What Is the Role of Ontology in the Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics?

[A. Neumaier]

Then you explained how to make a "number source"--just use your keyboard or mouse or a combination of them to cause your computer to store certain bytes in its memory

Number generators are algorithms (the simplest of the form $x_{k+1}=ax_k+b\mod N$ for suitable $a,b,N$) that produce random numbers, not bytes. Bytes are not numbers but storage patterns.

Really? You explicitly manipulate the individual bytes in your computer's memory?

I didn't claim to explicitly manipulate bytes.

Like almost everyone, I explicitly manipulate the numbers I write on sheets of paper. In addition there are more indirect ways of manipulating them, such as with the help of a computer.

Your evidence for the existence of "numbers" in the sense you defined them is just as indirect as my evidence for electrons.

Yes, but not the way you claim. The evidence for their existence comes from the consistency of using them in calculations resp. experiments. We wouldn't have numbers if the Peano axioms (say) were not consistent with counting practice, as we wouldn't have electrons if QED (say) were not consistent with experimental practice.

you then need to be consistent in your claims about numbers "existing"

I don't see any inconsistency.

 

[hilbert2]

The same word can also describe a concept and a particular object, for instance "tomato" as in plant species, and "tomato" as one particular fruit produced by that plant. In the case of electrons, their indistinguishability is an additional complication.

One could probably start a pointless discussion about whether the "four" in "four apples" is the same entity as that in "four carrots", or whether "kilogram" is similar to "four" as an object (because they can be multiplied together to give 4 kg).

 

[PeterDonis]

Number generators are algorithms (the simplest of the form $x_{k+1}=ax_k+b\mod N$ for suitable $a,b,N$) that produce random numbers

Algorithms that are run on some kind of hardware. You mentioned two kinds of hardware: paper and computers.

I don't see any inconsistency.

As long as your claim that "numbers exist" is tied to hardware in the same way that the claim that "electrons exist" is tied to hardware (the "hardware" in the latter case being the experimental apparatus), there isn't. But I'm not entirely sure whether you intend your claim to be tied to hardware.

 

[A. Neumaier]

Algorithms that are run on some kind of hardware. You mentioned two kinds of hardware: paper and computers.

No, nothing is run. Algorithms that are carried out in someone's mind and whose input and output are represented on paper. A mind is not hardware; it is rather like software. Hardware only produces bytes, not numbers. Their interpretation as numbers is mindstuff.

As long as your claim that "numbers exist" is tied to hardware in the same way that the claim that "electrons exist" is tied to hardware (the "hardware" in the latter case being the experimental apparatus), there isn't. But I'm not entirely sure whether you intend your claim to be tied to hardware.

Unlike paper, hardware, is for most people an abstract concept vaguely related to silicon chips. Nothing like this figures in my claim. I tie my arguments to ordinary experience (''observational objective facts''), which is mindstuff, not hardware.

The existence of electrons is tied to mind in the same way as the existence of numbers.

 

[A. Neumaier]

The same word can also describe a concept and a particular object, for instance "tomato" as in plant species, and "tomato" as one particular fruit produced by that plant. In the case of electrons, their indistinguishability is an additional complication.

Indistinguishability means that nothing can be said about individual electrons beyond the properties (spin 1/2, charge -e, and mass) they share with all electrons. Only permutation invariant statements about the collection of all electrons (elementary excitations of the electromagnetic field) are well-defined.

 

[PeterDonis]

A mind is not hardware

A mind runs on hardware--a brain. To say a mind "exists" requires that it be running in a brain.

Unlike paper, hardware, is for most people an abstract concept vaguely related to silicon chips.

Feel free to suggest a better term if you think "hardware" is too specific to computers. I am using the term to include things like paper and brains.

The existence of electrons is tied to mind in the same way as the existence of numbers.

I have no problem with this as long as all of these existences, including the existence of minds, are tied to hardware (in the general sense I described above, where paper and brains count as hardware).

 

[PeterDonis]

Nothing like this figures in my claim. I tie my arguments to ordinary experience (''observational objective facts''), which is mindstuff, not hardware.

You can't have experiences without a brain, so "observational objective facts" are tied to hardware.

 

[A. Neumaier]

A mind runs on hardware--a brain. To say a mind "exists" requires that it be running in a brain.

