoveries in social advancement, historically and at a 
global scale.

Best --Pedro

El 18/06/2019 a las 10:06, Joseph Brenner escribió:
>
> Dear Bruno and All,
>
> As a way of positioning Bruno’s theory, I suggest that it is a kind of 
> inverse phenomenology. In standard phenomenology, one starts with 
> phenomena and places them in a framework of interpretation. In his 
> Digital Mechanism, Bruno starts with a mathematical framework, (to 
> which he ascribes ontological properties), and comes out with the 
> phenomena, or some of them.
>
> If there is – also – some dynamic, material principle underlying what 
> we perceive and what we are, Digital Mechanism should also generate 
> /it/. If it does not, then DM may not be wrong, but it is incomplete, 
> and a careful reading of Bruno would appear (/sic/) to permit this.
>
> We all look for theories, at some time in our lives or another, that 
> will ‘carry us’ from one side of existence to the other. Bruno – your 
> best statements come at the send of your note.
>
> “I hesitate to make my point, because it is of no use in any direct 
> applications. It concerns more the afterlife than life per se.” I then 
> would be very glad if, as a candidate for the ‘other part of the 
> story’, you would look at my logical phenomenology. Logic in Reality 
> addresses life /per se/, and I claim it is of substantial use in 
> direct applications, last but not least informational processes/. /You 
> say further:“nature confirms all this (which again is not an argument 
> for saying it has to be true, of course) and can be helpful to get rid 
> of the reductionist 19th century conception of numbers and 
> machines”.It thus would be ridiculous to say that *nature *is /limited 
> /by the one function you attribute to her here. As long as you are not 
> saying that man ­_*/is//_/*, or is only, a machine, there is room for 
> discussion.
>
> Best,
>
> Joseph
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Bruno 
> Marchal
> *Sent:* lundi, 17 juin 2019 13:12
> *To:* fis
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] New Perspectives. Reply to Bruno's Reply to Stan
>
> Dear Gordana,
>
> I will try to answer your questions. It is not easy, because this 
> belongs to a very hot subject, and what I say is based on 
> counter-intuitive, and not very well known, results in mathematical 
> logic, which is not very well taught, if taught at all.
>
> Note also that I am using the Digital Mechanist hypothesis as a 
> working hypothesis. I never claim that it is true, and my work has 
> only shown that it is testable, but eventually I can conclude that the 
> experimental evidences favours this hypothesis.
>
>> On 14 Jun 2019, at 06:45, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic 
>> <gordana.dodig-crnkovic at mdh.se 
>> <mailto:gordana.dodig-crnkovic at mdh.se>> wrote:
>>
>> I have a few questions to your answers and would be happy if you can 
>> help me to understand.
>>
>> Here they come, following formulations from your mail.
>>
>> *“This seems to assume some primary natural reality, isn’t it?”*
>>
>> **
>>
>> *Q: What is meant by “primary natural reality”? *
>>
>> 1. If it refers to the *EXISTENCE* OF THE EXTERNAL/INTERNAL NATURAL 
>> WORLD, I think this is the most reasonable hypothesis to start with:
>>
>> *The world/nature EXISTS. *It is the fundamental assumption of all 
>> sciences which are our best present knowledge about the world.
>>
>> Otherwise, if the world does not EXIST, we can conclude any 
>> discussion about it.
>>
> So, this might already be in conflict with the Digital Mechanist 
> hypothesis (simply called Mechanism hereafter). I will come to that 
> hypothesis later. What I will say is derived in that theory.
>
> We do agree that the physical-world/nature EXISTS. But with Mechanism, 
> this is no more something that we have to assume, its existence has to 
> become a theorem in the Mechanist theory. The physical reality does 
> not disappear, but its existence becomes phenomenological, and physics 
> get reduced to arithmetic, a bit like today most scientists would 
> agree that chemistry is in principle reducible to quantum physics, if 
> we abstract from the level of organisation.
>
> By Mechanism (Digital Mechanism) I mean the assumption that there is a 
> level of description of my brain, or body, possibly including a finite 
> part of the environment, such that a digital emulation of my body made 
> at that description level would not change my first person conscious 
> experience.
>
> Mechanism is the belief that no organ in my body can’t be replaced by 
> an artificial prosthesis, and in particular, that we would survive, in 
> the clinical usual sense, with an artificial brain. Now, the level can 
> be as much low as we want, like copying the brain at the level of the 
> quantum field description, using the standard model of the particles, 
> and using as many decimals as needed as long as it is a finite number.
