our drummer has an amazing skill in arrhythmia
and what starts out as
a very standard minimalised four-on-the-floor dance beat
with very simple poppy screamlyrics
" i'm a bitch!
i'm a witch!
i make you itch!
i make you twitch! "
with the ghastly uncertain baritone accompaniment
" ian curtis twitch "
skips a beat
and then another
soonstumbling allupontself
" itchwitchwitch twitch! twitch! "
because it is so danceable
at first
any "crowd" (in a loose sense of the word)
starts dancing
its all about the control
and playing with them
stumbling
-+-+-+-
ian curtis had epilepsy
what he wrote on control
was viscerally influenced by this fact
the extent of our ability to control our surroundings
has often been associated
wih notions of choice and freedom
epileptics often feel "out of control"
even though no one else is exerting control over them
it is an internal imbalance
they do not want to seizure
they usually can want to move in ways and will it
but some chaotic dynamics deny
@@@@@@@@oo&&&&&&&&&
the mathematical theory of control
abstracts this into an ontology
with input and output variables
in classical physical models
the input variables are usually forces
and events or impulses we can act upon the system
in quantum physical models
the concept of force becomes more difficult to specify
and it is more common to specify the fields as the input
output in both cases results from some observation
_______/\**^---------
strangely
this same ontology can be placed on our epistemology
our input is our perception
and our output is our action schemas
marketing and propaganda theory has known for some time
that individuals are control systems
#^*^#^*^#^*^#
so what is the source of control?
whence choice?
there is no teleology here
actions still may be deterministic
yet
it is still possible to describe choice
looking at nonequilibrium thermodynamic process
a system is driven to organise dissipative structures
when it enters a nonlinear region
with attractors of form
forces or fields respond to environmental stimulus
according to basic principles of stability
the greater the flux of free energy
the furthur the system is pushed from equilibrium
and the more complicated
the attractor spaces in which it may evolve
because of the second-order principles of selection
autologic life is selected
for internal systems close to the boundary of chaos
because greater access to attractors
is greater access to possibilities in a fluctuating environment
attractors are selected and shaped for response
and the basic principles of stability construct
complicated principles of dynamics in a changing world
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
confusion in her eyes that says it all
she's lost control
and she's clinging to the nearest passerby
she's lost control again
and she gave away the secrets of her past and said
i've lost control again
and a voice who told her when and where and why she said
i've lost control again
and she turned around and took me by the hand and said
i've lost control again
and how i'll never know just why or understand she said
i've lost control again
and she screamed out kicking on her side and said
i've lost control again
and seized up on the floor, i thought she'd die she said
i've lost control again
she's lost control again
she's lost control
she's lost control again
she's lost control
and i had to phone her friend to state my case and say
she's lost control again
and she showed up all the errors and mistakes and said
i've lost control again
and she expressed herself in many different ways until
she lost control again
and walked upon the edge of no escape and laughed
i've lost control again
she's lost control again
she's lost control
she's lost control again
she's lost control...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
galathaea: prankster, fablist, magician, liar
I watched a person at work have an epileptic fit once. It was
horrible. Reading those lyrics brought back all of the horror. I'm
sure it's great art, though I hated reading it.
shameless self-promotion requires me to link my solo sampler
http://www.garageband.com/artist/galathaea
not quite the same noise-punk / noise-folk of my band
but still very erratic and unfocused as always
not really relevant to the mathematical or physical points raised
but let's face it
i'm a troll with nothing relevant to say anyways
you'll have to learn to filter me one of these days
tears for robert anton wilson
with the fucking internet
and fucking alt.fan.rawilson
and www.rawilson.com
and "instant communications"
i just found out a couple weeks after the fact
that will show me the fucking noise paradox
raw
the man everyone likes to quietly drop hints about liking
but does not want to risk their reputation in admitting
the leading intellectual crusader against fundamentalism
of the 20th century
dead
fuck
On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:55:05 -0800, gala...@veawb.coop (galathaea)
wrote:
If you had the balls, you'd become a home invader - you'd break into
people's homes, and threaten them with torture unless they gave you
all their money. But, since you have no balls, you make up an
invisible friend - the most powerful guy around - and tell people that
he'll torture them unless you give them all your money.
