[FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

[David Eric Smith]

Okay, one last, and then I die, having created as much chaos in the world as it was my place to create.

> On May 1, 2019, at 8:09 AM, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> The Schrodinger's cat can be both dead and un-dead, but I cannot know a thing and not know it, except by equivocating on the meaning of "know”.  

Careful here.  You used the word “be” — are you sure you know what that was supposed to stand for?

You used the word “I” when you spoke of knowing a thing and not knowing it — are you sure you know what that “I” stands for?  Meaning, are you sure you know what kinds of “I” are capable of existing in this physical universe?  This was the Wigner’s Friend conversation for which Aaronson’s blog is good to clear the fog: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3975 <https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3975>

I am not recommending _equivocation_ on the meaning of “know”.  I understand that any sentence can be unraveled, and the whole edifice of conversation destroyed, by constantly objecting “what is ‘is’?”, “what is ‘what’?” etc.  People who want to be annoying do that, and I can’t (or won’t) deal with them.  What I am proposing is that, in some cases, we suddenly realize we can put some definite better thing in place of the usage habit we had heretofore.  Then the project of realizing that we didn’t know the constraints on good usage of a term is not meant to unravel conversation, but to incrementally raise it.  We continue to use all the rest provisionally, understanding that it is all fragile, but moving on until we find the next place we an make a concrete change for the better.

> I don't think quantum theory applies to logic in the familiar world.  Or does it?  Am I wrong to be bloody minded about people who bring "lessons from quantum theory" into day-to-day macro-world scientific arguments?  

Presumably all these languages are coarse-grained.  Whether one or another rule applies (even if it was shown to apply somewhere) will depend on whether the tokens that require it are retained under the coarse-graining, or are replaced by other aggregate tokens to which the same rules do not apply.  Case by case.

Moriturus te saluto

Eric 

> 
> Nick 
> 
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> Clark University
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2019 10:10 PM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow
> 
> Nick -
> 
>> That's both a tautology AND an oxymoron. 
> 
> Did you just exclude the law of the excluded middle?  How very human of you!
>> 
>> "How do we explain consciousness?" in any way that is not inane.  
>> (Geez, was that a quadruple negative?)
> And a 4 dimensional version of same?  
> 
> 
> - Steve
> 
> 
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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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