Sick of the PI debate let's try another angle
Tony Suessine
Tony Suessine wrote in message ...
Oops, given the parameters stated in the first paragraph,
the "not good" example in the second paragraph is an
insult to the intelligence of most everyone on this newsgroup.
retracting the 2nd paragraph if I haven't already been flamed (:
Tony
Tony Suessine
(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
God, Aliens doesn't matter)
Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
I'll give an example of what shouldn't count since I'm starting this
thread. A message encoded in our DNA. No good since mankind
could probably do this in the not too distant future. It is only evidence
that we were created by a technologically advanced race. I want
evidence of a godlike "race" that can alter/create the laws of the
universe itself.
Any ideas? I'm stumped.
Tony
Zunu News
<asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>
>Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
>you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
>i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
>couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
Not exactly mathematical, but if I died and woke up in heaven, hell,
nirvana, purgatory, etc., that would probably convince me.
>I'll give an example of what shouldn't count since I'm starting this
>thread. A message encoded in our DNA. No good since mankind
>could probably do this in the not too distant future. It is only evidence
>that we were created by a technologically advanced race.
Frankly, I don't really see what's the difference between a
sufficiently advanced alien and "God". Isn't God just a really
powerful alien who created a universe in his basement lab?
>I want
>evidence of a godlike "race" that can alter/create the laws of the
>universe itself.
If we looked up at the sky and the stars showed the entire solar
system was in a different part of the universe, that would pretty
clearly demonstrate to me that we were at the whim of a godlike power.
Or if the moon looked all wobbly like a soap bubble and if the clouds
were a nice shade of cotton candy blue and if the sun had swirly
colors like a big lollipop.
>Any ideas? I'm stumped.
How about if you heard a voice that said "Behold! I am God!" And
then things suddenly started going backwards in time really fast --
flowers turn into sprouts and the sun moves through the sky about once
a second like one of those artsy college films with a Philip Glass
soundtrack.
And then you look up and there's a big Godlike face peering down
imperiously at you from the heavens, and somehow you know that that
face belongs to John S. Novak III even though you've never seen him
before. And the eyes seem to follow you everywhere. And they are
like coals of fire, and his hair is like lamb's wool, and his sinews
are of burnished copper and behind him is the heavenly host with
myriads of angels all dressed for battle!
And the earth cracks open, and out of the depths swarm millions of
slithery things of pure evil, their rank smell nigh overpowering. You
cannot see them directly, but their shadows taunt you from the corners
of your eyes.
And then you put down that crack pipe and you swear never to inhale
another controlled substance, ever. Or read anything by Stephen R.
Donaldson.
Oh, BTW, ObSF: Phil K. Dick. Take your pick.
--
|| ne...@zuME.nu || To reply, take "ME" out!
||-----------------------------------------------------
|| Hidden talent counts for nothing -- Nero
Tony Suessine
Joshua P. Hill wrote in message ...
>How realistic are you trying to be? I mean, there are lots of
>possibilities if you want to play loose with it. How about a big box
>somewhere that has new stars coming out?
>
I just was tired of the lets prove the negative (although I
did agree with the negative). Realistic of course!! Ok
I will go out on a limb here and get shot down. I started this
thread so I guess I get burnt first. A pattern is discovered in
the creation of virtual particle pairs. (Pick your time unit). First
pair created at time 1 in cubic (pick your volume unit) ...
anyways the rest of the pattern follows ... Particles created at
1,2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23 up to prime number X and then repeats.
Since IMHO this would not be a probable result, could this be
evidence of a message. Let's up the ante. At the end of every series
is an apparent random number. String them together and they are
PI in base two (I love binary). Would this convince anyone?
Tony
Tony Suessine
Zunu News wrote in message ...
>How about if you heard a voice that said "Behold! I am God!" And
>then things suddenly started going backwards in time really fast --
>flowers turn into sprouts and the sun moves through the sky about once
>a second like one of those artsy college films with a Philip Glass
>soundtrack.
>
>And then you look up and there's a big Godlike face peering down
>imperiously at you from the heavens, and somehow you know that that
>face belongs to John S. Novak III even though you've never seen him
>before. And the eyes seem to follow you everywhere. And they are
>like coals of fire, and his hair is like lamb's wool, and his sinews
>are of burnished copper and behind him is the heavenly host with
>myriads of angels all dressed for battle!
>
>And the earth cracks open, and out of the depths swarm millions of
>slithery things of pure evil, their rank smell nigh overpowering. You
>cannot see them directly, but their shadows taunt you from the corners
>of your eyes.
>
>And then you put down that crack pipe and you swear never to inhale
>another controlled substance, ever. Or read anything by Stephen R.
>Donaldson.
Don't know about S. Donaldson but how did you find out about my
crack use. Was it from the guy who sold me weed or the guy
who sold me the LSD. No wait it was the guy who prescibes the
Prozac wasn't it?
Tony
Tony Suessine
Tony Suessine wrote in message ...
>
>crack use. Was it from the guy who sold me weed or the guy
>who sold me the LSD. No wait it was the guy who prescibes the
>Prozac wasn't it?
Please ignore. My therapist say my rantings are due to reading
AI Heaven every week or two.
Tony
Hop David
Tony Suessine wrote:
> I want
> evidence of a godlike "race" that can alter/create the laws of the
> universe itself.
>
> Any ideas? I'm stumped.
>
> Tony
Creation of matter?
Hop
Aaron Bergman
>I just was tired of the lets prove the negative (although I
>did agree with the negative). Realistic of course!! Ok
>I will go out on a limb here and get shot down. I started this
>thread so I guess I get burnt first. A pattern is discovered in
>the creation of virtual particle pairs.
This really doesn't make sense. One cannot really talk about
numbers of virtual particles.
Aaron
--
Aaron Bergman
<http://www.princeton.edu/~abergman/>
Aaron Bergman
>
>Aaron Bergman wrote in message ...
>>This really doesn't make sense. One cannot really talk about
>>numbers of virtual particles.
>
>I have been under the impression that particle/anti-particle
>pairs are always being create/annilated. I was just pointing
>to a detectable frequency in their creation.
This is sort of a way of thinking about Quantum Field Theory, but
I wouldn't take it too literally.
Tony Suessine
Aaron Bergman wrote in message ...
>This really doesn't make sense. One cannot really talk about
>numbers of virtual particles.
Maybe I stated it wrong but hey I expected to be "flamed" (:
I have been under the impression that particle/anti-particle
pairs are always being create/annilated. I was just pointing
to a detectable frequency in their creation.
Tony
William Clifford
<asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>
>Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
>you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
>i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
>couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
Are you sure you want this as a condition? Any evidence that a given
diety could give us for his/her/their existence could certainly be
forged by other godlike entities. How could we possibly tell the
difference between God and a Godlike fake?
