[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[David M]

Gav

Surely there is something unexplained every time DQ
is present or between the levels that are not explainable in
terms of the former ones?

DM
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ian glendinning" <psybertron at gmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question


> Hi Scott,
>
> This takes me back a few years to my first few exchanges on MD, when I
> first used the term "bootstrap".
>
> Firstly Yes, even from a physicalist point of view, first cause needs
> explaining. It is not exempt from that. It's just the hard bit, the
> hole that can only be nibbled at from the outside edge, with a few
> bits of conjecture thrown into the middle, so we can review the
> ripples at the edge of the unknown.
>
> The point I made (repeatedly now) is that your choice of that
> something (rather than nothing) cannot be entirely arbitrary or
> arbitrarily fantastic. The more complex the something, the more is
> unexplained. That's all.
>
> Are some things ultimately unexplainable ? Maybe, but that'll be for a
> reason that itself can be explained - something Godelian I'd guess.
>
> BTW the "eventually get around to" language is pejorative rhetoric.
> People have been "around to it" for millenia, they're just getting better 
> at it.
> Ian
>
> On 1/13/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
>> Ian,
>>
>> Ian said:
>> As I said before ... so you have something unexplained, even if you
>> invent the category of things that don't need explanation. I'm sure
>> the physicalists would not be alone in crying - Foul !
>>
>> Scott:
>> What I was trying to distinguish in that category business was my view 
>> (that
>> consciousness is not the sort of thing that "explanation" applies to, 
>> since,
>> like value, it is fundamental) from (a) the usual physicalist view (that 
>> it
>> is something that eventually we will get around to explaining as emerging
>> from a non-conscious universe) and (b) the view of Colin McGinn that, 
>> though
>> he is a materialist of some sort, claims that consciousness is not
>> fundamental, yet is unexplainable.
>>
>> And did I invent the category of things that don't need explanation?
>> Wouldn't you say that physical reality does not need explaining, given 
>> that
>> you are a physicalist? Or do you think "why there is something rather 
>> than
>> nothing" could conceivably have an explanation?
>>
>> - Scott
>>
>> On 1/12/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
>> > Ian,
>> >
>> > Ian said:
>> > Scott I agree with your points.
>> > Something I said earlier in another conversation with you was that
>> > this ineffable gap may be a common theme in any metaphysics, but the
>> > size and complexity of the gap in terms of the explanation missing
>> > does of course vary. This is the point I have against people like
>> > yourself, who (seem to) claim that the gap is bootstrapped by
>> > pre-existing "sophisticated" consciousness.
>> >
>> > Scott:
>> > I'm not sure I understand the last sentence. But in any case,  I don't 
>> > see
>> > consciousness (or DQ) as being a gap in "things that are explained (or
>> > explainable)" -- that's only a problem for a physicalist. Rather, I see
>> > consciousness as not belonging to the category of things explained,
>> > unexplained, explainable, or unexplainable.
>> >
>> > - Scott
>> >
>>
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