Unfortunately, your kind can too often find enough people, stupid or
gullible enough to believe them, to make a living at it.
This is not only a troll, it's a _forged_ troll, a _pseudotroll_.
And you followed it up.
Oh, well; what I said was worth reading on its own merits. As you
know, there are plenty of real people engaging in the same racket;
just turn on your TV set on a Sunday, if you don't believe me.
On 31 Jan 2007 10:50:05 -0800, "George Dance" <george...@yahoo.ca>
wrote:
Thanx for the .mp3 and it is added to my monstrous techno collection
of rythmic make you crazy hour long songs. Next you need to bust
convention and make a song longer than a cd can hold, the next wave.
Can you do it at one setting on one keyboard at once?
http://www.phazemp3.com/search.php?q=trance
> not quite the same noise-punk / noise-folk of my band
> but still very erratic and unfocused as always
>
> not really relevant to the mathematical or physical points raised
> but let's face it
> i'm a troll with nothing relevant to say anyways
>
> you'll have to learn to filter me one of these days
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> galathaea: prankster, fablist, magician, liar- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
She's come undone.
W ; )
If you have the first book in Wilson's first lluminatus Trilogy, /The
Eye in the Pyramid/, I'd ask you to read the first chapter in Part 2.
There's a pasage in there about dying that I wanted to send you, but I
checked my small library, and find I no longer have a copy of that
book. So I have to ask you to look it up for yourself, if you can,
and think of raw's death in that light.
I visited http://rawilson.com to see if I could find it; no luck. I
did, though, find this classic section, so I'll send it to you
instead, as (1) it's a favourite of mine which (2) it deals indirectly
with what you say above about information noise and control:
<quote>
Then I saw the fnords.
The feature story involved another of the endless squabbles between
[...] and the U.S. in the UN General Assembly, and after each direct
quote from the [...] delegate I read a quite distinct ``Fnord!'' The
second lead was about a debate in congress on getting the troops out
of [...]; every argument presented by Senator Bacon was followed by
another ``Fnord!'' At the bottom of the page was a Times depth-type
study of the growing pollution problem and the increasing use of gas
masks among New Yorkers; the most distressing chemical facts were
interpolated with more ``Fnords.''
Suddenly I saw Hagbard's eyes burning into me and heard his voice:
``Your heart will remain calm. Your adrenalin gland will remain calm.
Calm, all-over calm. You will not panic. you will look at the fnord
and see the it. You will not evade it or black it out. you will stay
calm and face it.'' And further back, way back: my first-grade teacher
writing FNORD on the blackboard, while a wheel with a spiral design
turned and turned on his desk, turned and turned, and his voice droned
on, IF YOU DON'T SEE THE FNORD IT CAN'T EAT YOU, DON'T SEE THE FNORD,
DON'T SEE THE FNORD . . .
I looked back at the paper and still saw the fnords. This was one step
beyond Pavlov, I realized. The first conditioned reflex was to
experience the panic reaction (the activation syndrome, it's
technically called) whenever encountering the word ``fnord.'' The
second conditioned reflex was to black out what happened, including
the word itself, and just to feel a general low-grade emergency
without knowing why. And the third step, of course, was to attribute
this anxiety to the news stories, which were bad enough in themselves
anyway. Of course, the essence of control is fear. The fnords produced
a whole population walking around in chronic low-grade emergency,
tormented by ulcers, dizzy spells, nightmares, heart palpitations and
all the other symptoms of too much adrenalin. All my left-wing
arrogance and contempt for my countrymen melted, and I felt a genuine
pity. No wonder the poor bastards believe anything they're told, walk
through pollution and overcrowding without complaining, watch their
son hauled off to endless wars and butchered, never protest, never
fight back, never show much happiness or eroticism or curiosity or
normal human emotion, live with perpetual tunnel vision, walk past a
slum without seeing either the human misery it contains or the
potential threat it poses to their security . . .
Then I got a hunch, and turned quickly to the advertisements. it was
as I expected: no fnords. That was part of the gimmick, too: only in
consumption, endless consumption, could they escape the amorphous
threat of the invisible .