Well, this is a matter not of physics but of metaphysics. Mine is obviously different from yours.

Without mind no perception and hence no criterion for deciding what exists. Physics is impossible without a mind that thinks about its perceptions. To understand language and hence notions of existence also requires a mind.

Feel free to suggest a better term if you think "hardware" is too specific to computers. I am using the term to include things like paper and brains.

Rather than call everything material hardware I prefer to attribute mind to software (i.e., executable algorithms - not their implementation) if it is sufficiently intelligent.

You can't have experiences without a brain

Who knows? But it is certain that you can't even talk about brains without having a mind.

Intellect: ''Ostensibly there is color, ostensibly sweetness, ostensibly bitterness, actually only atoms and the void.''
Senses: ''Poor intellect, do you hope to defeat us while from us you borrow your evidence? Your victory is your defeat.''

(quoted from https://www.mit.edu/~muno/quotes.html, with corrections of typos)

 

[PeterDonis]

Without mind no perception and hence no criterion for deciding what exists. Physics is impossible without a mind that thinks about its perceptions. To understand language and hence notions of existence also requires a mind.

I agree with all of these.

Rather than call everything material hardware I prefer to attribute mind to software (i.e., executable algorithms - not their implementation) if it is sufficiently intelligent.

I never said we should call everything material hardware. I didn't say the mind was material hardware. I said it runs on material hardware, just like any other software.

If the mind software is not running on any hardware, it won't perceive, experience, think, etc. It is true that the mind software has to be running in order to comprehend all of the things we are saying. That doesn't refute the statement that the mind has to be running on hardware in order to do anything.

 

[PeterDonis]

Mine is obviously different from yours.

Do you mean that your mind, as you compose and post here, is not running on a brain?

 

[A. Neumaier]

Do you mean that your mind, as you compose and post here, is not running on a brain?

Yes. Instead it runs the brain and what is controllable by it, including the keyboard used to create posts, and organizes their behavior.

 

[PeterDonis]

Yes. Instead it runs the brain

Does the software running on your computer run your computer?

 

[A. Neumaier]

Does the software running on your computer run your computer?

The minds using the computer run it, by controlling the inputs of the installed software. I run an algorithm by feeding a program implementing it with my input data.

Without a mind the activity of a computer is a meaningless mess of pulses in its hardware.

 

[Demystifier]

Mathematicians (who among all scientists have the most precise language) know how to give a precise meaning to all this. In the context of natural numbers, this uniquely specifies the smallest natural number (0 or 1, depending on whose conventions you follow).

It's not really the issue here, but it's interesting to note that Peano axioms in the first order logic do not really define natural numbers uniquely:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/i7oNcHR3ZSnEAM29X/standard-and-nonstandard-numbers

 

[A. Neumaier]

It's not really the issue here, but it's interesting to note that Peano axioms in the first order logic do not really define natural numbers uniquely:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/i7oNcHR3ZSnEAM29X/standard-and-nonstandard-numbers

Peano's axioms in their original, second order logic form do not have this defect.

 

[Demystifier]

Peano's axioms in their original, second order logic form do not have this defect.

True. But second order logic has its own unappealing properties due to which most logicians prefer first order logic. I'm just saying.

 

[vis_insita]

Earlier you said that bytes stored in a computer's memory were "numbers";

[...]

I thought you were saying that "numbers exist" because we can observe them in the memories of computers, and similarly "electrons exist" because we can observe them in the measurements that confirm our theories. I have no objection whatever to that position.

I thought we were talking about numbers as something constituting a particular model of arithmetics. Whatever we can observe in the memories of computers is no such model.

 

[A. Neumaier]

True. But second order logic has its own unappealing properties

Only that not every true statement is provable. But I regard this as a very natural property, as our knowledge is finite anyway, so that we cannot know all true statements.

 

[Demystifier]

Only that not every true statement is provable.

If you mean the Godel's incompleteness theorems, they are valid in the first order logic too. Godel proved also the completeness theorem for first order logic, but that's something else. The "incompleteness" in the Godel incompleteness theorems is not a negation of "completeness" in the Godel completeness theorem.