>
> Mechanism implies that physics has to be recovered from a statistics 
> on (pure) partially computable number relations, and this will lead to 
> the fact that neither matter nor consciousness are Turing emulable, 
> contrary to a widespread confusion. Somehow, if “I” am a machine, 
> everything else cannot be a machine.
>
> Eventually, mechanism makes very elementary arithmetic into the theory 
> of everything, but any Turing-complete (rich enough to define the 
> notion of computation) theory can be used. Indeed, physics becomes 
> independent of the ontological theory: they all lead to the same physics.
>
> So, to answer your question: YES, the physical reality exists. But NO, 
> it is not primary, which means that we don’t have to assume a natural 
> world, we have to explain its appearance from a theory of 
> consciousness or from some “theology”, in the pre-christian sense of 
> the word. Today’s theology is still in the hands of institutions which 
> practice the argument of authority, which is invalid with the 
> scientific method.
>
> What many people ignore is that the discovery of computation and 
> computability has been done by mathematician, and those notion have 
> been shown to be even *arithmetical*. A computer is an implementation 
> in the physical reality of a universal machine, which is an object 
> already implemented in all universal environment just through natural 
> number relations.
>
> A universal machine cannot distinguish a physical computations from an 
> arithmetical one, by introspection, and that enforce us to explain why 
> the physical laws must be reduced to a statistics on "number's dreams” 
> in arithmetic. This leads quickly to some “many-world” interpretation 
> of elementary arithmetic, and it is testable by comparing the 
> mathematics of that many-worlds, or better “many-histories” 
> interpretation of arithmetic (or Turing equivalent) with the observations.
>
>
>
> 2. The other question is *HOW* that EXISTENCE of the world 
> outside/inside cognitive agents presents itself or unfolds in an agent 
> in the interaction with the world.
>
> That is the question of UMWELT, and the construction of knowledge 
> through information processing. (Natural information processing = 
> natural computation.)
>
> As a consequence of above, the natural computation emerges from the 
> arithmetical computations. (I assume Mechanism all along).
>
>
>
> The “primary natural reality” reflects itself in a myriad of local 
> “realities” in cognizing agents. As we know from empirical 
> observations, even though existence of the world induces various 
> information processes in various agents, communities of agents are 
> typically sharing common “languages” about that “primary natural reality”.
>
> Yes. If Mechanism would lead to solipsism, that would be enough for me 
> to abandon it. Fortunately, the universal machine discourse explains 
> already why some dreams get very long and sharable among population of 
> universal machine/numbers.
>
>
>
> That is true for bacterial as well as for human communities.
>
> Note that I discovered computer science in molecular biology books. I 
> would have become a biologist if I did not discover that the 
> conceptual explanation of reproduction (which fascinated me in 
> biology) was already implemented in the arithmetical reality.
>
> After Gödel, we know that this is not a reductionist view, as such a 
> reality is beyond all possible effective theories. Here, sometimes 
> people confuse the arithmetical reality and the theories we built to 
> put some light on that reality.
>
>
>
> Languages reflect our ability to collectively navigate “primary 
> natural reality” and share common references. So much so that we are 
> able to commonly build a new semantic layer, that is human culture, 
> upon that “primary natural reality”.
>
> Why primary? I am OK with what you say here, except that what you call 
> “primary natural reality” is no more primary. It is already a sort of 
> unavoidable social cultural building by the universal numbers in 
> arithmetic.
>
> The logical dependency is like this:
>
> NUMBERS => CONSCIOUSNESS => PHYSICAL-REALITY => HUMAN-CONSCIOUSNESS
>
> The arithmetical structure, which follows from the definition of 
> addition and multiplication, determine a consciousness flux which 
> differentiate itself in arithmetic, and the natural world appearance 
> emerges from the first person (singular and plural) view of the 
> universal numbers.
>
> Consciousness can be quasi-axiomatically defined by
>
> True,
>
> Indubitable,
>
> Immediate,
>
> Non provable,
>
> Non definable
>
> + (with Mechanism) invariant for some digital functional substitution 
> made at some description level.
