Comment: 1: “The assumption, alone, that the physical universe must be consistent is insufficient to show that there is a separate MU.
The assumption that the physical universe must be consistent, plus the assumption of MR, plus the assumption that consistency doesn’t matter for MU’s is sufficient to show that there is a separate MU.”
Response 1: Thanks for clarifying what you mean here. I hear you, but I have been clear in the manuscript that I take the assumption of MR. And then, for assumption of the physical universe needing to be consistent isn’t really assumed, but it’s discussed, and I bring to bear a practicality argument—that it’s actually a semantic point (defining the scope of the term ‘universe’) and so I am clear here also. And the third item you mention, that it is required to assume that consistency doesn’t matter for MU: I’m not sure I agree here. I don’t think I made statements either way as to the consistency of a MU (or multiple MUs) in the work. We did discuss that consistency can be considered dependent on whether one holds one maximal MU or multiple separate MU, but I don’t think an assumption on that is needed with regards to the scope of the argument pertaining to objects being outside the scope of the (physical) universe.
Comment 2: “But you have only shown that that follows from your assumptions, not that it is actually true, ie. your assumptions are actually true.”
Response 2: Well, that’s something still. What would be required as an additional piece you would like to have available is a proof that MR is true. I’m not sure if such a thing exists, as it might be axiomatic. It’s definitely not in the scope I laid down in the manuscript but could be an interesting new topic. Hm, I wonder if it ends up being that multiple ontological views are proved valid, but it ends up being more convenient (ie less ‘epicycles’) to adopt one of them in particular and so from an Occam’s Razor perspective, one comes to the fore. But that’s speculation. Interesting point though!
Comment 3: “No, it’s valid, but it’s not sound. Valid but unsound arguments are ten a penny—you can show almost anything given three arbitrary premises. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(logic)”
Response 3: Ah, but that’s all I an supplying. I am sorry the work was not all you would hope it to be, right now. But these things take time and effort and that’s as far as we have got so far, unless you wish to collaborate on an extension as described above—though, I’m not sure there is an easy resolution especially if there’s a semantic component described above.
Context: But, I haven’t taken the assumption of mathematical fictionalism, in which I don’t know if I can talk about abstract objects at all—so it doesn’t apply here.
Comment 4: “Fictionalism isn’t known to be true or false, neither is realism. It’s an open subject. You can make arguments against fictionalism, the fictionalist can make arguments against realism.
You seem to be hinting at an argument where an entity has to really exist in order to be talked about (an argument you haven’t brought before). But the plain fact is that we can talk about fictional entities, like Gandalf or Sherlock Holmes—so the fictionalist has a robust response.”
Response 4: Ah you have misunderstood me, what I meant was I don’t have a detailed knowledge of how to construct a framework in mathematical fictionalism, and if I can define an object in that framework and refer to it in quite the same way. I don’t mean that a Sherlock Holmes or Gandalf can’t be referred to in a fictionalism, it’s just that I don’t know enough about how it set up (what os the nature of the ‘fiction’ from an ontological perspective, to know what properties it should have, or if the target of the reference is the sort of thing that can have properties (I’m assuming it can?). In MR, it seems more straightforward that if I can define an entity, it can be given an existence in an abstract sense, for the object referred to to have properties (including non-extantness) but without requiring that the object have a related extant object in the universe (such as a Sherlock Holmes who is clearly not extant even though his concept exists).
Context: I have some questions I need to clarify about how it works, and seek guidance on, to be able to argue effectively on that topic as I haven’t had it fully described to me.
Comment 5: “Can you not learn that from books? How did you learn about realism?”
Response 5: Well yes, I can, but it would be a new research topic and these things take time, as mentioned. One has to start somewhere and one can’t expect all parts of a project to be done right away, especially as research topics need to unfold incrementally to build a body of knowledge. But what you say here goes beyond just reading—I don’t know the body of literature of fictionalism/realism contains a systemisation in the way I have described in order to compare the variants that could be done. I think I would have to do that work, and so I have started here: but I picked realism because it’s a more natural starting point as mentioned, from a physics perspective and a view (at least tacitly) held by colleagues and even if not admitted, is operated under when doing daily life in the world of physics research.
Context: As I keep mentioning, where I am at, provisionally, at the moment, is that I keep running into that said Solipsism
Comment 6: “Even now? But you’ve agreed that the existence of mathematically describable entities outside the mind doesn’t imply the existence of ontologically mathematical entities outside the mind .”
Response 6: I mean, I haven’t investigated down to the very bottom what precisely a ‘mathematically describable entity outside the mind but not leading to an ontological mathematical entity’ really is, and if it doesn’t lead to other issues, contradictions, etc down the track. I can see that it’s something that can be proposed but I don’t know if such a thing is sound, hence why the investigation as I mentioned is taking place. It sounds like it is resolved in your mind but I haven’t understood it or had it presented to me yet. It’s not enough to state a thing could be so, we need to check the consistency through and through and I haven’t seen a detailed presentation of such a thing yet (if it exists).
Context: So, can we resolve it—in the primordial universe, how are we to understand the subatomic particles being arranged into groups, and so forth, if these structures required for our existence only are fictions occurring within the mind of people? (I assume that’s what fictionalism means)… if you can clarify
Comment 7: “Imagine the library of Babel. Since it contains every story, some stories will be history, whilst most will be fantasy. But the true stories are still stories in books.”
Response 7: Thank you for this metaphor, it is helpful—here in the library of Babel, which contains every story, only some of the stories will be history, and some are various other non-historical genres. This is similar to the statement in the work I was doing, where ‘extantness’ means ‘history’ ie the abstraction projects down to relate to an actual object in the real world. Whereas there might be many abstractions (existing but not ‘extant’ and also non-existing entities means that defining them leads to a contradiction and can’t be defined consistently). So indeed only a small portion of the abstractions have the ‘extant’ property (using the world extant to distinguish it from ‘exist’ in the mathematical sense), and what I did in my formalism was to create a meta-language scoped so that the objects only ‘exist’ if they are ‘extant’, which places some limits and also structure and properties for the formalism. But anyway, the true stories (the ‘histories’) or the ‘extant’ items, are still abstractions we refer to, it’s just that they have this special projective relationship with a physical object. The fact that the formalism can only ever speak in abstractions is part and parcel of having a self-contained meta-language (and also useful as we can do inquiries on it), but the fact that you always need a ‘pointer’ to be able to included in the formalism was precisely why the Labeling Principle was imposed, which defines this property. So, here in your metaphor, it seems very consistent with the view I have, and relied upon in the work, so I don’t quite follow why the metaphor is against the view expounded somehow. I agree with the metaphor, and it is the same as my view.
Hi Tag, I didn’t hear back from you so I suppose I can assume that my explanations were satisfactory and I had now resolved the qualms as previously raised. Thank you for your attention.