[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[ian glendinning]

Scott,

Why you don't just agree with me when I say I agree with you, I'll
never know. You now seem to be twisting my words to keep an argument
going. I hope it's productive. [IG] Inserted below ...

On 1/16/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> Ian,
>
> Ian said:
> 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.
>
> Scott:
> So you think that Leibniz' question "why is there something rather than
> nothing" has an answer?

[IG] - I don't say it has AN answer - completely necessary and
sufficient - I just say it's not exempt from needing an expanation.
That explanation will always be left with a first cause hole in it,
but it may not be the same hole you started with. Some of that
explanation will be about the changing shape and nature of the hole.
Geddit ?

> If so, wouldn't that answer consist of some
> somethings, which in turn need explaining? Put another way, it is possible,
> even likely, that the physical laws we now know have a deeper explanation,
> but then that deeper explanation is something and not nothing. How to
> explain them, or their sublaws, etc?

[IG] - See above. All Metaphysics have a first-casue hole in them. I
agreed already.

>
> Ian continued:
> 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.
>
> Scott:
> >From this I assume that you consider physical reality to be less complex
> than consciousness.

[IG] Twisting my words again. All of physical reality is also much too
complex a starting point - We're talking first cause here. My
proto-reality (speculative nature of the first cause hole in my
physical metaphysics.) is just "any significant difference between
anythings" (aka Quality). What's yours ? Consciousness in all its
glory is similary too fantastic for a first cause. What is your
proto-consciousness ?

> But don't you think so because you assume that
> consciousness emerged from physical reality?

[IG] No, just that they are both explainable from "first cause" - by
whatever means. (Evloution through 4 levels of MoQ just seems the most
plausible fit with the rest of natural evidence, but it's not in any
way related to my first-cause supposition.)

> Remember the problem that all
> that we know of physical reality has been filtered through sense perception.
> Can we say we understand physical reality without an understanding of
> perception, and if not, doesn't that make physical reality more complex than
> perception?

[IG] I'm aware of that. (You mentioned "physical reality" here, not
me). I'd say physical reality didn't exist "as we now know it" until
our consciousness existed, and even then it evolved. Again, as I've
tried to suggest many times before. You've toned back full blown
"consciousness" to "perception" here. If you continued that line back
to "existence of any significant difference" - I might COMPLETELY
AGREE WITH YOU. We were almost there once, with signs and semiosis,
but you insist on rubbing my physicalist nose in YOUR consciousness
;-)

>
> Ian said:
> Are some things ultimately unexplainable ? Maybe, but that'll be for a
> reason that itself can be explained - something Godelian I'd guess.
>
> Scott:
> Well, this "ultimately unexplainable" is what I assumed something rather
> than nothing to be -- see above. I don't think one needs Godel to see that.

[IG] - Mostly agreed already. I said, there's a hole in my metaphysics
dear Scott. All I'm saying is that the something "unexplainable" is
not exempt from an explanation as to why it's OK that it's unexplained
- That's what's Godelian or Quinian maybe - just guessing - blame
Hofstadter :-)

>
> Ian said:
> 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
>
> Scott:
> I still don't see a whisper of a physicalist explanation, so I think my
> language is justified. Nor have people been thinking about it for millenia.
> It only became a problem when mechanism arose in the 17th century, and I
> think that you would agree that any mechanistic attempt at an explanation
> (such as the "brain excreting thoughts like an organ excreting bile", or the
> behaviorists' totally ignoring consciousness) was of no value at all.

[IG] I'm not whispering - I'M SHOUTING. Are you listening ?
Knowledge AND reality evolve. Nothing wrong with the "bile excretion"
metaphor, as long as you remember "it's metaphors all the way down"
and they evolve too.

(Let's get back to semiosis and metaphors, soon.)

Regards,
Ian

>
> - Scott
>
> On 1/13/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote: