When DD has us suppose that we create our own personal version/application of Conway's game of life, he has us start by stipulating the rules of transformation that function in this game like the laws of nature do in reality. But we don't stipulate the rules of logic: rather, such rules are a condition for the very possibility of consistency in and meaningfulness of the rules of transformation. If so, then there is no item, process or pattern that corresponds in any one-to-one way with these transcendental rules. How then, might a Conway-creature be constructed that would come to discover these rules? Trial and error? That would seem to be the only bottom-up way of making such a discovery. But that would at best give rise to a hunch. But our knowledge of the rules of logic is not just a bunch of hunches, is it? But if we are part of nature and nature is accurately represented by Conway's game of life, then we would not be able to attain more than hunches about these matters. Since we can do better than that, however, something in the antecedent has to give. Either we are not part of nature or Conway's game of life doesn't accurately represent nature. Or both.
It seems to me that a pragmatist would embrace the mere hunch option. It seems to me as well that such a move is a mistake: there is something top-down about human knowledge: naturalism is false.
On another note:
There is something godlike about playing Conway's game because there is something godlike about us, and that something would not be possible if DD were right.
It seems to me that a pragmatist would embrace the mere hunch option. It seems to me as well that such a move is a mistake: there is something top-down about human knowledge: naturalism is false.
On another note:
There is something godlike about playing Conway's game because there is something godlike about us, and that something would not be possible if DD were right.
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