</q>
http://hostgator.rawilson.com/illuminatus.shtml#fnord
input ----------------> output
transformation
process takes this universal form
when formalising process temporally
this fundamental system is often laplace transformed
and the three fundamental components
become functions over the signal domain
input(s)
output(s)
transformation(s) - aka the transfer function
in the linear regime these obey
transformation(s) = output(s) input(s)
a system of control becomes possible
when a subspace of the input space
is made dependent upon the output
through some feedback monitor
this can be graphically depicted as
/--->o---\
--->< >--->
\---o<---/
and if we put objects in the right places
this begins to look a lot like category theory
since all of this is compositional
we can build networks of control
and identify
in fact
we can algebraicise such constructions
into something like a pi calculus
and formalise process bisimulation inside the system
this allows for a purely mathematical description
of expectations and drives
without a need to introduce
goals or purposes or other teleological constructs
(i apologise if a similar message comes through
but google appears to have dropped an earlier submission
which i did not copy before sending...)
> in fact
> we can algebraicise such constructions
> into something like a pi calculus
> and formalise process bisimulation inside the system
>
> this allows for a purely mathematical description
> of expectations and drives
> without a need to introduce
> goals or purposes or other teleological constructs
Why do you want to eliminate teleological constructs?
In fact, you're just replacing one teleological construct with another.
purpose becomes absolute in teleology
etymologically
teleology derives from the greek root teleos
(and logos - "study of")
teleos is the generic perfection tense of telos
which is like a goal or end
and is generally interpreted as the final completion
or perfection
i don't trust fundamentalising abstractions
if there is one truth
and you think you know it
you can do whatever
you can convince yourself agrees with that truth
and we are very good at convincing ourselves of things
the more one believes they are right
the greater their ability to be assholes
his arm was her leg
> In fact, you're just replacing one teleological construct with another.
actually
i'm a liar
i only have tendencies to destroy purpose
morality can function with only tendencies
-+- it can still move -+-
there can still be branching
and exploring
our ancient tendrilmind twitching along various pathways
taking our chances in possibility
that learning is still possible
without an ultimate cause or final destination
**********########!..
a model of ethics and morality dynamics
needs to model experience if it is to be a science
its ontology must arise in experience
as something that can be commonly manipulated
by two agents in moral interaction
if it contradicts other likely models
in experienced prediction
there is a test to decide preferentiality of models
( preferentiality for use in _that_ particular experience
and possible abstractions
but not necessarily in other realms of experience )
most ethics have a ontology of "free choice" or "freewill"
and this is fundamental to their specification
many of these ethics
are formulated in the context of rights of some form
which are protections of freedom of action
although i may agree with much that these may offer
i do not feel this is a stable place to base ethics
we may be determined
stochastic models are possible
choice models are possible
but we may be determined
and maintaining a definition of "freedom"
that relates to testable experience seem difficult here
( yes i am aware of the standard responses here
but note my insistence for observability here )
i don't thinks it's necessary to found an ethics on freedom either
i think tendencies
and learning
and healthy action
form an anarchist ethos
uncommitted to fundamentalising abstractions
epistemological anarchists like paul feyerabend
have argued that this is still a possible foundation for science
and i think
now
with our modern models of autocorrelation
self-organisation in the presence of free energy
learning in distributed systems
evolution
i believe one can show it is possible
to build an ethics free of fundamentalising abstraction
-*-*- /*-*\ -*u*-
we will probably always be surprised by our interactions
we likely will never build a perfect bisimulation
or have perfect prediction
so if we rely on one model exclusively
we are likely to fail
at least from past experience
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> teleos is the generic perfection tense of telos
> which is like a goal or end
> and is generally interpreted as the final completion
> or perfection
Any goal or end is a telos. There is no presumption of finality or
perfection, except perhaps in Thomistic ethics. You are assuming those
without warrant, as with "absolute."
Very interesting post though, g. (as usual). More comments on some of your
other points tomorrow (I actually agree with much of it).
Seconded. It's like the old days when sometimes people would
actually write something interesting on Usenet now and then.
>> In fact, you're just replacing one teleological construct with another.
>
> actually
> i'm a liar
>
> i only have tendencies to destroy purpose
>
> morality can function with only tendencies
Depends upon what you mean by "morality." Theories (models) of behavior may
behave probabilistically, but those are not moralities. They are sociology.
