Necessary & Sufficient (for Facebook164)

[Baruch]

An example from written language ...

There are 26 capital letters available in English writing, we will ignore lower case letters (also when do we capitalize a word) and ignore punctuation and ignore constructs larger than a single word.  Every word that can be written in English, can be written using those letters alone.  In some sense, the letters of a word explain the word.  In any given word, there is one or more letters, in some specified sequence, though not all letters have to be used, and a given letter can be used more than once.  So "   " is not a word ... there are no letters.  But "XYDTE" may be a word.  But "may be" is our primary problem.  It is easier to imagine doing this in a language that isn't your native language, nor one you have learned.  I was studying Japanese at supper in between eating and drinking.  If one already knows a language, then in a sense, you have a "cheat" for what I am going to say, since it will already be intelligible.  Also we are assuming we don't have access to anything like Google Translate.

Suppose I choose a Japanese word which has no meaning for me.  Each Japanese word comes in multiple forms (aka conjugations etc), but each Japanese word has what is called a "dictionary form".  Suppose I don't know what a combination of Japanese characters means, but if I can guess the dictionary form, in its phonetic spelling, I can find that word in a Japanese-English dictionary that is arranged phonetically ... and from that dictionary form, derive whatever conjugations etc I might need to derive.  At that point, I will understand what the chosen Japanese word means (at least in English).  Some random combination of Japanese characters, may or may not be a word.  If I can find it in the dictionary under its dictionary form, it is a word, it is intelligible.  This is why strong encoding of diplomatic messages is possible.

So back to our topic ... in our first example, the capital letters of English are enough to specify any word, but not all sequences of capital letters are intelligible, not all of them make up a word.  The letters are necessary, otherwise we can't write anything.  But they are not sufficient ... I also need a Japanese to English dictionary.  Likewise the Japanese to English dictionary is necessary, but not sufficient.  If I don't have a word to look up, I have nothing.  But the two in combination, the sequence of symbols and a dictionary, are sufficient to distinguish a word from gibberish, something intelligible from something that is not.

OK, so this is reasoning by analogy.  The atoms that make up my body are necessary.  But they are not sufficient.  They need to be particular atoms, arranged in a particular way, to make up my body.  But even then, that isn't me ... it is a corpse.  A corpse is static, a living body (me) is dynamic.  So again, I need to call upon something extrinsic to my mere body, to try to fully understand myself.  This is why I say that materialism (physicalism) is necessary, but not sufficient.  Even multiple levels of materialism are necessary, but not sufficient.  Since I see a bottom up progress that has no end.  For me, it is turtles all the way up, not all the way down.

Now one can redefine a word, to mean whatever you want.  One can redefine physicalism, to cover both the static and dynamic elements of understanding myself (not just my body).  This was done in the move from materialism (pre-modern science) to physicalism (modern science).  But simply redefining terms ... is cheating.  On that basis I can call an oyster an elephant.  But only if I am tenured ;-)  If one defines physicalism as "everything" aka scientism ... then the definition can't be falsified ... and being immune to falsification is a violation of the scientific method.  It is no different than saying G-d is the explanation for everything.

[facebook164]

An example from written language ...

There are 26 capital letters available in English writing, we will ignore lower case letters (also when do we capitalize a word) and ignore punctuation and ignore constructs larger than a single word.  Every word that can be written in English, can be written using those letters alone.  In some sense, the letters of a word explain the word.  In any given word, there is one or more letters, in some specified sequence, though not all letters have to be used, and a given letter can be used more than once.  So "   " is not a word ... there are no letters.  But "XYDTE" may be a word.  But "may be" is our primary problem.  It is easier to imagine doing this in a language that isn't your native language, nor one you have learned.  I was studying Japanese at supper in between eating and drinking.  If one already knows a language, then in a sense, you have a "cheat" for what I am going to say, since it will already be intelligible.  Also we are assuming we don't have access to anything like Google Translate.