>
>
>
> *“As I have shown, this requires a non computationalist theory of 
> mind, which seems to me to be highly speculative.”*
>
> *Q:**Why would that follow from the EXISTENCE of the world?* *What 
> kind of phenomenon is that “computation” which minds perform? *Is it 
> the Turing model of discrete sequential symbol manipulation – 
> calculation of mathematical function?
>
> Yes. I sum up often Mechanism by “Yes Doctor + Church’s thesis”. The 
> notion of computations is the one discovered by many people like Emil 
> Post, Alan Turing, Alonzo Church. Gödel discovered it implicitly, and 
> already show it to be an arithmetical notion. He missed the 
> Church-Turing thesis though, and the consequence of mechanism.
>
> Computations exists like prime number exists. The physical reality is 
> secondary, and physics is in principle reduced to very elementary 
> arithmetic.
>
>
>
> It may at best describe linguistic part of the mind.
>
> This is described in the mind of the universal machine/number. 
> Interestingly, they can only describe a part of this. Many 
> arithmetical truth concerning those machine are extra-linguistic, and 
> does not admit any third person description. They are not definable.
>
> The universal numbers/machine can be shown to have a soul (in Plato’s 
> sense, not Aristotle’s sense), and the universal numbers, in 
> particular also those implemented in the physical reality, already 
> knows that they have a soul, and that their soul are NOT a machine, 
> nor anything describable in third person term. It is more like the 
> meaning, and like the syntax.
>
> In fact, a universal machine can refute all complete effective 
> theories that we may use to study them. The universal machine is born 
> universal dissident. They break down all reductionist conception of 
> themselves.
>
> After Gödel and Tarski, we know that most of the arithmetical reality 
> will be unprovable by any machine, but a part of that non provable 
> reality is still experienceable and knowable by other (tag 
> provability) diverse means.
>
>
>
> But mind as a natural process is both data-based (even continuous data)
>
> OK. Mechanism proves the necessary existence of at least one 
> continuous observable, even of a non computable one.
>
>
>
> and symbol based. Not Turing computable in it entirety,
>
> OK. Mechanism makes both consciousness and matter NON computable. That 
> is why your approach is interesting in practice, probably even 
> necessary. With Mechanism, only the assumption of primaries  would be 
> wrong. In arithmetic, The machines are confronted all the time to a 
> non entirely computable reality. The machines are themselves only 
> partial computable, and most of the arithmetical reality is highly not 
> computable, and plays a role in the development of mind.
>
>
>
> but “naturally computable” i.e. the result of natural information 
> processing performed by living embodied minds.
>
> I use computable in the mathematical sense of Church and Turing. I 
> would use here “naturally experienceable”, or “naturally manageable” 
> or something. I am aware of many attempt to define different sort of 
> computations, but they have no corresponding “Church’s thesis”, and 
> usually, they are Turing emulable, or they use non computable elements 
> that it is simpler to recover from the first person indeterminacy 
> imposed by incompleteness to all machines. If not, it looks like 
> assuming something just to add complications, when the complications 
> is already there.
>
>
>
> *“I am not sure we can avoid the mind-body problem in a philosophy of 
> information context*.”
>
> *Q: Why? Natural information processes in living organisms seem to me 
> as the best way to bridge the mind-body chasm*. Mind is a result of a 
> complex network of networks of information processes going on in a 
> cognizing agent. That process is implemented in their bodies as a 
> material substrate that is self-organized structure growth from that 
> *“primary natural reality”*. There is no contradiction between the 
> morphology (shape, structure, material) of an organism and its 
> functions (processes performed by that morphology. At least those 
> organisms who have nervous systems capable of representing their 
> bodies and their relationships to their environments can be seen as 
> possessing intrinsic “self-models” or simply having “self” or “mind”. 
> That “mind” is the result of the relationships of its subsystems that 
> constitute that “self”, that process which for an organism makes a 
> distinction between the “self” vs. the world and the relationships 
> between the two.
>
> Mind is a process, matter is its substrate on which the process is 
> going on. Those are inseparable in a living organism. In-formation has 
> it roots in the concept of formation (of a material substrate). Matter 
> and form are two aspects of the same reality. It is not a problem, it 
> is a way how we conceptualize the world, in order to manage its 
> complexity.
>
> With mechanism, mind is a process. OK. But there is no substrate. That 
> is a necessary collective hallucination coming from the 
> differentiation of consciousness in arithmetic.