Moral theories are *prescriptive*. For that you need you need a deductive
model, from which conclusions (imperatives) can be rigorously drawn from
premises. So you begin with a descriptive model and then idealize it into a
deductive structure.
> -+- it can still move -+-
Heh. A nod to Galileo?
> a model of ethics and morality dynamics
> needs to model experience if it is to be a science
It does, but it also needs to idealize that experience.
> its ontology must arise in experience
> as something that can be commonly manipulated
> by two agents in moral interaction
No, the ontology will be constructed via the theory, as usual. Agents then
apply the (idealized) theory to the empirical situation, to obtain the
applicable set of imperatives for the interaction. Just as a builder applies
the theorems of an idealized theory (Euclidean Geometry) to the parameters
of a planned building, to obtain the neccessary number of bricks and roofing
shingles.
But taking interactions between two agents as the basic datum is the right
focus. What moral theory does is give those agents a means of maximizing the
returns from their interaction.
> if it contradicts other likely models
> in experienced prediction
> there is a test to decide preferentiality of models
> ( preferentiality for use in _that_ particular experience
> and possible abstractions
> but not necessarily in other realms of experience )
That would be a useless tool. The agents need to bring their imperatives
with them to the interaction. The time to test models is before they are
needed by acting agents.
> most ethics have a ontology of "free choice" or "freewill"
> and this is fundamental to their specification
Yes. All moral theories presuppose free will.
> many of these ethics
> are formulated in the context of rights of some form
> which are protections of freedom of action
Yes.
> although i may agree with much that these may offer
> i do not feel this is a stable place to base ethics
>
> we may be determined
If we are determined then there is no need for ethics. Fortunately, it is
easy to show that human behavior is not determined (though it may be
causal). It is not determined because it is not predictable, just as
weather, though causal, is unpredictable. IOW, human behavior is not
"metaphysically deterministic." And that is the only sense of determinism
incompatible with ethics.
> and maintaining a definition of "freedom"
> that relates to testable experience seem difficult here
> ( yes i am aware of the standard responses here
> but note my insistence for observability here )
>
> i don't thinks it's necessary to found an ethics on freedom either
Defining "freedom" for purposes of ethical theory is not difficult. But a
(sound) ethical theory is not *founded* on freedom.
> i think tendencies
> and learning
> and healthy action
> form an anarchist ethos
> uncommitted to fundamentalising abstractions
We are back to our previous discussion. :-) If you don't have both
abstractions and axioms, you don't have a theory.
> i believe one can show it is possible
> to build an ethics free of fundamentalising abstraction
You could at best build a sociology.
that is a long chapter!
i did find several relevant passages
( and a lovely talk to the chief )
but maybe the most relevant:
(the fourth trip, or chesed p 210):
" 'It's sick,' said George. 'And putting the woman inside the
apple so I couldn't have any kind of personal sex with her,
so I had to use her as a receptacle, as an _object_. You
made it pornographic. And saddistic pornography at that.'
'Dig, George,' said Hagbard. 'Though art that. If there were
no death, there would be no sex. If there were no sex,
there would be no death. And without sex, there would be
no evolution towards intelligence, no human race.
Therefore death is necessary. Death is the price of the
orgasm.'"
growth requires death
in an ecosystem with constant free energy flux
( or average constant yearly )
this equality is strict
raw is very ontological and
understands the nature of process
in modern scientific models
and he always seems to orchestrate the poetry
just right
in ( the new inquisition, p228 )
he wrote 20 years ago:
" Every 'Real' Universe is _easy_to_understand_, because
it is much simpler than the existensial continuum.
Theists, Nazis, Flat Earthers, etc. can explain their
'Real' Universes as quickly as any Fundamentalist
Materialist explains his, because of this _simplicity_ of
the edited object as contrasted with the _complexity_
of the sensory-sensual system continuum in which we
live when awak (unhypnotised).
Being hypnotised by a 'Real' Universe, we become more
and more detached from the existential continuum, and
are annoyed when it interferes with us.
'Real' Universes make us puny, however, becaused they
are governed by Hard Laws and we are small compared
to them. This is especially true of the Fundamentalist
Materialist 'Real' Universes, and explains the helplessness
and apathy of materialist society. Vaguely, we know
that we are hypnotised, and we do not even try to act
anymore, but only re-act mechanically.