-William Clifford
John Schilling
I think he is trying to make a distinction between "merely" ultra-advanced
tecnology and literal, theological omnipotence. At least in the abstract
this is a distinction worth making. A basic taxonomy:
Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
anything within the framework of natural, physical law.
Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to order. Probably created
this universe and wrote its physical law in the first
place.
Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
Whether or not Type II/III Gods even *can* exist is of course questionable,
but we need to be clear on what we are talking about.
As far as convincing evidence is concerned, Sagan's suggestion of messages
encoded in basic mathematical constants might work, modulo concerns about
implementation and statistical ambiguity. But if the value of pi or e or
radical 2 has been unambiguously written to order, there's a Type III God
at work.
For a Type II God, use the same mechanism but with dimensionless physical
constants like the fine-structure constant or the electron/proton mass ratio.
Type I Gods can just perform suitably impressive physical feats. Set up
a wormhole transit system to dump a couple hundred blue-white supergiants
into a constellation ten light-years out spelling "Yes, Earthlings, I Exist".
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Brooks Moses
> It really is getting kind of hard to fit a creator into the picture,
> because She would either have had to work pretty damn hard to disguise
> Her handiwork or settle on some basic laws and let the universe take
> care of itself. I suppose you could work with the former scenario--the
> universe could be a zoo cage, with the equivalent of concrete rocks
> and trees--but that's a very old idea.
(Randomly attaching my response here....)
I think what would be fairly conclusive would be some sort of
mathematicophysical proof that the human mind and consciousness could
not be accounted for by any laws of physics that resemble what we know
about the rest of the universe....
- Brooks
Brooks Moses
> On 14 Sep 1999 10:46:39 -0700, schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling)
> wrote:
> > Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
> > maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
> > same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
> >As far as convincing evidence is concerned, Sagan's suggestion of messages
> >encoded in basic mathematical constants might work, modulo concerns about
> >implementation and statistical ambiguity. But if the value of pi or e or
> >radical 2 has been unambiguously written to order, there's a Type III God
> >at work.
> I love your analysis, but no matter how correlated one's sample,
> there's no way to prove that an infinite number of digits isn't
> random, unless you have the rule that generated them--in which case
> they wouldn't require a Type III God.
Eh, not necessarily. Suppose that it was found that, in some decoding
scheme, the base-7 expansion of the square root of (say) 144000
corresponded to words in ancient Hebrew. More specifically, legible
ancient Hebrew sentences that made semantic sense, at least insofar as
what had been humanly read. As far as mathematical proof, it was found
that this continued as far out as one wanted to take it -- the number
decoded into properly spelled Hebrew words.
Now, to the extent that you could prove this pattern continued, you'd
have found that the digits were in some limited way not random -- or, at
the very least, non-normal in a manner which has no connection
whatsoever to numbers at all. On the other hand, this would not at all
be having the rule that generated them.
Of course, there's always the possiblity that this could be explained by
an immensely clever Type I god who noticed a non-normality in this
particular set of numbers, and created the entirety of the Hebrew
language and a lot of other more fundamental bits about language in
general specifically so that this would decode into something sensible.
But, the likelihood of that being plausible becomes smaller and smaller
the further into the number you go and still get semanticly sensible
sentences.
Which is what it all boils down to, anyway -- in pretty much any of
these cases, you'd have something that logically appeared incredibly
highly unlikely, yet not completely provably non-random, coupled with a
humanities-based realization that sort of transcended the logic.
Now, what might make an interesting story would be if a such a message
was found, but it about 37 volumes in, explicitly stated that it was
simply a random construction of number theory, and was not at all put
there as a message from a diety. And then proceeded to put forth a
significantly good argument for why such was the case.... But I
digress.
- Brooks
Brooks Moses
> would it prove the existence of God as opposed to the metaphysical
> nature of thought?
Um, right. It wouldn't, exactly. But I think that proving the
metaphysical nature of thought would at least be a step in the "right"
direction, and would make the idea of a God a lot more plausible and
probably easier to demonstrate.... Note the "I think" -- that's mainly
just personal opinion, based largely on my personal beliefs about the
nature of God. :)
- Brooks
Tony Suessine
Roger Carbol wrote in message <8E41576BDrcarbol@news>...
>Tony Suessine <asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>
>> Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>> (totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>> God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>
>
I don't think so anyways if you think so disregard the word...
What I wanted was to have the PI debate mixed up a bit
by speculating what might convince them. The "anti" crowd
seemed to be more meticulous in their arguments and I wanted
to see what they could do on the other side.
Tony
Brooks Moses
> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 15:55:14 -0700, Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> >Eh, not necessarily. Suppose that it was found that, in some decoding
> >scheme, the base-7 expansion of the square root of (say) 144000
> >corresponded to words in ancient Hebrew. More specifically, legible
> >ancient Hebrew sentences that made semantic sense, at least insofar as
> >what had been humanly read. As far as mathematical proof, it was found
> >that this continued as far out as one wanted to take it -- the number
> >decoded into properly spelled Hebrew words.
>
> generates the number. This does not prove the existence of a Type III
> God, because a Type II God could have written the rule that way.
Well, that depends on whether the rule that generates the number is a
physical law or something derivable from basic logic. As I understand
the terminology, it would take a Type III god to write the square root
of 144000 in some specific way.
> Scenario B--it can't be proved that the sequence results from the rule
> that generates the number. In that case, there's no way to demonstrate
> that the sequence is anything more than random chance, no matter how
> many observations one makes. Once again, it doesn't require a Type III
> God.
Well, yes. I wasn't really doubting that. I think there's a point
where it makes a lot more sense to believe in a intentional creation of
the number's pattern by a diety than to believe in something of the sort
happening by a chance that's on the verge of nonexistent.
In other words, if I rolled a 128-sided die thirty-seven thousand times,
translated the results into ASCII text, and obtained a play by
Shakespeare and a well-written original critique of the play, then I
would find it a lot easier to believe that somebody or some "diety" was
playing with my die, rather than that it occurred by random chance --
even if I was completely certain there was no way to explain the
interference by known physical laws. The fact that I can't _prove_ it
wasn't random chance is somewhat irrelevant to that belief.
> >Now, to the extent that you could prove this pattern continued, you'd
> >have found that the digits were in some limited way not random -- or, at
> >the very least, non-normal in a manner which has no connection
> >whatsoever to numbers at all. On the other hand, this would not at all
> >be having the rule that generated them.
>
> How could one generate the digits without a rule? And if one merely
> detected them somehow--the results of some kind of measurement, for
> example--one couldn't make the proof.
Well, ok, so I was unclear. Mainly by not using "random" correctly --
obviously the digits are non-random, because I was talking about a
number derived from number theory. What I meant was that, aside from
that rule and things that logically followed from it, they ought to
appear random -- any pattern that we found in them should be a clear
result of the rule used to create them. But, if we found some other
complex pattern which demonstrably didn't have anything to do with the
rule that we used to generate the numbers (an example of the complex
pattern would be encoded meaningful sentences), and the digits also fit
that pattern, then something unusual is going on.