>
> This is admittedly counter-intuitive/ There is no ontological/primary 
> space, nor time, nor particles, nor energy, nor waves, etc. But the 
> conscious appearance of this can be explained, in a precise way enough 
> to be tested (and thanks to quantum mechanics, which I predicted 
> before realising that the physicists were already there, we get 
> confirmations of this).
>
> With Mechanism we are back at Pythagorus. There is only numbers and 
> the only laws are addition and multiplication. With this we can define 
> computations, and the appearance of ontological/primary space, time, 
> particles, energy, waves, … is explained by the theory of machine’s 
> consciousness.
>
>
>
> *“There are no evidences for physicalism or for a physical primary 
> reality, nor are there evidences for a non computationalist theory of 
> mind.”*
>
> **
>
> *Q: What is meant with “physicalism” here?*
>
> Wikipedia offers two different definitions, 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism according to which
>
> *Physicalism* is the metaphysical 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical> thesis assuming that
>
> a) *"everything is physical"*, that there is "nothing over and above" 
> the physical,^[1] 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism#cite_note-1>  or
>
> b) that *everything **supervenes 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervenience>** on the physical*.^[2] 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism#cite_note-DStoljar-2>
>
> Those are two very different proposals. The first one is obviously 
> false, as it negates all the emergent levels of organization of the 
> world above physics.
>
> I agree.
>
> With mechanism, the physical level is itself an emergent level of 
> organisation above arithmetic. Nature is no more primary in the sense 
> that we can explain it without an ontological commitment in some 
> physical universe.
>
> It is not exactly like a dream, but like infinitely many dreams 
> statistically interfering.
>
>
>
> The second one depends on what is meant by “*supervenience”*. If it 
> means that**higher levels of organization of matter-energy emerge from 
> the lower ones bringing completely new properties, it is in perfect 
> agreement with what sciences today say about the world and how they 
> model the world.*
>
> Molecules are made of atoms but bring completely new possibilities of 
> structures, processes and interactions. Biology is more than chemistry 
> for the same reason.
>
> Yes, but with mechanism, physicalism is false in the sense that the 
> physical reality is due to a psychological phenomenon. A very precise 
> one, which should give the laws of physics, so we can test empirically 
> Mechanism, and the test made until today confirms mechanism. That does 
> not prove it to be true, of course.
>
>
>
> *Q: What would be “a physical primary reality”?*
>
> Am I wrong if I imagine that I cannot go out of this room through its 
> walls? Does not that mean that there is “a physical primary reality” 
> that stops me from doing so, no matter how much I wish and try?
>
> Not really. In most of my dreams, I cannot go through wall too. It 
> just means that there is wall, and that we cannot go through. It does 
> not mean that a wall really exist, just that some dreams are lawful, 
> and this is what mechanism show to exist statistically.
>
> Note that with both Digital Mechanism, and quantum physics, we can go 
> through wall (!), but the probability of that event is shown, in 
> quantum physics, to be very rare for massive object, and yet common 
> for very small object. That is used in the miniaturisation of the 
> transistor, which makes up the physical computer around us.
>
>
>
> *“Of course some people confuse the evidences for physical laws with 
> evidences that such laws are primary, but that is just because they 
> “believe” in some natural world to begin with.”*
>
> *Q: What is primary?***Indeed, physical laws are not *primary*, in the 
> sense of eternal and unchangeable, as they evolve with the universe*.
>
> I am not sure if many physicist would agree with this. I don’t know a 
> physical laws which would have evolved, except in speculative theory 
> used to explain the big-bang. With mechanism, the laws of physics 
> becomes eternal and unchangeable laws derivable from their 
> theology/psychology/biology, which are themselves eternal and 
> unchangeable, given that they belong to arithmetic/computer science. 
> The only things which change are the indexical notion, like here and 
> now, or me and you, which are related to interval view of arithmetic 
> from arithmetic.
>
> Physicalism is mainly the idea that there is an ontological physical 
> universe, and that the fundamental laws on which everything supervene 
> are the physical law. With Mechanism this can be shown leading to 
> contradiction, en eventually we need to derive the physical laws from 
> number psychology/theology. Then incompleteness provides the tools for 
> doing this, and to make the testing. Mechanism makes metaphysics into 
> a science, even an experimental science.
>
>
>
> Primary is the *EXISTENCE* of the world that we all share and experience.
