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Free will and the necessary evil
#71
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 3, 2022 at 8:48 am)Angrboda Wrote:
(November 3, 2022 at 12:56 am)HankMoody316 Wrote: To answer your question, I must share with you some relevant backstory about myself:
  1. I am a Mormon musician and I believe all music can be converted to an MP3 file which is nothing more than a sequence of 1's and 0's but I'm not allowed to link to the wikipedia article called "Hex Editor" due to the 30/30 rule. 
  2. For the same reason, I'm not allowed to link to Champernowne constant either, but there's nothing (inherently) stopping me from copy/pasting the opening paragraph...
  3. In mathematics, the Champernowne constant C10 is a transcendental real constant whose decimal expansion has important properties. It is named after economist and mathematician D. G. Champernowne, who published it as an undergraduate in 1933.
Furthermore, the iceberg theory or theory of omission is a writing technique coined by American writer Ernest Hemingway. As a young journalist, Hemingway had to focus his newspaper reports on immediate events, with very little context or interpretation. When he became a writer of short stories, he retained this minimalistic style, focusing on surface elements without explicitly discussing underlying themes. Hemingway believed the deeper meaning of a story should not be evident on the surface, but should shine through implicitly.

I am a writer, artist, and musician. The "less" I say, the "more" I say. In other words, all music has already been created already. Once the Champernowne constant was formally described and explained, the world we know it is no longer the same. I have realized more than 70 strange and spooky things. The most relevant one being (since we're discussing music) is that all music has already been created. Its MP3 sequence already exists within the decimal expansion of the Champernowne  constant. 

😮‍💨

Pretty mind-blowing stuff, wouldn't you agree? 

(even if you disagree, please make me feel welcome by at least acknowledging my efforts)

It's not clear that all past musical sequences are contained within the Champernowne constant. As Wittgenstein observed, there being an infinite amount of time doesn't mean that everything possible will happen. The order within the Campernowne number may actually ensure that some sequences do not occur. It would probably be too much for my little brain, but I'd like to see where a competent mathematician has proven what you claim. It seems it would fall under Ramsey theory, but more than that I know not.

A more general way of saying that is that necessity places limitations on what is possible. I see the principle of sufficient reason at work in your point as in there could be reasons that only certain sets or outcomes obtain.
<insert profound quote here>
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#72
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 3, 2022 at 11:56 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I see the principle of sufficient reason at work in your point as in there could be reasons that only certain sets or outcomes obtain.

You cite the PSR quite a bit. Why do you think that Aristotle and his contemporaries argued for such ideas that heavier objects intrinsically fall faster than do lighter ones based upon PSR? Do you think that propositions that you propose based upon the PSR are testable? Falsifiable?
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#73
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 5:56 am)Jehanne Wrote: Why do you think that Aristotle and his contemporaries argued for such ideas that heavier objects intrinsically fall faster than do lighter ones based upon PSR?

Did Aristotle make this argument based on the PSR? Or did he have other reasons for thinking this was true? 

It would be possible to believe in the PSR, and therefore there must be a reason why things fall as they do, and still misunderstand the reasons why they do so. 

Likewise Mr. Becher can believe that there must be a reason why things burn, and then posit that this reason is phlogiston. His chosen reason is wrong, but it doesn't validate or invalidate the PSR, because in fact there is a reason why things burn, whether we know it correctly or not.
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#74
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 6:13 am)Belacqua Wrote:
(November 4, 2022 at 5:56 am)Jehanne Wrote: Why do you think that Aristotle and his contemporaries argued for such ideas that heavier objects intrinsically fall faster than do lighter ones based upon PSR?

Did Aristotle make this argument based on the PSR? Or did he have other reasons for thinking this was true? 

It would be possible to believe in the PSR, and therefore there must be a reason why things fall as they do, and still misunderstand the reasons why they do so. 

Likewise Mr. Becher can believe that there must be a reason why things burn, and then posit that this reason is phlogiston. His chosen reason is wrong, but it doesn't validate or invalidate the PSR, because in fact there is a reason why things burn, whether we know it correctly or not.

If the PSR can, in some instances, lead to erroneous conclusions, how can we have confidence in it?
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#75
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 6:16 am)Jehanne Wrote:
(November 4, 2022 at 6:13 am)Belacqua Wrote: Did Aristotle make this argument based on the PSR? Or did he have other reasons for thinking this was true? 