Er, I mean "what I now mean", not "what I meant" -- my thoughts are
fuzzy and changing on this topic. :)
But I do think that a relevant point is that the original question was
"What would you consider a convincing argument", not, "What would you
consider a logical proof" of the existence of a diety (or something
indistinguishable from such). I don't think the questions are the same
-- and if you do, are you honestly prepared to swear that if you rolled
a 128-sided die thirty-seven thousand times and get ASCII codes of a
play and a critical analysis, that you would chalk it up to random
chance when you can't find a physical explaination for that anomaly? :)
- Brooks
Hop David
"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
> But the notion of a theistic God makes
> me uncomfortable, as does the notion that there's something
> priviledged about thought or consciousness, which strikes me as too
> geocentric.
>
> Josh
If there are other races in the universe, presumably they'd think and have
consciousness. I don't see why these things should be just limited to the
earth. Why would the notion that consciousness is privileged be geocentric?
Regards,
Hop
Hop David
John Schilling wrote:
> I think he is trying to make a distinction between "merely" ultra-advanced
> tecnology and literal, theological omnipotence. At least in the abstract
> this is a distinction worth making. A basic taxonomy:
>
> Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
> anything within the framework of natural, physical law.
>
> Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to order. Probably created
> this universe and wrote its physical law in the first
> place.
>
> Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
> maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
> same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
>
I could see less than a Type I God: A race that couldn't do absolutely anything
within the framework of natural, physical law, but could do a heck of a lot
more than us. Maybe call these Type .707 or .618 Gods (sorry, I don't like
roman numerals)
Just a few millenia ago powers such as instantly obliterating cities or seeing
things from very far away were considered God like powers. Now modern man has
powers comparable to those held by early pantheons (Odin, Zuess, et al). Maybe
the ancient Greeks would regard _us_ as Type .75 Gods.
Hop
Brooks Moses
>
> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 19:29:17 -0700, Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >Well, that depends on whether the rule that generates the number is a
> >physical law or something derivable from basic logic. As I understand
> >the terminology, it would take a Type III god to write the square root
> >of 144000 in some specific way.
>
> rewrite physical law to order" to embody mathematical law. Schism!
I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
My understanding is that a Type II god could rewrite things like
relativity and gravity -- i.e. stuff that's a property of the physical
universe and wouldn't require logic itself to be violated in order to be
true.
[...]
> >In other words, if I rolled a 128-sided die thirty-seven thousand times,
> >translated the results into ASCII text, and obtained a play by
> >Shakespeare and a well-written original critique of the play, then I
> >would find it a lot easier to believe that somebody or some "diety" was
> >playing with my die, rather than that it occurred by random chance --
> >even if I was completely certain there was no way to explain the
> >interference by known physical laws. The fact that I can't _prove_ it
> >wasn't random chance is somewhat irrelevant to that belief.
>
> I agree. This conversation isn't any fun at all! <g>
LOL! :)
Don't you just hate it when that happens? You get all fired up for a
debate, and find out that you agree.... How utterly horrid. ;)
A random possibly interesting point is that, while I do believe in God,
I really don't expect to find any such messages -- I pretty much expect
God to restrict godself to acting as a Type I god, despite having a
capability not to. (I'm not sure on the Type II / Type III bit -- I'd
be a bit clearer if I had a concept of what it would actually mean to
alter the rules of logic!) This raises some obvious issues with also
believing in the resurrection literally....
- Brooks
Blaine Manyluk
<RqHdNz+B9qRqkm9XOWHoLJwZ7=l...@4ax.com>...
> Frankly, I don't really see what's the difference between a
> sufficiently advanced alien and "God". Isn't God just a really
> powerful alien who created a universe in his basement lab?
God *is* an alien, by definition. God is not Human, and not from
Earth (or anywhere else in this physical space-time).
======================================================================
[To reply, remove the S's from my address, and change the R's to N's.]
William Clifford
[context preserved below]
It still seems to me that a Type I God could convincingly spoof for us
mere mortals the effects we would expect of the other two kinds.
Consider: it would be a bad, bad, bad idea to ask a Type II God to
rewrite physical laws for us. We evolved under the physical conditions
that we know a love right now. If the least of those gets pushed up or
down a little we could find ourselves in a lot of trouble. Trouble
breathing, trouble keeping the atoms together...
A Type III God could keep us safe in a bubble of physical paradox.
I'm not sure how a GII could keep us safe. If it seems that there be a
limit in how well we could observe events outside our bubble, where
the rules are different.
A GI could use special effects to mimic the effects of a GIII or some
fast talk to convince us of its GII limitations.
None of these types of God are really obligated to prove anything to
we mere mortals. They could probably bribe us for our worship much
cheaper than 'prove' it through the elaborate tests we devise here.
If, for some unfathomable reason, it's really necessary for a given
unbeliever to be convinced the God in question could just rewrite the
individual's brain until they did.
On 14 Sep 1999 10:46:39 -0700, schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling)
wrote:
>wo...@yahoo.com (William Clifford) writes:
>>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:10:30 -0400, "Tony Suessine"
>><asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>>>Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>>>(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>>>God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>>>Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
>>>you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
>>>i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
>>>couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
>>Are you sure you want this as a condition? Any evidence that a given
>>diety could give us for his/her/their existence could certainly be
>>forged by other godlike entities. How could we possibly tell the
>>difference between God and a Godlike fake?
>
>I think he is trying to make a distinction between "merely" ultra-advanced
>tecnology and literal, theological omnipotence. At least in the abstract
>this is a distinction worth making. A basic taxonomy:
>
> Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
> anything within the framework of natural, physical law.
>
> Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to order. Probably created
> this universe and wrote its physical law in the first
> place.
>
> Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
> maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
> same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
>
>Whether or not Type II/III Gods even *can* exist is of course questionable,
>but we need to be clear on what we are talking about.
>
>
>As far as convincing evidence is concerned, Sagan's suggestion of messages
>encoded in basic mathematical constants might work, modulo concerns about
>implementation and statistical ambiguity. But if the value of pi or e or
>radical 2 has been unambiguously written to order, there's a Type III God
>at work.
>
>For a Type II God, use the same mechanism but with dimensionless physical
>constants like the fine-structure constant or the electron/proton mass ratio.
>
>Type I Gods can just perform suitably impressive physical feats. Set up
>a wormhole transit system to dump a couple hundred blue-white supergiants
>into a constellation ten light-years out spelling "Yes, Earthlings, I Exist".
-William Clifford
Riboflavin
>I could see less than a Type I God: A race that couldn't do absolutely
anything
>within the framework of natural, physical law, but could do a heck of a lot
>more than us. Maybe call these Type .707 or .618 Gods (sorry, I don't like
>roman numerals)
What, you don't like using .VII as notation? Or maybe VII/X?