>
> That remains correct if by world you mean the (standard) arithmetical 
> reality. The physical world is an emergent organisation coming from 
> the (non trivial and irreducible) arithmetic, taken in its after-Gödel 
> understanding.
>
> Many people agree that Gödel’s theorem kills the reductionist 
> conception of man and mathematics, but it kills already the 
> reductionist conception on natural numbers and machines.
>
> Mechanism leads to a sort of fictionalism for analysis, set theory and 
> physics. A physical universe becomes a convenient fiction invented by 
> the numbers to figure out what they are, somehow.
>
>
>
> It presents itself in both fluid, intrinsic ways (subjective feelings 
> and emotions) and crisp, well defined inter-subjective forms (as in 
> sciences, logics, mathematics).
>
> OK. But with mechanism, the physical somehow arise from the natural or 
> canonical inter-subjective agreement between all universal 
> machines/number.
>
> To help a bit, I always fix one universal system in my head, say the 
> programming language LISP. Then we can enumerate all machines (Lisp 
> program), by length order, and by alphabetical order for those having 
> the same length. This permits the enumeration of all partial 
> computable functions (which include the total one, defined on all 
> numbers). I identify a machine with its number in that enumeration 
> (like we can identify a vectors with its coordinate once we have 
> chosen a basis in linear algebra).
>
>
>
> *“We can’t have both Mechanism in cognitive science, and materialism, 
> or just physicalism, in the “natural science”. That has been shown 
> logically inconsistent.”*
>
> It depends on the choice of “mechanism”, “cognitive science” 
> (classical-computationalist disembodied or contemporary EEEE models of 
> cognition), along with the kind of “physicalism” assumed, and even the 
> choice of “natural sciences” to support your thesis. In the paper 
> below (*) I argue, for a given choice of all those terms and with 
> heavy reliance on the contemporary scientific knowledge, that 
> computational mind is not only (naturally) compatible but essentially 
> dependent on its physical substrate on succession of levels of 
> organization.
>
> That is true for the human mind. And it is important for the human 
> application. But with mechanism, eventually, we get very close to de 
> Chardin, when he says that we are not humans having spiritual 
> existence, but we are spiritual beings having a human existence. We 
> are not human thinking about numbers, but we are numbers thinking 
> about humans.
>
>
>
> *Q: If we have such model *in which “mechanisms” of information 
> processing (natural computation in the framework of computing nature) 
> from the lowest levels of exchanges between elementary particles to 
> the highest levels of exchanges among people of symbolic structures 
> and artifacts, wouldn’t that constitute a counter-example to the claim 
> that mind and body have nothing to do with each other ? (**)
>
> With Mechanism, we have the curious, non Aristotelian, consequences 
> that bodies are constructs of the mind, but also a result of the fact 
> that we don’t know which computations, among an infinities in 
> arithmetic, supports us.
>
> A material reality, with some primitive substrate, is unable to select 
> a computation from the infinitely many computations going through our 
> state in arithmetic. That would require an added non computational 
> ability to the brain or to the particles, or whatever we assume to be 
> physically primary.
>
> But the overall picture is the same, except that the physical 
> supervene of the number theology which supervene on elementary arithmetic.
>
> It is not necessarily a pleasant theory, as we can no more die in this 
> theory, consciousness becomes a sort of inescapable prison, and 
> arithmetic, if it contains some paradise, contains also some hell, 
> etc. What is nice, is that it is a vaccine against reductionism of 
> both man and machine.
>
> I hope this helps. I refer to my papers for the proof of the 
> assertions, and the description of why we can say that most of current 
> physics favours mechanism on naturalism. With the important 
> understanding that this does not mean that nature does not exist or is 
> not important. It is only not primarily real.
>
> Like I say above, we get:
>
> NUMBERS => CONSCIOUSNESS => PHYSICAL-REALITY => HUMAN-CONSCIOUSNESS
>
> Many posts in this list plays on the
>
> PHYSICAL-REALITY => HUMAN-CONSCIOUSNESS,
>
> part, where I have no critics. But sometimes some people seems to 
> conclude that digital machine, à-la Church and Turing cannot be 
> subject of private conscious experience, which is a string assumption, 
> and indeed it is needed to have a primary reality. I prefer to remain 
> open to Mechanism, and which case, that part going from the physical 
> reality to the human consciousness is itself a consequence of us being 
> universal number, borrowing the consciousness common to all universal 
> machine, which is also the consciousness we should come back in some 
> state of sleep, and plausibly after the death of the biological body.