It would be possible to believe in the PSR, and therefore there must be a reason why things fall as they do, and still misunderstand the reasons why they do so. 

Likewise Mr. Becher can believe that there must be a reason why things burn, and then posit that this reason is phlogiston. His chosen reason is wrong, but it doesn't validate or invalidate the PSR, because in fact there is a reason why things burn, whether we know it correctly or not.

If the PSR can, in some instances, lead to erroneous conclusions, how can we have confidence in it?

Can you point me to a case in which reliance on the PSR led to an erroneous conclusion? 

As I understand it, the PSR only posits that everything must have a reason for why they are that way. How we find the reason, what we conclude the reason to be, whether we are right or wrong about it, are not a result of the PSR. Even if you believe in a strict version of the PSR, it's still entirely possible to say that we don't know what the reason is, and in fact humans may never know it.
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#76
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 6:33 am)Belacqua Wrote:
(November 4, 2022 at 6:16 am)Jehanne Wrote: If the PSR can, in some instances, lead to erroneous conclusions, how can we have confidence in it?

Can you point me to a case in which reliance on the PSR led to an erroneous conclusion? 

As I understand it, the PSR only posits that everything must have a reason for why they are that way. How we find the reason, what we conclude the reason to be, whether we are right or wrong about it, are not a result of the PSR. Even if you believe in a strict version of the PSR, it's still entirely possible to say that we don't know what the reason is, and in fact humans may never know it.

Some of the conclusions of Aristotle, which he based upon the PSR, are false. Again, if the PSR is fallible, but neither testable nor falsifiable, why and how can we trust it?
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#77
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 6:35 am)Jehanne Wrote: Some of the conclusions of Aristotle, which he based upon the PSR, are false.

So Aristotle thought that everything must have a reason why it's so. 

Which erroneous explanation was based on this assumption alone, and not an incorrect understanding of, say, physics?
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#78
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 6:39 am)Belacqua Wrote:
(November 4, 2022 at 6:35 am)Jehanne Wrote: Some of the conclusions of Aristotle, which he based upon the PSR, are false.

So Aristotle thought that everything must have a reason why it's so. 

Which erroneous explanation was based on this assumption alone, and not an incorrect understanding of, say, physics?

Some physical events just happen (Casimir effect); they do not have a reason for happening, rather, they just happen.
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#79
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 8:16 am)Jehanne Wrote:
(November 4, 2022 at 6:39 am)Belacqua Wrote: So Aristotle thought that everything must have a reason why it's so. 

Which erroneous explanation was based on this assumption alone, and not an incorrect understanding of, say, physics?

Some physical events just happen (Casimir effect); they do not have a reason for happening, rather, they just happen.

I don't think Aristotle addressed the Casimir effect. 

Do you still think that the PSR is why he got rates of falling wrong? 

Anyway, as you know, when Aristotle uses the word "cause" he means all the things that are necessary for a thing to be the case. This is a broader meaning than our normal usage, which he would call "efficient cause." So in Aristotle's terms, the Casimir effect has numerous causes, because a number of things have to be the case for it to happen. For example, time and space have to exist, laws of nature have to exist, various kinds of fields or whatever have to exist. 

I don't know if it's acceptable to say that "it happens because the laws of nature are the way they are" counts as a "sufficient reason" or not, PSR-wise.
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#80
RE: Free will and the necessary evil
(November 4, 2022 at 8:28 am)Belacqua Wrote:
(November 4, 2022 at 8:16 am)Jehanne Wrote: Some physical events just happen (Casimir effect); they do not have a reason for happening, rather, they just happen.

I don't think Aristotle addressed the Casimir effect. 

Do you still think that the PSR is why he got rates of falling wrong? 

Anyway, as you know, when Aristotle uses the word "cause" he means all the things that are necessary for a thing to be the case. This is a broader meaning than our normal usage, which he would call "efficient cause." So in Aristotle's terms, the Casimir effect has numerous causes, because a number of things have to be the case for it to happen. For example, time and space have to exist, laws of nature have to exist, various kinds of fields or whatever have to exist. 

I don't know if it's acceptable to say that "it happens because the laws of nature are the way they are" counts as a "sufficient reason" or not, PSR-wise.

Maybe the Universe is its own cause?
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