--
Kevin Allegood ribotr...@mindspring.pants.com
Remove the pants from my email address to reply
"I am convinced people who worry about spelling and punctuation
on the net fold their underwear before they have sex. It's just got to be."
- Bunboy
Riboflavin
>Zunu News <ne...@zuME.nu> wrote in article
><RqHdNz+B9qRqkm9XOWHoLJwZ7=l...@4ax.com>...
>
>> Frankly, I don't really see what's the difference between a
>> sufficiently advanced alien and "God". Isn't God just a really
>> powerful alien who created a universe in his basement lab?
>
>God *is* an alien, by definition. God is not Human, and not from
>Earth (or anywhere else in this physical space-time).
A court in Florida dealt with a lawsuit by a man who wanted to sue Satan for
the damages old scratch had done to his life dismissed it on the grounds
that the defendant did not reside within any area over which the court had
jurisdiction, thus invalidating the lawsuit.
Erik Max Francis
> Hop David wrote in message
> <37DF0BFD...@tabletoptelephone.com>...
>
> >I could see less than a Type I God: A race that couldn't do
> > absolutely anything
> >within the framework of natural, physical law, but could do a heck of
> > a lot
> >more than us. Maybe call these Type .707 or .618 Gods (sorry, I
> > don't like
> >roman numerals)
>
> What, you don't like using .VII as notation? Or maybe VII/X?
I'd suggest (I/II)^(I/II) or [V^(I/II) - I]/II.
Then again, three significant figures isn't much to go on.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA | languages en, eo | icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
USA | Wed 1999 Sep 15 (16%/949) | &tSftDotIotE
__
/ \ Man is a hating rather than a loving animal.
\__/ Rebecca West
Zunu News
wrote:
>I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
>was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
>mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
>from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
I'm not clear on this 1+1 =1 thing. I mean, 1+1=2 because we define
it to be that way as an axiom of mathematics. It's true, mathematics
can be used to model the universe, but out in the real universe, for
some things, 1+1 =2, sometimes 1+1= 1.9883, sometimes 1+1=0, sometimes
1+1 = 3, and sometimes you can't add things at all.
We choose 1+1 = 2 as our math because we've decided that that
formulation suits our purposes more often than not.
So in order for a type III God to make 1+1=1, he'd have to change our
minds, that's all. And a type I God can do that, no big deal.
John Schilling
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>> I think we're interpreting our type II Gods differently. I took "Can
>> rewrite physical law to order" to embody mathematical law. Schism!
I think we're going to have to burn you at the stake now... :-)
>I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
>was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
>mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
>from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
>My understanding is that a Type II god could rewrite things like
>relativity and gravity -- i.e. stuff that's a property of the physical
>universe and wouldn't require logic itself to be violated in order to be
>true.
That was the intention I had when I came up with the taxonomy. There's
no logical or mathematical reason that the electron-proton mass ratio
has to be 1836.152701..., we just empirically observe that it is. It
is therefore concievable that there might be an entity which can change
that.
Pure mathematics and logic are an entirely different matter, and the
entity that can change the value of pi and e and 1+1+1 is an entirely
different order than the one which can "merely" change Mp/Me.
Brooks Moses
> Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu> writes:
> >I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
> >was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
> >mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
> >from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
> That was the intention I had when I came up with the taxonomy. There's
> no logical or mathematical reason that the electron-proton mass ratio
> has to be 1836.152701..., we just empirically observe that it is. It
> is therefore concievable that there might be an entity which can change
> that.
>
> Pure mathematics and logic are an entirely different matter, and the
> entity that can change the value of pi and e and 1+1+1 is an entirely
> different order than the one which can "merely" change Mp/Me.
Which raises the question of what exactly it means to change that. I
can pretty easily conceptualize what it means to change the mass ratio
of electrons and protons. With more effort, I can even conceptualize
what it would mean to have mass/energy nonconservative -- that's still a
Type II change.
I simply cannot visualize what it would mean to have logic itself
changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
there?)
- Brooks
John Schilling
>John Schilling wrote:
>> That was the intention I had when I came up with the taxonomy. There's
>> no logical or mathematical reason that the electron-proton mass ratio
>> has to be 1836.152701..., we just empirically observe that it is. It
>> is therefore concievable that there might be an entity which can change
>> that.
>>
>> Pure mathematics and logic are an entirely different matter, and the
>> entity that can change the value of pi and e and 1+1+1 is an entirely
>> different order than the one which can "merely" change Mp/Me.
>Which raises the question of what exactly it means to change that. I
>can pretty easily conceptualize what it means to change the mass ratio
>of electrons and protons. With more effort, I can even conceptualize
>what it would mean to have mass/energy nonconservative -- that's still a
>Type II change.
>I simply cannot visualize what it would mean to have logic itself
>changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
>I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
>and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
>my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
>three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
>individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
>count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
>there?)
Yep, that's type III Godlike Omnipotence at work.
Note, of course, that if a Type III God choses to set things up that way
to begin with, it will make perfect logical sense because it will be
perfectly logical. And we'd be discussing the absurdity of hypothetical
Type III Gods setting things up such that two apples plus two apples
adds up to four apples.
And, as noted earlier, I'm making no claims as to even the possibility
of a Type III God actually existing, just proposing the label for
discussion. Type III Gods certainly figure into a lot of theological
debate - orthodox Christianity pretty much rejects any Type I or II
interpretation of the Trinity, for example - so the need is there.
Zunu News
[This is from a thread originating in rec.arts.sf.science, regarding
the potential powers of a Supreme type being I have added
talk.philosophy.misc and sci.logic because they seem to be relevant to
this discussion. I would recommend perusing the entire thread,
particularly John Schilling's excellent post,
7rm1lv$8ru$1...@spock.usc.edu, wherein he discusses three increasingly
powerful types of Gods.]
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:07:56 -0700, Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu>
wrote:
[re: a Supreme being that could alter logic itself]
>I simply cannot visualize what it would mean to have logic itself
>changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
>I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
>and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
>my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
>three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
>individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
>count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
>there?)
>
In some ways, the universe already does things like that. How much is
290,000 km/s + 290,000 km/s? If you just add the numbers, you won't
get the right answer.
1 + 1 = 10 (bits).
1 + 1 = 1 (air bubbles/black holes)
1 + 1 = 3 (humans)
1 + 1 = 2 (in a grade school primer)
When we say that a God III can change the rules of math and logic,
which rules are we talking about? Human rules, that's all. The
universe doesn't observe the rules of arithmetic. It appears to
behave in a fashion that allows us to use these rules in some
contexts, but not in all. If we were quantum sized, or star sized, we
might have created quite different rules to begin with.
