This to me just comes down to a difference in use of "explanation" in this case. I'm OK with saying something is so difficult to explain it's essentially unexplainable. That's dif than something being, on principle, unexplainable in terms of something else.
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Kolmogorov complexity theory perhaps most suited. Reminds me about a discussion I had some time ago with
@bradpwyble and others on ‘compression’ and whether it was necessary and/or sufficient fir explanation. Let me see if I can dig up that thread ... -
Here is an entry into that previous discussion: https://twitter.com/bradpwyble/status/969340304808693760?s=21 … Scroll up to see the OP.
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Oh yes that one. I agree with Grace btw, that it's possible even though perhaps incomputable, and that's a useful distinction to maintain.
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The distinction is useful, but question is if uncomputable ‘explanations’ are explanations in meanigful sense. Perhaps different word should be used for such relation: eg ‘reductive relation’, ‘implementability’ or ‘realizability’ (brainstorming here) instead of ‘explainable’.
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I think this distinction inevitability boils down to strong dualism vs materialism.
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You lost me. I proposed clearer terminology that respects the distiction, not dualistic ontology.
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What I meant was "Reduction is possible in theory even if completely incomputable" seems to boil down to "I believe that physical matter is responsible for mental phenomena".
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But I already said I’m a materialist. Not sure how agreeing on materialism helps. Clearly there is no agreement in this thread (and branches) on ‘explanation’ and ‘reduction’ while we are all presumably materialists.
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