The lack of completeness theorem is indeed one of those unappealing properties of second order logic (in the standard semantics). The other is the compactness theorem, valid in first but not second order logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compactness_theorem

If you find it confusing, that's because it is.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MLq...ss-incompleteness-and-what-it-all-means-first

 

[atyy]

Is there a fundamental difference between hardware and software?

 

[Demystifier]

Is there a fundamental difference between hardware and software?

No. Are you suggesting that physics is analogous to hardware and philosophy to software? If you do, it would help if you could better elaborate the analogy.

 

[EPR]

Is there a fundamental difference between hardware and software?

'Software' is the gates switching. Everything in a computer can be tracked down to hardware but i
software is a more sophisticated hardware. It's a constantly changing hardware configuration that is called software.

 

[atyy]

No. Are you suggesting that physics is analogous to hardware and philosophy to software? If you do, it would help if you could better elaborate the analogy.

Just commenting on @A. Neumaier's comment the the mind is more like software than hardware.

 

[A. Neumaier]

Is there a fundamental difference between hardware and software?

It depends on what you regard as fundamental.

Computer software, or simply software, is a collection of data or computer instructions that tell the computer how to work. This is in contrast to physical hardware, from which the system is built and actually performs the work.

(quoted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software)

Thus the software is a kind of mind that can issue commands, the hardware a kind of brain that can execute them. I consider these to be fundamentally different.

 

[Lord Crc]

Is there a fundamental difference between hardware and software?

Yes, hardware can compute results without software. Hook gates together and you get a result, regardless if you want to or not. Software must be executed by hardware to compute results. That hardware might be gates, relays, or neurons (when I predict what my source code will do for example).

 

[EPR]

Computer software is quite unlike a mind.

 

[EPR]

Yes, hardware can compute results without software. Hook gates together and you get a result, regardless if you want to or not. Software must be executed by hardware to compute results. That hardware might be gates, relays, or neurons (when I predict what my source code will do for example).

Hardware like calculators that can compute have preinstalled 'software'(gates setup, invertors, counters, etc. setup in a specific and fixed way.).

 

[EPR]

Mind altering drugs can be thought of as 'software'

 

[Lord Crc]

Hardware like calculators that can compute have preinstalled 'software'(gates setup, invertors, counters, etc. setup in a specific and fixed way.).

Sure, you could have mask ROM or something containing software. That does not affect the distinction. Hook up gates at random you _will_ get a result. Software without hardware does nothing at all.

 

[A. Neumaier]

Computer software is quite unlike a mind.

The algorithmic part of the software is mindlike, its implementation in computer code or microchips not.

Hook up gates at random you _will_ get a result.

But software produces results with a purpose, not just random output (unless this is the purpose).

 

[EPR]

The algorithmic part of the software is mindlike, its implementation in computer code or microchips not.

i am not sure if even one thing is known about the concept of 'mind'.

A quick look at Wikipedia "It holds the power of imagination, recognition, and appreciation, and is responsible for processing feelings and emotions, resulting in attitudes and actions. " reveals we are solidly in philosophy land.

I have no idea how minds operate, this is too far removed from anything scientific(it's the Hard Problem of consciousness which has no resolution).

The 'software' is the brain wiring - the specific neuron network and setup one is born with(which also bears the innate survival instincts). This 'software' comes by default and is hereditary. It gets erased sometimes by head trauma, brain stroke or mental illness(people lose their survival instincts and often die - crossing streets and generally becoming a threat to themselves).

 

[PeterDonis]

The minds using the computer run it, by controlling the inputs of the installed software. I run an algorithm by feeding a program implementing it with my input data.

Without a mind the activity of a computer is a meaningless mess of pulses in its hardware.

Can minds exist without brains? Can a mind run an algorithm without a computer or some other hardware (paper, abacus, etc.) to run it on?

 

[atyy]

The algorithmic part of the software is mindlike, its implementation in computer code or microchips not.

Can the algorithmic part of the hardware be mindlike?

 

[PeterDonis]

I thought we were talking about numbers as something constituting a particular model of arithmetics.

We are talking about several different interpretations of the term "numbers". Which in turn means we are talking about several different interpretations of the term "exists" in terms of whether numbers exist. These terms do not have single unique meanings. That's a big part of what makes these kinds of discussions difficult.

 

[timmdeeg]

That's a big part of what makes these kinds of discussions difficult.

What have these discussions to do with physics?