So I agree with your puzzlement about the apples. The only reason we
can count "apples" is because we have a convention which says that
there is a category, "apples", containing discrete members that can be
grouped. Look what happens when you try to count pieces of chewing
gum. Or drops of water. Doesn't work so well.
Also, the idea of categories is something of a pretense. We're
pretending that it makes sense to group one apple with another. But
what happens when you add 1 apple and one kiwi? "We still have two.
Two fruits." What about one apple and one pair of binoculars? "We
still have two. Two objects." Hmm, but isn't a pair of binoculars
already two objects? How about one apple and one set of baseball
cards? Or switching away from apples, how about one liter of sand and
one bucket (in which the sand is placed?) I don't know of anyone who
would identify that last as being two objects.
Anyway, my point is that the math and logic are beautiful human
creations (maybe *we* are Type III Gods) inspired by our observation
of the universe, but I don't believe that It is contingent upon our
maths, or that our maths are contingent upon It. If the universe were
to suddenly drastically change so that apples would suddenly merge or
multiply, one and one would still equal two, in the mental universe of
our own creation.
Once again, does anyone have any good philosophical references for
this topic?
Riboflavin
>I'm not clear on this 1+1 =1 thing. I mean, 1+1=2 because we define
>it to be that way as an axiom of mathematics.
Actually, that's not really correct. What I (and presumably the other
posters) are talking about when we talk about making 1+1=3 is making 1+1=3
_under the normal rules of arithmetic_, not just coming up with a situation
where you could label it 1+1 =3. The idea is that the Type3 omipotent being
can change the basic workings of mathematics outside of simple physical
phenomena; if I'm talking about 'changing the value of Pi', I don't mean
'measuring the ratio of diameter to circumference in curved space', I mean
'making it so that when you caluclate Pi mathematically you get something
other than the 3.14159... we're familiar with.
Also, "1+1=2" is not an axiom of modern mathematics, you can construct the
rules for arithmetic using only the basic axioms of set theory (which don't
include defining 1+1 as equal to 2) and deriving numbers and arithmetic from
there.
>It's true, mathematics
>can be used to model the universe, but out in the real universe, for
>some things, 1+1 =2, sometimes 1+1= 1.9883, sometimes 1+1=0, sometimes
>1+1 = 3, and sometimes you can't add things at all.
Which is why changing the mathematics is more impressive than changing the
physical universe. Also, the tricks with "1+1 =3" and "sometimes you can't
add things at all" are really just semantic games in my book, deliberately
mislabeling the objects under discussion to pull a fast one on the other
person.
>We choose 1+1 = 2 as our math because we've decided that that
>formulation suits our purposes more often than not.
Um... that's really not an accurate way to put it, it would be more accurate
to say that by the rules of arithmetic 1+1=2 and we've decided to use
arithmetic to model the world.
>So in order for a type III God to make 1+1=1, he'd have to change our
>minds, that's all. And a type I God can do that, no big deal.
No; while a type I god could make us think that he could do any of the
actions of the other gods, he could not make it so that you could prove that
1+1=3 under the rules of arithmetic (although he could make you think that
he could).
Riboflavin
[snippage below]
> Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
> Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic.
>but we need to be clear on what we are talking about.
>
undetectable, irresistible mind control, which means that a type I could
provide proof of being one of the 'stronger' two types simply by making you
think he did. It renders the classification scheme worthless in actual
application, since the weakest type can always provide proof that he is one
of the stronger types.
Hop David
Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
>
> I'd suggest (I/II)^(I/II) or [V^(I/II) - I]/II.
>
> Then again, three significant figures isn't much to go on.
>
Hey, that's pretty good! O.K., I'll be generous and give you four
significant figures: 2.7182
If you can do that in roman numerals my hat will be off to you.
On Schillings scale I guess this would represent being(s) that could
rewrite physical laws and well on their way to rewriting math constants and
doing logically impossible stuff.
Regards,
Hop
ala...@mindspring.com
would like to add a little from an odd angle, that of number
representation. In some really old computers, (2nd generation
word-oriented machines), the number "0" could be represented several
ways because the sign field was always present for that particular
type of arithmetic. For some models, the results of arithmetic could
be +0 or -0, depending on the signs of the original numbers. In 3rd
generation equipment, some of the mainframes still can represent
positive numbers in two different ways (in "packed-decimal" format),
thus, the result of arithmetic may take on 3 types of "0." Beyond
this, some floating point operations will produce equivalent numbers
but with different binary representations so that even if the numeric
values are "equal" the representations are with different exponents.
This may not be startling, but it seems to me that ambiguity in the
meaning of numbers, is one indication that logic need not be absolute
in all of its applications. I've always thought that a computer that
could return "true, false, maybe" would be much more valuable for
dealing with inductive types of problems than purely true-false
machines. Categories can overlap, we currently spend many cycles find
"the fit."
Zunu News <ne...@zuME.nu> wrote in message
news:5B7gN2Kv5zTWCh...@4ax.com...
bobg0
Don't know how relevant it is to the topic of types of gods,
but regarding categorization, "Philosophy in the Flesh"
by Lakoff and Johnson might be something you could look
at.
For an interview with George Lakoff see:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lakoff/lakoff_p1.html
I don't know how this is viewed in "mainstream philosophy"
but I found it interesting.
On how the human brain/mind does mathematics, perhaps
Stanislas Dehaene's "The Number Sense"
Dehaene also has an interview at:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dehaene/index.html
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Brooks Moses
>
> [This is from a thread originating in rec.arts.sf.science, regarding
> the potential powers of a Supreme type being I have added
> talk.philosophy.misc and sci.logic because they seem to be relevant to
> this discussion. I would recommend perusing the entire thread,
> particularly John Schilling's excellent post,
> 7rm1lv$8ru$1...@spock.usc.edu, wherein he discusses three increasingly
> powerful types of Gods.]
Might as well make this spelled out, for those newly reading the
thread. In brief:
Type I god -- Can do anything possible within the laws of physics.
Essentially an alien with real cool technology. '
Type II god -- Can change the laws of physics at will. "Gravity? Pah,
a piddly thing to reverse!"
Type III god -- Can change the laws of logic. Can make it so if you
have two apples in each hand, that adds to five
apples total. "Square root of pi? Might as well
encode Shakespeare in the decimal expansion."
We started out with the question of what a skeptic or atheist would
consider a convincing proof of the existence of a deity. The
conversation has now evolved into a question of whether a Type III god,
as defined above, is even a conceivable entity.
> On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:07:56 -0700, Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> [re: a Supreme being that could alter logic itself]
> >I simply cannot visualize what it would mean to have logic itself
> >changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
> >I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
> >and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
> >my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
> >three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
> >individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
> >count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
> >there?)
>
> In some ways, the universe already does things like that. How much is
> 290,000 km/s + 290,000 km/s? If you just add the numbers, you won't
> get the right answer.
>
> 1 + 1 = 10 (bits).