Suppose I choose a Japanese word which has no meaning for me.  Each Japanese word comes in multiple forms (aka conjugations etc), but each Japanese word has what is called a "dictionary form".  Suppose I don't know what a combination of Japanese characters means, but if I can guess the dictionary form, in its phonetic spelling, I can find that word in a Japanese-English dictionary that is arranged phonetically ... and from that dictionary form, derive whatever conjugations etc I might need to derive.  At that point, I will understand what the chosen Japanese word means (at least in English).  Some random combination of Japanese characters, may or may not be a word.  If I can find it in the dictionary under its dictionary form, it is a word, it is intelligible.  This is why strong encoding of diplomatic messages is possible.

So back to our topic ... in our first example, the capital letters of English are enough to specify any word, but not all sequences of capital letters are intelligible, not all of them make up a word.  The letters are necessary, otherwise we can't write anything.  But they are not sufficient ... I also need a Japanese to English dictionary.  Likewise the Japanese to English dictionary is necessary, but not sufficient.  If I don't have a word to look up, I have nothing.  But the two in combination, the sequence of symbols and a dictionary, are sufficient to distinguish a word from gibberish, something intelligible from something that is not.

OK, so this is reasoning by analogy.  The atoms that make up my body are necessary.  But they are not sufficient.  They need to be particular atoms, arranged in a particular way, to make up my body.  But even then, that isn't me ... it is a corpse.  A corpse is static, a living body (me) is dynamic.  So again, I need to call upon something extrinsic to my mere body, to try to fully understand myself.  This is why I say that materialism (physicalism) is necessary, but not sufficient.  Even multiple levels of materialism are necessary, but not sufficient.  Since I see a bottom up progress that has no end.  For me, it is turtles all the way up, not all the way down.

Now one can redefine a word, to mean whatever you want.  One can redefine physicalism, to cover both the static and dynamic elements of understanding myself (not just my body).  This was done in the move from materialism (pre-modern science) to physicalism (modern science).  But simply redefining terms ... is cheating.  On that basis I can call an oyster an elephant.  But only if I am tenured ;-)  If one defines physicalism as "everything" aka scientism ... then the definition can't be falsified ... and being immune to falsification is a violation of the scientific method.  It is no different than saying G-d is the explanation for everything.

So many words.. and yet you fail to show what physicalism cannot cover for.
Weird move to try to make physicalism not cover for dynamics...
Materialism (and physicalism) is like atheism simply the default position. Non-physicalism is the cheat. If you find something actually non-physical then fine. But just assuminh nom-physicalism is cheating.

[aitm]

Fascinating….well…actaully I don't have a clue what said. HOWEVER, I really want to know who the hell in the Chinese or Japanese world (or any language that uses that type of "writing") decides the character to be used for the entire language for every new word that comes along. I.E..computer. Is there some white haired old man sequestered away in a dungeon that assigns the characters for new words and ideas?

This I think, is the worlds most pressing question.

[Baruch]

Facebook164 ... I answered your question as best I can.  We will have to remain of different opinions.  You seem to have equated "physicalism" with "scientism" and in either case, that isn't science, it is dogma.  Reasoning by analogy (in this case in metaphysics) doesn't cut it for some folks.  I am more skeptical of any ... "this is the whole thing" ... answers.  As I implied, saying "G-d did it all" is cheating.  So is "Big Bang did it all" ... but then I don't believe in "Theories of Everything".  It is good enough to have some good data on some small part of it all, and put some reasonable curve thru the data, so that we can hazard some interpolation and extrapolation.  But when I was young, I believed differently, I still believed in big ideas.

Aitm ... as I pointed out ... had I made an argument strictly from English ... then someone would rely on outside data (their experience as a native English speaker) rather than on the immediate points.

Of course dogma isn't illegal.  Dogma away my boys, dogma away ...

[Hakurei Reimu]

Letters aren't physical objects like atoms are. A 'letter' is the underlying concept beneath the pattern of ink and paper on a page, or a pattern of pixels on a screen, or sounds going through a medium. They don't do anything when placed next to each other. HSH doesn't do anything different than HOH, because neither does anything in the first place. It's up to the brain reading the symbols to notice the difference and derive meaning from that difference.

Atoms, on the other hand, have a physics to them. Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) has quite different chemical properties from water (H₂O) â€" by substituting a sulfur atom in place of an oxygen atom, the chemistry of the molecule changes quite substantially. You don't need to know that there has been a substitution of sulfur for oxygen to know that the two are different substances â€" the difference makes itself quite apparent from their properties.