>
> I hoping this is not too much shocking. Please ask any question if 
> something is not clear. I do agree with many important points made in 
> this list by diverse people, but sometimes, some comments are 
> presented like if it was in contradiction with Digital Mechanism, when 
> in fact they are confirming long term prediction I derived  from it. I 
> hesitate to make my point, because it is of no use in any direct 
> applications. It concerns more the afterlife than life per se. But as 
> it predicts the very weird quantum computing notion,I tend to think 
> that nature confirms all this (which again is not an argument for 
> saying it has to be true, of course) and can be helpful to get rid of 
> the reductionist 19th century conception of numbers and machines.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> Gordana
>
> * 
> http://www.gordana.se/work/PUBLICATIONS-files/2019-Laws%20of%20Science%20as%20Laws%20of%20Nature.pdf 
>
>
> ** No model or framework can explain everything about the world 
> (including humans) at the same time, but info-computational approach 
> can be used to model some interesting aspects of the mind emergent 
> from, in interaction with its matter/energy substrate.
>
> *From: *Fis <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es 
> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>> on behalf of Bruno Marchal 
> <marchal at ulb.ac.be <mailto:marchal at ulb.ac.be>>
> *Date: *Thursday, 13 June 2019 at 15:11
> *To: *fis <fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>>
> *Subject: *Re: [Fis] New Perspectives. Reply to Stan
>
> Joseph,
>
>> On 12 Jun 2019, at 16:40, Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch 
>> <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>> wrote:
>>
>> Stan,
>>
>> Thank you for your question. I reply with a modified excerpt from an 
>> article in/Philosophies./The full article is Open Access. I am 
>> indebted to Rafael Capurro for part of this formulation. Comments 
>> welcome.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>> Natural Philosophy: Excerpt from Brenner, J. 2018. The Naturalization 
>> of Natural Philosophy.///Philosophies*2018*/3, 41.
>>
>> Natural Philosophy deals with the question of nature as a whole 
>> stated by beings (ourselves) that find themselves in nature without 
>> having the possibility of a holistic view, being ourselves in nature 
>> and not beyond it. The fact that we are able to ask this question 
>> means that we have some kind of pre-knowledge about nature as a whole 
>> while at the same time this pre-knowledge is problematic, otherwise 
>> we would not ask the question and would not be able to become natural 
>> philosophers.
>>
>> The question then changes to the difference between nature and 
>> reality as a whole, including fictions, non-verifiable beliefs and 
>> intangible objects of thought. Since the idea that classical Natural 
>> Philosophy evolved into science  seems  correct, we  are  left,  for  
>> the  domain  of Natural  Philosophy, with only a speculative 
>> interpretation of nature viewed in its entirety. This interpretation 
>> is,/ipso facto/, at a lower ontological level than the science which 
>> has largely replaced it. Much of the 20th Century linguistic turn, 
>> expressed in both analytical and phenomenological and residual 
>> transcendental traditions, is well visible in contemporary philosophy.
>>
>> The reaction to this unsatisfactory state of affairs has been the 
>> reinstatement of realisms and materialisms of various kinds, 
>> associated today with the names of Derrida, Badiou, Zizek, and 
>> others. The ‘ontological turn’ in philosophy is a term of art that 
>> designates dissatisfaction with descriptions of reality based on 
>> analytical, semantic criteria of truth. Starting with Heidegger’s 
>> critique of hermeneutics and the basing of philosophy on human life, 
>> the ontological turn is a challenge to neo-Kantian epistemologies, 
>> and looks to what the structure of the world might be like to enable 
>> scientific, that is, non-absolute knowledge. Unfortunately, 
>> ontological theories have been hobbled by the retention of static 
>> terms whose characteristics are determined by bivalent logic. In 
>> 2002, Priest suggested that such an ontological turn in philosophy 
>> was taking place, away from language in the direction of an 
>> contradictorial view of reality. Priest proposed paraconsistent logic 
>> as appropriate to this turn, but his system suffers from the 
>> epistemological limitations of paraconsistency. Lupasco, on the other 
>> hand, anticipated the ontological turn by some 60 years. (In the 
>> complete article, I show that his logical system can be used to 
>> differentiate between Natural Philosophy and Philosophy/tout court./)
>>
>> The most important point for me is that Natural Philosophy tells us 
>> something real about the world that is consistent with our best 
>> science, physical, biological and cognitive. Speculative philosophy 
>> can always re-illuminate ‘eternal’ questions such as what it means to 
>> be a thinking being in a non-thinking environment. This non-Natural 
>> Philosophy, to repeat, exists for ‘natural’ reasons: it is a natural 
>> necessity for human beings to create it, by a natural process, but it 
>> is not part of nature/qua/content.