>
> 1 + 1 = 1 (air bubbles/black holes)
>
> 1 + 1 = 3 (humans)
>
> 1 + 1 = 2 (in a grade school primer)
Nope. Lightspeed + lightspeed is twice lightspeed. This is not at all
relevant to the fact that lightspeed relative to an object going
lightspeed is also relative to you.
The simple point is that, in the cases you describe, you are claiming
that something is governed by the strict _mathematical_ concept of
addition, when in fact it is most certainly not (despite being a case of
"addition" in the colloquial sense). This is a most crucial
distinction.
Now, of course, you may be intending to point out that it may be
possible to get some weird _physical_ law which makes the mathematical
concept of addition not apply to counting apples, but I seriously doubt
this.
To repeat:
> How much is
> 290,000 km/s + 290,000 km/s? If you just add the numbers, you won't
> get the right answer.
Of course you will. You won't get the right answer to "how fast is
something going
if it's going at 290,000 km/s relative to something that's going 290,000
km/s relative to you?" because that's _not_ the question you asked.
Similarly, one air bubble plus one air bubble is two air bubbles.
Period. That's, again, not the same question as "If you take one air
bubble, and combine it with another air bubble, how many air bubbles do
you get?" That "combining" is _not_ addition in the mathematical sense!
- Brooks
Brooks Moses
> >changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
> >I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
> >and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
> >my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
> >three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
> >individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
> >count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
> >there?)
>
>
> Note, of course, that if a Type III God choses to set things up that way
> to begin with, it will make perfect logical sense because it will be
> perfectly logical. And we'd be discussing the absurdity of hypothetical
> Type III Gods setting things up such that two apples plus two apples
> adds up to four apples.
>
> And, as noted earlier, I'm making no claims as to even the possibility
> of a Type III God actually existing, just proposing the label for
> discussion. Type III Gods certainly figure into a lot of theological
> debate - orthodox Christianity pretty much rejects any Type I or II
> interpretation of the Trinity, for example - so the need is there.
Yep, well, I just thought it was much more interesting to debate whether
such a being could conceptually exist, rather than the original
question. :)
- Brooks
ala...@mindspring.com
Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:37E06328...@stanford.edu...
> Zunu News wrote:
> >
> > [This is from a thread originating in rec.arts.sf.science,
regarding
> > the potential powers of a Supreme type being I have added
> > talk.philosophy.misc and sci.logic because they seem to be
relevant to
> > this discussion. I would recommend perusing the entire thread,
> > particularly John Schilling's excellent post,
> > 7rm1lv$8ru$1...@spock.usc.edu, wherein he discusses three
increasingly
> > powerful types of Gods.]
>
> Might as well make this spelled out, for those newly reading the
> thread. In brief:
>
> Type I god -- Can do anything possible within the laws of physics.
> Essentially an alien with real cool technology. '
That is, he can steer your presence towards something very unusual
that you recognize as improbable. When several of these improbable
experiences occur in close succession, the perception of an Unseen
Hand starts to induce itself. (I call these "small" miracles.)
> Type II god -- Can change the laws of physics at will. "Gravity?
Pah,
> a piddly thing to reverse!"
This god can part the Red Sea. These are "large" miracles.
> Type III god -- Can change the laws of logic. Can make it so if you
> have two apples in each hand, that adds to five
> apples total. "Square root of pi? Might as well
> encode Shakespeare in the decimal expansion."
I'm not sure that this kind of god can exist except as the recognition
of unity within diversity. For example, the concept of the Trinity is
a three-in-one where each of the parts has the qualities of the unity.
I hadn't thought about the nature of miracles at this level. But this
could be the could of evolution since the universe is always the
universe, but is always changing.
Alan
Zunu News
wrote:
>Zunu News wrote in message <5IffN+s3ElFvQ1...@4ax.com>...
>>I'm not clear on this 1+1 =1 thing. I mean, 1+1=2 because we define
>>it to be that way as an axiom of mathematics.
>
>Actually, that's not really correct. What I (and presumably the other
>posters) are talking about when we talk about making 1+1=3 is making 1+1=3
>_under the normal rules of arithmetic_, not just coming up with a situation
>where you could label it 1+1 =3.
And what I'm saying to you is that there is no "figuring" in the
normal rules of arithmetic, at least not at that level. Do you
remember learning math? You didn't figure out that 1 and 1 are 2, you
memorized it. And this is where I'm having problems with the concept
of a Type III God. Let's say God just changed the answer to the
problem, now 1 + 1 = 3. How are we going to notice the difference?
If someone asks me what the answer is, I'm going to continue to tell
them "2". And I'm going to continue to do math *as if* 2 is the right
answer. And I'd imagine the same for everyone else. So when do we
figure out that we're all wrong? Maybe the rules have already
changed and we don't know it yet?
Or perhaps God retroactively alters our memories of the rules so that
now we get the "correct" answer. If so, how do we notice that
anything's changed? Maybe the right answer WAS 3 until yesterday but
we don't remember.
>The idea is that the Type3 omipotent being
>can change the basic workings of mathematics outside of simple physical
>phenomena; if I'm talking about 'changing the value of Pi', I don't mean
>'measuring the ratio of diameter to circumference in curved space', I mean
>'making it so that when you caluclate Pi mathematically you get something
>other than the 3.14159... we're familiar with.
>
>Also, "1+1=2" is not an axiom of modern mathematics, you can construct the
>rules for arithmetic using only the basic axioms of set theory (which don't
>include defining 1+1 as equal to 2) and deriving numbers and arithmetic from
>there.
Sure, in modern mathematics, 1+1 = 2 is a theorem, no question. But
arithmetics predate Peano by at least 4000 years. And it seems pretty
clear to me that 1+1 =2 was axiomatic to early mathematics. Primitive
cultures recognize that one apple and one apple yield two apples, but
they don't understand formal mathematical induction, without which
Peano's laws don't work. Also, it seems to me that it's difficult to
make the case that the universe "needs" induction, or that this would
necessarily be a different universe if it did not exist. However, it
would certainly be a different universe if you took one apple and one
apple and you got three apples. So I'd prefer to leave set theory out
of this as an unneeded abstraction.
>
>>We choose 1+1 = 2 as our math because we've decided that that
>>formulation suits our purposes more often than not.
>
>
>Um... that's really not an accurate way to put it, it would be more accurate
>to say that by the rules of arithmetic 1+1=2 and we've decided to use
>arithmetic to model the world.
That seems absolutely incorrect to me. There are many different
maths, if the world had been different we could've come up with
different rules. ISTM that the world came first and our model came
next. True, now that we have the model, it has a sort of existence of
its own outside of the world.
>
>>So in order for a type III God to make 1+1=1, he'd have to change our
>>minds, that's all. And a type I God can do that, no big deal.
