Re: Cerberus and Quine

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Date: 27 Feb 2005 04:22:13 -0800

examachine@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I agree with this. Nice exposition.
>
> I think that was more or less what I was saying about "partial
> oracles".
>
> You just do not expect to find *any* oracles to the halting problem.
> That happens only in movies like the Matrix. So, what you have
instead
> is partial oracles, computers that know only a finite bit of
> information about the halting problem!
>
> What I mean is that, if we read Quine in the sense of modern
complexity
> theory and AI theory (MDL, MML, AIT) then it makes a whole lot of
> sense, and I absolutely agree that it has much import.
>
> The argument that *everything* on earth is *necessarily* dependent on
> *everything* else is a CREATIONIST argument, which is precisely how
we
> can understand Quine's argument. If everything CRUCIALLY depended on
> everything, then NO mechanism could explan how this web of
dependencies
> could come into existence. But this is not the case, everything is
> mechanical, the dependencies are only partial, everything is
reducible
> to mechanics, and all of it is a matter of evolution.

This is a bit jumbled up. I mean that: Quine's non-reductionism must be
taken with a grain of salt. In modern theory, you can have mild
non-reductionism, instead of a radical non-reductionism that is in fact
a creationist argument. It leaves no room for evolution, it seems!

Regards,

--
Eray

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