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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.sci,net.religion
Subject: Physicality of Everything
Message-ID: <198@spar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Apr-86 11:55:23 EST
Article-I.D.: spar.198
Posted: Tue Apr 15 11:55:23 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Apr-86 04:45:34 EST
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Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
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Xref: watmath net.philosophy:5048 net.sci:725 net.religion:9924

>The only way to define "physical" such that it is not tautological with
>"existence" is to create some arbitrary anthropocentric boundary that says
>"ah, THESE things are physical, but these things aren't!" - Rich

    Please tell us then, Rich, what ARE things like 3, sets, groups, functions,
    Turing machines, and Cantorian infinities? Do they exist?

    If they DO exist, apparently, you believe they are physical. Most peculiar.

    If they do not exist, then what are we to make of such facts as "There
    exist N solutions in the complex plane for any polynomial of degree N",
    or "There exists no smallest positive real number"?  Whatever can
    "exist" mean in such contexts besides "exists in some NONPHYSICAL sense"? 

-michael

    Scientists are salesmen of ideas and gadgets, they are not judges of
    truth and falsehood. - PK Feyerabend