Re: A matter of differences
- From: lesterDELzick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Lester Zick)
- Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:59:59 GMT
On the whole this is a well considered essay, JPL. But I'm at a loss
to see how you get from the general body of discussion to your final
conclusion. At least I'd like to intersperse a few comments at various
points. - Lester
On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 23:27:09 +0100, "JPL" <nospam> in
comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
I think Lester deserves credit for his general idea, or intuition, of
differences. How to build, pretty much from scratch, a differential mechanics
that will cover the entire range from rolling Curt rocks to Major Thought
(thought itself is already like a vast universe from lucid dreaming,
poetry..all the way (up.. or down?) - to head hammering mathematics) surely
is not a simple short journey.
Definitely not a short simple journey. But I think the journey can be
considerably shortened with a correct perspective on how to get from
one port to another.
But we have not seen yet much of this new
mechanics other than the rehearsel of the general principle. Maybe Lester can
at least serve us with one worked out example of what that differential
mechanics might look like - maybe start with simple stuff like kicking a ball
in the air? If that's not simple enough, than maybe something else that is
simple enough.
Well the difficulty here is that dovetailing all factors represents a
work in progress. I only have most of the answers to rudimentary
questions which have been asked. Many issues are not nearly so
elementary in mechanical terms as their authors suppose and separating
wheat from the chaff is not easy when so many of those eating chaff
think they're eating wheat because they don't know the difference.
I don't understand what you consider so potentially enlightening in
such an example as kicking a ball. Certainly physical sciences cover
the issue in comprehensive terms already.
As with many a novel idea or insight, the slippery slope is always near. In
Lester's case, there is one major soapy slip he makes, and keeps making, when
he proposes sentience/consciousness to be the result of "differences between
material differences".
Can't see how this follows from what you say below. Sure the slope is
slippery. I've had to back and fill any number of times. What puzzles
me though is how someone who recognizes the mechanical significance
of differences doesn't recognize the further mechanical implications
of differences between differences because to me that's always seemed
like the easiest part.
Clearly, what is usually referred to as "matter", or "the pyhical" is simply
what in the philosophical jargon is called "the contents of consciousness" -
usually nd especially when when it concerns "content" that enters our system
via sensory organs, e.g. the visual system. (But, as an aside, as Curt also
once noted correctly imo, a visually perceived rock, is not categorically
different from the sound of a quacking duck. Not a surprise, since both
sound-of-duck and visual-rock are occuring in the same factory - our brains.
In differential terms, they are just different differences between differences
between... That's why vision can be so different from sound - things can be
similar (a little different only) or very different but still occur in the
same machine: our brain. So we have "matter", in the widest sense possible
from hear-duck to see-rock, to think-tough-math and dream-lucy.. this entire
spectrum of human experience IS matter. It is, in fact, one and the same
thing, just two different words. Matter, the physical IS experience. There is
no consciousness, let alone a consciousness that is the "container" of any
"content".
The above is interesting because you recognize the compounding of
differences yet fail to attach any mechanical significance to it. In
other words if differences alone define matter, how is it differences
between differences etc. do not define anything other than matter?
Antecedents and results of differences between differences etc. are
certainly material but the transient mechanical significance of those
differences between differences etc. is not.
This is not some definitional game: it is a fact that all "matter", all that
is "physical" and all properties we ascribe to it, are in fact experiential
properties of the differential machine that is our brain/cns. so it appears
that Lester is not aware that "matter" is in fact the experiential result of
differences between differences between differences..an indefinate level of
differences that occur as/in the brain.
Two problems here. There can't be an indefinite compounding of
differences between differences etc. although I haven't tried to go
into the mechanical rationale for this.
But the second is that differences alone define matter and material
interactions according to the transient character of differences
alone while differences between differences etc. have completely
different transient characteristics with different and non material
implications. So classifying all transient characteristics together
as matter is incorrect.
Obviously this is not an invitation to
solipsism - just a reminder "the physical" we know of ie the "material" that
the natural sciences work with, are primarily properties of brain activity,
from which only in second instance we infer theories about the nature of
things as they exist or may exist independent from our experiences.
So in a differential mechanics the correct equations would be:
1. matter is identical with experience: M=E
2. matter is the result of n-Levels of Differences between Differences
between..: M=(D)n
This might be true if the transient character of differences between
differences would or could be the same. However they are not and
differences alone define matter and material interactions whereas
compound differences between differences have completely different
transient mechanics associated with them which define the subjective.
Nor does anything in what you conclude show any subjective character
in mechanical terms. If what you describe were correct all we would
have is objective mechanics and that doesn't conform to the facts. So
despite starting from differences you wind up being forced back into
the same kind of materialist "explanations" for subjective phenomena.
In another post you asked what the difference is between subjective
and objective mechanics and I replied that objective mechanics is not
subjective mechanics. However this response while technically correct
is not what I'd consider very illuminating so I'm working on a brief
definitive reply to the mechanical issue of subjectivity/objectivity.
~v~~
.
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