>No; while a type I god could make us think that he could do any of the
>actions of the other gods, he could not make it so that you could prove that
>1+1=3 under the rules of arithmetic (although he could make you think that
>he could).
If we cannot possibly detect a difference between the two, then
scientifically, they are identical. I grant you there is a
significant ontological difference.
Erik Max Francis
> In some ways, the universe already does things like that. How much is
> 290,000 km/s + 290,000 km/s? If you just add the numbers, you won't
> get the right answer.
Sure you do. You didn't specify the problem right. + is a well-defined
operation. What you're referring to (frame velocity addition isn't
strictly addition).
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA | languages en, eo | icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
USA | Wed 1999 Sep 15 (18%/949) | &tSftDotIotE
__
/ \ Love has no heart.
\__/ Ned Rorem
Erik Max Francis
> I question the powers of the Type III God who manipulates things (like
> math and logic) that (I'm alleging) only exist as an artifact of our
> interpretation of the universe.
But they don't -- that's the problem. 1 + 1 = 2 is a totally abstract
notion, totally independent of the "real" world. Mathematics is not
physics.
A type III god could change mathematics and logic, not just the boring
old way the Universe works.
Erik Max Francis
> I see the matter differently. Yes, 290,000 + 290,000 is equal to
> 580,000. But the minute we say km/s, we are referring to a physical
> quantity. We're imbedding the problem into the real universe.
So what does that have to do with mathematics?
> And in
> the real universe 580,000 km/s does not exist, although 290,000 km/s +
> 290,000 km/s do exist.
There are some serious problems with this argument. I think we all
understand what you're trying to get at, but it just isn't sufficiently
constrained to make your argument work. Mathematically, a unit can be
treated as a variable, so this question is like saying what is 290 000 a
+ 290 000 a -- the answer is pretty obvious. Addition simply does not
carry all the connotations with it that you're ascribing -- it is an
operation on _numbers_ (or algebraic expressions, etc.), and has
_nothing to do_ with the real world. Addition is an operation on
numbers -- it has nothing to do with frame velocity "addition," clearly
indicated by the fact that the "addition" is not written with the
operator +.
Further, so let's say that we always interpret km/s as a velocity.
Problem is, velocity is a vector, so what does that mean? The result is
not the same depending on whether the vectors are parallel, orthogonal,
etc.
> You could make the argument that addition is not the correct operation
> to perform on velocity in an Einsteinian universe, therefore the
> answer is wrong because the initial problem is incorrectly formed.
The first clause of this sentence makes no sense -- what does addition
have to do with an Einsteinian universe?
> But, the point that I was making, really, was that the behavior of the
> universe doesn't exactly correspond with our abstractions.
Of course. Mathematics is _totally independent_ of physics. It turns
out, rather coincidentally -- and much the surprise and pleasure of
physicists -- that mathematics happens to be quite applicable for
describing the Universe.
> Ok, but "period" doesn't really constitute an argument so I can't
> exactly disagree except to say, "Is not!"
Your analogy involved assuming that the + in "1 bubble + 1 bubble"
involves coalescence, which is an awfully arbitrary definition for +,
and one which no one ever uses.
Zunu News
wrote:
>To repeat:
>> How much is
>> 290,000 km/s + 290,000 km/s? If you just add the numbers, you won't
>> get the right answer.
>
>Of course you will. You won't get the right answer to "how fast is
>something going
>if it's going at 290,000 km/s relative to something that's going 290,000
>km/s relative to you?" because that's _not_ the question you asked.
I see the matter differently. Yes, 290,000 + 290,000 is equal to
580,000. But the minute we say km/s, we are referring to a physical
quantity. We're imbedding the problem into the real universe. And in
the real universe 580,000 km/s does not exist, although 290,000 km/s +
290,000 km/s do exist.
You could make the argument that addition is not the correct operation
to perform on velocity in an Einsteinian universe, therefore the
answer is wrong because the initial problem is incorrectly formed.
But, the point that I was making, really, was that the behavior of the
universe doesn't exactly correspond with our abstractions.
>Similarly, one air bubble plus one air bubble is two air bubbles.
>Period.
Ok, but "period" doesn't really constitute an argument so I can't
exactly disagree except to say, "Is not!"
>That's, again, not the same question as "If you take one air
>bubble, and combine it with another air bubble, how many air bubbles do
>you get?" That "combining" is _not_ addition in the mathematical sense!
I think I fairly well acknowledge in my post (in the parts you
deleted!) that mathematics is an abstraction which is not directly
correlated with physicalities we see around us. In fact, I explicitly
state:
>:If the universe were
>:to suddenly drastically change so that apples would suddenly merge or
>:multiply, one and one would still equal two, in the mental universe of
>:our own creation.
The purpose of the air bubble comment was to remark that the universe
already behaves in certain ways as if the laws of arithmetic do not
apply to it, and so, how would a change in those laws affect us?
IOW, I basically agree with you except for the parts where you are
saying I am wrong about something.
Zunu News
wrote:
>Zunu News wrote:
>
>> In some ways, the universe already does things like that. How much is
>> 290,000 km/s + 290,000 km/s? If you just add the numbers, you won't
>> get the right answer.
>
>Sure you do. You didn't specify the problem right. + is a well-defined
>operation. What you're referring to (frame velocity addition isn't
>strictly addition).
I said as much myself in a subsequent post, which probably did not
propagate to you at the time of your followup. Anyway, my point, or
part of it, is that what we do when we're doing math is not really
what the universe is doing when it's doing its thing. To be
precise.:-)
I question the powers of the Type III God who manipulates things (like
math and logic) that (I'm alleging) only exist as an artifact of our
interpretation of the universe.
--
Zunu News
wrote:
I (aka Zunu News) wrote:
>> Once again, does anyone have any good philosophical
>> references for
>> this topic?
>
>
>Don't know how relevant it is to the topic of types of gods,
>but regarding categorization, "Philosophy in the Flesh"
>by Lakoff and Johnson might be something you could look
>at.
>
>For an interview with George Lakoff see:
>http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lakoff/lakoff_p1.html
>
>I don't know how this is viewed in "mainstream philosophy"
>but I found it interesting.
>
>On how the human brain/mind does mathematics, perhaps
>Stanislas Dehaene's "The Number Sense"
>
>Dehaene also has an interview at:
>http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dehaene/index.html
>
Thanks for these refs. The book Lakoff is working on with Nuñez
sounds like it'll be quite relevant. I should mention in passing that
FWIW, Lakoff seems to support my position when he says:
>What we conclude is that mathematics as we know it is a product
>of the human body and brain; it is not part of the objective structure
>of the universe - this or any other.
Erik Max Francis
> Hey, that's pretty good! O.K., I'll be generous and give you four
> significant figures: 2.7182
>
> If you can do that in roman numerals my hat will be off to you.
