[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[Scott Roberts]

Ian,

Ian said:
You said "By "fundamentally wrong" I mean that a metaphysics is
starting from the wrong assumptions."

Look Scott, you can't have it both ways - my assumptions
(common-sense, metaphors and world-views) cannot be wrong, just more
or less pragmatic than yours.

I'm not saying yours are wrong.

Scott:
Your assumptions are more pragmatic for you, less pragmatic for me. So your 
assumptions are right for you, wrong for me, and vice versa. Now I also 
think that, salvationally speaking, your assumptions are wrong for 
everybody, but that takes me over the line to preaching, but then I want to 
counter the preaching of Dennett and his ilk.

Ian said:
Just pointing out that yours seems to require a major upheaval in
working metaphors about time (and causality) - possibly long overdue
(I've agreed time is seriously weird compared to common sense
metaphors) - but you will have your work cut out constructing the
whole thing in a satisfactory way.

Mine is simpler (more pragmatic) in the Occam sense. Staring from here
and now, though I have sympathy with the Irish bystander who said "If
I wanted to get there, I wouldn't start from here." :-)

Scott:
No, it is not simpler or more pragmatic in the Occam sense. You are 
confusing Occam's Razor with "less challenging to one's metaphoric system". 
I conclude from the evidence available to me that space and time are created 
in the act of perception. I am aware that this requires a major upheaval in 
working metaphors about time, causality, and most everything else, but if 
that's what it requires, that's what it requires.

Ian said:
Second point
You said "physicalism is fundamentally wrong in starting with the
assumption of the ubiquity of a physical substrate, while the MOQ is
not fundamentally wrong in starting with the assumption of the
ubiquity of value (though, again as I see it, it gets subsequently
wrong pretty quickly by not recognizing the mutual implication of
value, consciousness, and semiosis)."

Ignoring "fundamentally wrong" again. You seem to be deliberately
ignoring the fact that my view of phsyicalism acknowledges that value
(quality) is the substrate of all physics (all reality). In fact as
I've said many times, all physics, consciousness, metaphor, semiosis
co-evolves from there. Nothing pre-exists quality in my physicalism,
and it is in that sense entirely consistent with the MoQ (as is a
common sense view of time, incidentally.)

Scott:
I am not denying that your version of physicalism is consistent with the 
MOQ, but then, I wouldn't call it physicalism, since I hold that value 
implies intellect, and therefore intellect is the substrate of all 
physics -- and since time is created in the act of perception, there is no 
basis for the phrase "all physics (all reality)", that is, there is no 
reason to assume that physical reality is the substrate of everything else. 
So to maintain your self-description as a physicalist you need to reject the 
starting points of my metaphysics. Well, ok, but how do you then expect us 
to agree on metaphysical questions? (Also, I don't like to call value or 
intellect a "substrate".)

- Scott