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> “We agree that the stuff at the bottom exists” I don’t understand this part. Where do we agree that? As opposed to those things just continuing to be useful

by mlthoughts2018 8y ago

> “We agree that the stuff at the bottom exists” I don’t understand this part. Where do we agree that? As opposed to those things just continuing to be useful fictions at the boundary between the current best-known reductive explanation of a thing and the outstanding questions where that reductive explanation fails to reproduce observational data as-yet-unexplained?

klodolph 8y ago
I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. The word "where" is a bit confusing, because there are some spatial metaphors here. The final sentence has several subordinate clauses and is quite long, has referents which are quite far from their references, and seems to use the vague word "thing" in two different ways. We agree that there is a physical, objective universe. (Why? We assume it is true because otherwise conversation is not possible.) This physical universe exists (in a physical sense). We also have a catalogue of other phenomena (silicon atom, apple, Kentucky) which we say "exist", phenomena which don't exist (magnetic monopole, dragon, The Shire), and a catalogue of intangible concepts (happiness, vector space, triangle) which don't exist in a physical sense. But every term here, except "the physical universe," are either concepts or interpretations of phenomena. If you say that a data type does not exist because it is nothing more than an interpretation of a physical phenomenon, then my problem with this is that this also applies to computer programs, bits, bytes, silicon atoms, apples, and Kentucky. So I would prefer to use a definition for "exist" that includes data types, bits, bytes, silicon atoms, apples, and Kentucky. I don't think there's a compelling case for drawing a line between data types and bits and saying "bits exist, but data types do not".
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  I think you’re just arguing with yourself here. While pithy, this reply just seems to ignore basically every point I raised and just reassert your original assertions without offering any reason to believe them. In fact I’d say your whole series of comments here are rhetorical gimmick with some bravado like it’s a great philosophical insight while side-stepping the only interesting philosophical question here, which is how do we decide which concepts “actually” exist.
  - klodolph 8y ago
    > While pithy, this reply just seems to ignore basically every point I raised and just reassert your original assertions without offering any reason to believe them. I said that I didn’t understand your argument, so I asked some questions. And then I expanded my argument with reasoning, but apparently you feel that my reasoning is deficient, but lazily assert that I did not offer “any reason” to believe them. I honestly thought that I did offer reasons. > In fact I’d say your whole series of comments here are rhetorical gimmick with some bravado like it’s a great philosophical insight while side-stepping the only interesting philosophical question here, which is how do we decide which concepts “actually” exist. That’s an interesting philosophical question, but we’re having a discussion about programming languages and type systems, and I would say that the philosophical question of “what exists?” is side-stepping the interesting questions about type systems. In order to have a discussion about type systems we need to agree about what exists, and the best way to do that is to simply agree by convention that certain things (like type systems) exist. Which is what I’d prefer. Same thing with mathematics… if we are talking about vector spaces, I don’t want to have a discussion about what “exist” means, I just want to use the word “exist” as a substitute for mathematical concepts, agree how we use the word in context, and then talk about math.

klodolph 8y ago

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. The word "where" is a bit confusing, because there are some spatial metaphors here. The final sentence has several subordinate clauses and is quite long, has referents which are quite far from their references, and seems to use the vague word "thing" in two different ways. We agree that there is a physical, objective universe. (Why? We assume it is true because otherwise conversation is not possible.) This physical universe exists (in a physical sense). We also have a catalogue of other phenomena (silicon atom, apple, Kentucky) which we say "exist", phenomena which don't exist (magnetic monopole, dragon, The Shire), and a catalogue of intangible concepts (happiness, vector space, triangle) which don't exist in a physical sense. But every term here, except "the physical universe," are either concepts or interpretations of phenomena. If you say that a data type does not exist because it is nothing more than an interpretation of a physical phenomenon, then my problem with this is that this also applies to computer programs, bits, bytes, silicon atoms, apples, and Kentucky. So I would prefer to use a definition for "exist" that includes data types, bits, bytes, silicon atoms, apples, and Kentucky. I don't think there's a compelling case for drawing a line between data types and bits and saying "bits exist, but data types do not".

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I think you’re just arguing with yourself here. While pithy, this reply just seems to ignore basically every point I raised and just reassert your original assertions without offering any reason to believe them. In fact I’d say your whole series of comments here are rhetorical gimmick with some bravado like it’s a great philosophical insight while side-stepping the only interesting philosophical question here, which is how do we decide which concepts “actually” exist.
- klodolph 8y ago
  > While pithy, this reply just seems to ignore basically every point I raised and just reassert your original assertions without offering any reason to believe them. I said that I didn’t understand your argument, so I asked some questions. And then I expanded my argument with reasoning, but apparently you feel that my reasoning is deficient, but lazily assert that I did not offer “any reason” to believe them. I honestly thought that I did offer reasons. > In fact I’d say your whole series of comments here are rhetorical gimmick with some bravado like it’s a great philosophical insight while side-stepping the only interesting philosophical question here, which is how do we decide which concepts “actually” exist. That’s an interesting philosophical question, but we’re having a discussion about programming languages and type systems, and I would say that the philosophical question of “what exists?” is side-stepping the interesting questions about type systems. In order to have a discussion about type systems we need to agree about what exists, and the best way to do that is to simply agree by convention that certain things (like type systems) exist. Which is what I’d prefer. Same thing with mathematics… if we are talking about vector spaces, I don’t want to have a discussion about what “exist” means, I just want to use the word “exist” as a substitute for mathematical concepts, agree how we use the word in context, and then talk about math.