The atoms in a corpse are actually arranged quite differently from that of a living being, at least on the scale that matters, that of chemicals. No, just because it looks the same to your eyes doesn't mean that there is no differences physically. You're just not looking hard enough. Physicalism stands, no reformulation necessary.

[facebook164]

Facebook164 ... I answered your question as best I can.  We will have to remain of different opinions.  You seem to have equated "physicalism" with "scientism" and in either case, that isn't science, it is dogma. 

Scientism is something theologicians has dreamt up.
I usually doesnt talk about "physicalism" either because that is no need for that term.

It only appears when theists start to talk about something (that never has been observed:) non-physical phenomena.

[aitm]

Aitm ... as I pointed out ... had I made an argument strictly from English

But you failed to address my far more important question, and that is simply not like you….do you have a headache tonight?

[stromboli]

Letters aren't physical objects like atoms are. A 'letter' is the underlying concept beneath the pattern of ink and paper on a page, or a pattern of pixels on a screen, or sounds going through a medium. They don't do anything when placed next to each other. HSH doesn't do anything different than HOH, because neither does anything in the first place. It's up to the brain reading the symbols to notice the difference and derive meaning from that difference.

Atoms, on the other hand, have a physics to them. Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) has quite different chemical properties from water (H₂O) â€" by substituting a sulfur atom in place of an oxygen atom, the chemistry of the molecule changes quite substantially. You don't need to know that there has been a substitution of sulfur for oxygen to know that the two are different substances â€" the difference makes itself quite apparent from their properties.

The atoms in a corpse are actually arranged quite differently from that of a living being, at least on the scale that matters, that of chemicals. No, just because it looks the same to your eyes doesn't mean that there is no differences physically. You're just not looking hard enough. Physicalism stands, no reformulation necessary.

And you can add to that that language is an agreed upon concept. Bantu is a series of clicks and whistles. Bantu isn't spoken in England because Bantu didn't have big ass ships with guns to spread their culture. And language is evolutionary. English started out as Sanskrit somewhere before the 4th Milliennia BC and evolved into other languages. Japanese has a different root language than English; hence the rules of grammar do not apply to English.

A law of science is an agreed upon concept based on observation. It did not evolve from a proto science from an older law to become a new law. It may have under peer review been found to be flawed and revamped, but that is still discovery and not evolution. The laws of Gravity or subatomic physics did not evolve from Alchemy, for example.

Languages do not stand alone, or at least with few exceptions, such as Esperanto or Interlingua. In any case they are developed, not discovered. The laws of science stand alone and are not subject to or created by anything developmental.

The rules of science are based on observation and discovery. I'm sure that you can poke some holes in this, but in my opinion using language as a comparative is a flawed model.

[Baruch]

Stromboli ... at least a reasonable counter by you.  I would say that language is natural ... only French is agreed to, and only by the academics of the Academe Francaise ;-)  The French have to be ... different.  I was using a dictionary as a convenient POV, otherwise a word only means what I choose it to mean, and counters the argument that some letter combinations are gibberish.

Science can agree that 2+2=5 ... but that doesn't make it so, except in dogmatic scholasticism.  It isn't a consensus like law (lawyers get together in a legislature to write law).  Empirically, we learned by counting pebbles that 2+2=4 was just about right (doesn't work with approximate floating point arithmetic in a computer ... but early man didn't have that concept).  In physics we learned that small stones worked well in a slingshot (early ballistics).  Maths of course quickly became more abstract, and lots of math now has no connection with physics, though it still pops up at times.  Starting with Pythagoras and developing more and more ... math is used to model the empirical data we get from observation (and experiment).

But without the empirical data ... is isn't science, it is maths.  Anything that is science, is subject to a redo, and a new maths model if necessary.  I have to disagree with Platonism ... that scientific laws are something ... out there, that we discover, and then refine, until we are philosopher kings.  There is no science without people (or other sentients).  But it doesn't depend solely on people either ... it is a dialectic.  What counts as data, evolves.  We didn't always have the notions of momentum or kinetic energy.  So there was no way to measure or compute a thing, until someone had the imagination and empirical data to justify it.  It is semi-objective.  Just as time and space are still useful, so now we know they are relative and not absolute.  Not poking holes, but supporting you.