>>
> This seems to assume some primary natural reality, isn’t it?
>
> As I have shown, this requires a non computationalist theory of mind, 
> which seems to me to be highly speculative.
>
> I am not sure we can avoid the mind-body problem in a philosophy of 
> information context.
>
> There are no evidences for physicalism or for a physical primary 
> reality, nor are there evidences for a non computationalist theory of 
> mind. Of course some people confuse the evidences for physical laws 
> with evidences that such laws are primary, but that is just because 
> they “believes” in some natural world to begin with. I think it is 
> better to be agnostic and see where the facts (experimental) and 
> working theories lead us.
>
> We can’t have both Mechanism in cognitive science, and materialism, or 
> just physicalism, in the “natural science”. That has been shown 
> logically inconsistent (ask for reference if interested).
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es]*On Behalf Of*Stanley 
>> N Salthe
>> *Sent:*mardi, 11 juin 2019 21:09
>> *To:*fis
>> *Subject:*Re: [Fis] New Perspectives
>>
>> Joseph -- Would you like to write how you define Natural Philosophy?
>>
>> STAN
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 11, 2019 at 12:03 PMJoseph Brenner<joe.brenner at bluewin.ch 
>> <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Pedro and All,
>>>
>>> Many thanks are due to you, Pedro, for this new and valuable 
>>> formulation of the – daunting - task at hand. The task is logical 
>>> and philosophical, as well as scientific. Philosophy here, 
>>> exemplified by the Philosophy of Information, does not mean standard 
>>> discussions of ‘where did we come from’ and ‘does a transcendent 
>>> deity exist’, which are as sterile in their way as the excesses of 
>>> the IT and AI ideologists. Natural Philosophy can be a ‘vehicle’ for 
>>> interaction between people of good will, the collaboration that you 
>>> point to that may help to advance IS4SI. Some of you who may not 
>>> have been at the Conference in San Francisco (Berkeley) may wish to 
>>> look at abstracts of papers from the Philosophy of Information 
>>> sub-conferences at the 2015, 2017 and 2019 Summit conferences on 
>>> Information.
>>>
>>> To revitalize the list is indeed a key first step. But it starts, in 
>>> my opinion, with some self-examination, examination of whether one’s 
>>> own theories are just ‘pet’ theories. Applying this criterion to my 
>>> own Logic in Reality, about which I have written on several 
>>> occasions, I claim that it is not just a pet theory. It is a new 
>>> perspective on how information, logic and thought operate as real 
>>> processes, following laws within the laws of physics, without loss 
>>> of a human, ethical dimension. However, LIR makes many demands on 
>>> one. It requires an understanding and acceptance of what is //not// 
>>> Natural Philosophy, which may include some of the ideas that have 
>>> appeared in this list.
>>>
>>> Again, accepting my own criterion of interactive non-separability, I 
>>> do not call for any exclusions or limitations on the list. I only 
>>> wish that everyone makes the necessary effort to position his or her 
>>> own views in relation to the overriding need for furthering the 
>>> Common Good. The sum of all such honest self-referential (or 
>>> second-order recursive) opinions of people about their own work 
>>> would itself be a useful creative effort, I think.
>>>
>>> Thank you and best wishes,
>>>
>>> Joseph
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es 
>>> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan
>>> Sent: mardi, 11 juin 2019 13:05
>>> To: 'fis'
>>> Subject: [Fis] New Perspectives
>>>
>>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>>
>>> A few days ago took place the IS4SI Meeting, in SFco, with one of the
>>>
>>> parallel sessions devoted to FIS and other sessions also with presence
>>>
>>> of veteran parties of this list. Relevant speakers in the plenary
>>>
>>> sessions covered the main topic of the conference, expressed as: Where
>>>
>>> is the I in Artificial Intelligence and the Meaning in Information? From
>>>
>>> Tristan Harris to Melanie Mitchell, to Paul Verschure, etc.
