barrington interview

Jeffery Wilson clueland.com · 11 Oct 2014, 02:59 · from 2014-October.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at clueland.com (Jeffery Wilson clueland.com)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:59:48 -0500
Subject: (urth) barrington interview
In-Reply-To: <CACJ=J7mSHtrgNKZvigpxda0kU6fzA_5r4rEUHq45aDTQ-T3VXQ at mail.gmail.com>
References: <BLU175-W25612D593B63982B5E4F87CFA10 at phx.gbl>	<543811EB.2010102 at clueland.com>
	<CACJ=J7mSHtrgNKZvigpxda0kU6fzA_5r4rEUHq45aDTQ-T3VXQ at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <54389D24.8090400 at clueland.com>

On 10/10/2014 1:13 PM, Ant?nio Marques wrote:
> On 10 October 2014 18:05, Jeffery Wilson clueland.com
> <http://clueland.com> <jwilson at clueland.com
> <mailto:jwilson at clueland.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 10/10/2014 8:09 AM, Lee wrote:
>
>             Gerry Quinn: All mathematics can be encoded entirely inside
>             the standard arithmetic
>
>
>             of the natural numbers, or simple geometry on a plane.
>
>
>
>         A nice summation of my point. Math requires numbers. Numbers
>         describe the
>
>         universe in terms of discrete, countable units. I find it quite
>         possible that there
>
>         are places/times in geography and history of the universe in
>         which the concept of
>
>         numbers was meaningless.
>
>
>     Er, no, because the concept does not depend on the actuality. The
>     numbers necessary for math can be entirely notional, and in fact the
>     numbers are *always* notional and abstract. There is no place you
>     can touch the number two, for instance.
>
>
> It's not a matter of the concept not depending on the actuality. It's a
> matter of what you call 'concept' being how the human mind responds to
> actuality. Other minds might respond to the same actuality with
> different concepts. We've been saying this for days and folks still come
> back with misdirected replies.

But your justifications for what you are saying are crap. We know other 
minds might respond to the same actuality with different concepts 
because *human* minds already respond to the same actuality with 
different concepts  right here on the list, but that doesn't mean the 
difference is known to be utterly intractible, else why are we still 
trying to get traction?

As for Lee, up above he postulates that the actuality is different in 
places and that will give rise to different concepts to which ours will 
not relate. However, he still calls these circumstances history and 
geography, which implicitly means they are relateable to us.

Suppose some conscious mind arises in some place where there are no 
discrete phenomena: would it have no conception of discrete math, nor 
use? How would it possess mind-like qualities without being able to make 
distinct, binary decisions? Would it only decide on a sliding scale, 
giving analog responses? Could it change its mind, going from one value 
to another?  If it does, this mind-changing behavior is then rising or 
falling which are distinct, binary phenomena.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >
A&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab
< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >

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