Since the criminal mentality derives from such hypnosis
by a 'Real' Universe and the _helplessness_ and _rage_
induced by such metaphors, the criminal becomes,
more and more, the typical person in our age. When
the 'Real' Universes get politicised - when the hypnotic
model is based on 'Us' versus 'Them' Aristotelian logic -
the criminal graduates to Terrorist, another increasingly
typical product of the materialist era. "
> I visitedhttp://rawilson.comto see if I could find it; no luck. I
he was brilliant in so many directions
he also had a fatal love for his wife
and i know she had recently died
it was like william burroughs
after alan ginsberg died
you knew he had lost the thing he loved above all
and didn't need to stay much longer
he was often informationist
and probably felt he had planted his program
but its still hard to feel this constant source of understanding
dead
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
the classic distinction of ethics and morality
that ethics are the universal laws of ought
and morality the evaluation of the individual
translates in a control model without teleology
the ethic is the control on a system
the ability to affect an outcome
and the morality is the dynamics
so when it is asked
what makes a morality possible
it is easy to answer without teleology
change makes morality possible
evaluation makes morality possible
tendencies allow dynamics
removing an absolute endpoint
do this forever it is good
does not mean the abandonment of striving
it is not the end of hope or happiness or desire
it just allows you to learn
and adapt
as new information arrives
>
> > a model of ethics and morality dynamics
> > needs to model experience if it is to be a science
>
> It does, but it also needs to idealize that experience.
no permanance or absolute is necessary
take that as the absolute truth!
> > its ontology must arise in experience
> > as something that can be commonly manipulated
> > by two agents in moral interaction
>
> No, the ontology will be constructed via the theory, as usual. Agents then
> apply the (idealized) theory to the empirical situation, to obtain the
> applicable set of imperatives for the interaction. Just as a builder applies
> the theorems of an idealized theory (Euclidean Geometry) to the parameters
> of a planned building, to obtain the neccessary number of bricks and roofing
> shingles.
i believe this to be a poor software architecture
found in some of the more procedural models in the literature
i call it a poor architecture
because it is very inflexible to change
and does not model biological agents
whose theories adapt as they learn
i believe an event-driven architecture
mutating central state machines
provides a cleaner definition of language
in this model
the event interface of the statemachines provides the language
this can be made to adapt
like biological language faculties
i am saying that adaptive agents
must modify any initial model they are given
through learning algorithms
nonadaptive agents i would simply call bots
> But taking interactions between two agents as the basic datum is the right
> focus. What moral theory does is give those agents a means of maximizing the
> returns from their interaction.
and this a great example
because it defines goals
in terms of the dynamics
and lacks teleology
it is a morality to affect forces
over an optimal path
in some scientific metric of health
> > if it contradicts other likely models
> > in experienced prediction
> > there is a test to decide preferentiality of models
> > ( preferentiality for use in _that_ particular experience
> > and possible abstractions
> > but not necessarily in other realms of experience )
>
> That would be a useless tool. The agents need to bring their imperatives
> with them to the interaction. The time to test models is before they are
> needed by acting agents.
i think we are discussing different things here
these agents i am a describing a model of
must be fallible
because they must model me
i am looking for ethical models of me
that can learn
and adapt
and get better at things it learns as healthy
this agent must lack teleology
because i cannot pretend to tell it what it ought do
when i myself do not know with any certainty
a little squishy agent with big cute eyes
and an existentialist grok of its inherent absurdity
> > most ethics have a ontology of "free choice" or "freewill"
> > and this is fundamental to their specification
>
> Yes. All moral theories presuppose free will.
learning how to solve conflicting dynamics
to persist in a given environment
is still presented as a task for living systems
a model still needs to be developed of the dynamics
in order to predict
for me
this is to be my moral theory
whether i have freedom or not
and if you have many of them
and don't mind considering new possibilities as they arise
and don't mind that some of the models may contradict each other
and try to apply the most useful of tools
then yes
i agree
but if it is believed one ubermodel must always be specified
this probably contradicts my many drives
and would not be useful to me in this manner
> > i believe one can show it is possible
> > to build an ethics free of fundamentalising abstraction
>
> You could at best build a sociology.
description for prediction gets me there