>>>
>>> In my view the perspectives in these IT fields are changing
>>>
>>> significantly. The tremendous hype in AI, Deep Learning, IOT, etc. keeps
>>>
>>> unabated, but critical voices are being heard, not just from a few
>>>
>>> Academia corners as usual, but now by leading technologists and
>>>
>>> researchers of big companies in these very fields. "Dissent" on the
>>>
>>> contents, methodologies, and consequences of social applications is 
>>> growing.
>>>
>>> The industrial development of this IT sector --notwithstanding the
>>>
>>> inflated proclamations and all the hype of the gurus-- does not mean the
>>>
>>> arrival of some great singularity, or the symbiosis with machines, or
>>>
>>> widespread menace of robots & cyborgs... these are slogans coming from
>>>
>>> the industrialists to maintain social/ideological preeminence for their
>>>
>>> whole sector. Rather I think they are starting to feel the consequences
>>>
>>> of their social overstretching in different ways.
>>>
>>> The fundamental point, in my opinion, is that our solitary, isolated
>>>
>>> efforts from a few Academia places (Sciences & Humanities) in the quest
>>>
>>> for new perspectives in Information Science, and not just AI
>>>
>>> development, should not isolated any more. We can now establish an
>>>
>>> interesting dialog and partnership with those new "dissenters" of the
>>>
>>> technology in its concepts, methods, and social applications. It is upon
>>>
>>> us to improve the discussion procedures, the collaborations, the
>>>
>>> organization, etc. so that this opportunity might materialize
>>>
>>> progressively. Do not ask me how... In any case I pointed out three
>>>
>>> future directions for IS4SI advancement: community building, attracting
>>>
>>> scientific/technological avantgarde, and organizational improvement.
>>>
>>> Revitalizing this discussion list--shouldn't it be one of the first 
>>> steps?
>>>
>>> Best greetings to all,
>>>
>>> --Pedro
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Pedro C. Marijuán
>>>
>>> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>>>
>>> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
>>>
>>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ 
>>> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Fpedrocmarijuan%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786234083&sdata=rRk9RxUKvWoq1nnH7eSkg5gRTil1tVUTgTK0pDa5Ihg%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> ---
>>>
>>> El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico 
>>> en busca de virus.
>>>
>>> https://www.avast.com/antivirus 
>>> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.avast.com%2Fantivirus&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786234083&sdata=Wbrn7sp1W%2Fg4GOIdAmb0U1geydhcdm%2FOX6Hu5N7Lc3k%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>> Fis mailing list
>>>
>>> Fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:Fis at listas.unizar.es>
>>>
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis 
>>> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786244082&sdata=%2BSp0SCZdqFLqq%2FPes13pr84YSlKm03qEikuJ5vzJ2CQ%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>>> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.avast.com%2Fsig-email%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dlink%26utm_campaign%3Dsig-email%26utm_content%3Demailclient&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786244082&sdata=E3huy%2FK%2BF2q8BQYe%2FpMNb5mXlwom5sE3WuctW2DVN2M%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>>>
>>> 	
>>>
>>> Garanti sans virus.www.avast.com 
>>> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.avast.com%2Fsig-email%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dlink%26utm_campaign%3Dsig-email%26utm_content%3Demailclient&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786254081&sdata=TeOIk53ReL3Aw0mMz3wLptFb2cmnkwV7enRUKCWARyo%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Fis mailing list
>>> Fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:Fis at listas.unizar.es>
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis 
>>> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786254081&sdata=NgDErO3w5%2B7%2FDm3G3dobqSaXFjrR6EAlvN32HliQgpM%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:Fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis 
>> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=02%7C01%7Cgordana.dodig-crnkovic%40mdh.se%7Ce3cf40966de148aaf4b108d6f0009e4b%7Ca1795b64dabd4758b988b309292316cf%7C0%7C0%7C636960282786264068&sdata=%2F3c%2BLJrQ9VLXSWXyuWjGNwdxCc2QSslqv%2BIyz%2F1ooX8%3D&reserved=0>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis at listas.unizar.es
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis


-- 
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group

pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------



---
El software de antivirus Avast ha analizado este correo electrónico en busca de virus.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/attachments/20190621/44a936d6/attachment-0001.html>