Sure: ln I. Hey, the other expressions were represented in terms of
elementary functions as well.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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__
/ \ No man is more cheated than the selfish man.
\__/ Henry Ward Beecher
Erik Max Francis
> And what I'm saying to you is that there is no "figuring" in the
> normal rules of arithmetic, at least not at that level. Do you
> remember learning math? You didn't figure out that 1 and 1 are 2, you
> memorized it. And this is where I'm having problems with the concept
> of a Type III God. Let's say God just changed the answer to the
> problem, now 1 + 1 = 3. How are we going to notice the difference?
> If someone asks me what the answer is, I'm going to continue to tell
> them "2". And I'm going to continue to do math *as if* 2 is the right
> answer. And I'd imagine the same for everyone else. So when do we
> figure out that we're all wrong? Maybe the rules have already
> changed and we don't know it yet?
Won't they still have textbooks and records?
You can always say, "Oh, there's a god out there all right, but it's
deliberately fiddling with things so that you could never possibly prove
its existence" (and in fact these involve many arguments). These
concepts aren't scientific and can't convince a skeptic, so they are
really orthogonal to the discussion at hand (i.e., it can't be an answer
to "What would prove you?").
> Or perhaps God retroactively alters our memories of the rules so that
> now we get the "correct" answer. If so, how do we notice that
> anything's changed? Maybe the right answer WAS 3 until yesterday but
> we don't remember.
This was actually used as a defense to suggestions about the age of the
Earth which science revealed when according to popular religions God
created the universe in 4004 BC. Most religions aren't about proof,
they're about belief -- that doesn't make them wrong, it just makes them
unscientific (in the sense of being unfalsifiable, by definition).
> And it seems pretty
> clear to me that 1+1 =2 was axiomatic to early mathematics.
How early do you mean? Primitive humans probably understood arithmetic
at some level, but they didn't have anything that could be called
"axioms," since that knowledge wasn't formalized. When you formalize
that knowledge, you realize that it has nothing to do with the real
world, and can be formalized completely independent of it. That is the
point, here.
> So I'd prefer to leave set theory out
> of this as an unneeded abstraction.
But would set theory give you a different answer? What's applicable to
the real world and what is mathematical abstraction is an essential
distinction here.
> That seems absolutely incorrect to me. There are many different
> maths, if the world had been different we could've come up with
> different rules. ISTM that the world came first and our model came
> next. True, now that we have the model, it has a sort of existence of
> its own outside of the world.
You are implying that mathematics is a model of the world. It is not;
you're thinking of physics (note they have different names).
Indeed, mathematics describes things which are explicitly _not_ "real,"
in any meaningful sense. Think of geometry, or imaginary numbers, or
even polynomials or integrals -- certainly some mathematical concepts
are _inspired_ by the world, and there's no doubt that some are
applicable to modelling the world. What makes the number 2 "real"?
That you can apply it to counting things? Or a function? Or a set?
You can certainly apply these concepts to the world, but that doesn't
make them dependent on it.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
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bo...@my-deja.com
Zunu News <ne...@zuME.nu> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 19:34:35 +1700, bobg0 <bobg0N...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
> Thanks for these refs. The book Lakoff is working on with Nuñez
> sounds like it'll be quite relevant. I should mention in passing that
> FWIW, Lakoff seems to support my position when he says:
>
> >What we conclude is that mathematics as we know it is a product
> >of the human body and brain; it is not part of the objective
structure
> >of the universe - this or any other.
>
I myself am eagerly looking forward to their book.
At the risk of being completely blown out of the water, and
with the disclaimer that I do not wish to be dogmatic here:
It seems that claims like "1 + 1 = 2 is a totally abstract
notion, totally independent of the "real" world.
Mathematics is not physics," are kinda' questionable.
How would we (human beings) prove such an assertion?
All of our "knowledge" of mathematics comes through our
mind/brains which are themselves part of the "real" world
and subject to the laws of that "real" world, including
the laws of physics. The platonic/cartesian split between
the abstract and the real is highly questionable, especially
in light of modern cognitive science which (if I understand)
is Lakoff's point.
We get our notion that 1 + 1 = 2 from sensory experience --
It enables us to survive/flourish to have that concept.
It seems that many higher animals have a sort of "mathematical"
ability with small numbers: {1,2,3} at least.
But humans have been able to metaphorically extrapolate from
{1,2,3}, which seems to be hard-wired into our brains,
to "larger natural numbers" -- extrapolating not just the
numbers as objects but also the relations between them. Thus
we have 17 + 9 = 26. The remarkable thing is that this
extrapolating "works" -- there are lots of "applications" of
17 + 9 = 26 in the "real world". Of course there are even
more instances where is is not a valid application, but we
notice the ones that work. Since it is so convincing we
convince ourselves that the numbers 17, 9, and 26 exist on
there own in some platonic world. Maybe they do. But it is
not obvious that that is so.
If I may further try to confuse the issue by using an example
near and dear to all sci fi types, quantum mechanics.
We have a concept of "particle" drawn mainly from every-day
experience. Things like balls and people and bananas.
We metaphorically extrapolate this notion of "particle" to
things that we cannot handle directly and find that "hey,
this notion works!" Over a few thousand years we develop
a pretty good notion of what a particle is and convince
ourselves that this notion is somehow a truth of the universe.
Then Newton's laws and all that.
Only then we get the ability to investigate really small
thingies like atoms and electrons and we find that "What
the hey!!! These particles aren't behaving right!"
Because the extrapolation doesn't work that far.
So what has all this to do with the subject at hand and why
is this outsider butting into the conversation?
I guess I coming down on the side that the Type III
definition may not be well defined. It is no longer obvious
that there are laws of logic and mathematics independent
of the physical universe. Logic and Mathematics are
constructions of human minds and communities of human minds.
It is not clear how it would be possible for humans to
investigate whether there *are* laws of logic and mathematics
"prior" to the "real" world.
Perhaps if/when we meet another intelligent race we can
study each others' logic/math and thus get a kind of
"stereo" view on it. Of course, the other race may not
even have logic/math -- perhaps for them problems like
mind/body and what is consciousness are as easy as
1+1=2 for us but even elementary mathematics is a
complete mystery. But then, how would we even communicate
with each other or know that the other is "intelligent"?
Anyhow, these are only my personal opinions and may, because
of my lack of understanding, be totally wrong.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Zunu News
wrote:
>So what does that have to do with mathematics?
and
>There are some serious problems with this argument.
and
>The first clause of this sentence makes no sense --
and
>Of course. Mathematics is _totally independent_ of physics. It turns
>out, rather coincidentally -- and much the surprise and pleasure of
>physicists -- that mathematics happens to be quite applicable for
>describing the Universe.
and
>Your analogy involved assuming that the + in "1 bubble + 1 bubble"
>involves coalescence, which is an awfully arbitrary definition for +,
>and one which no one ever uses.
It seems to me this entire discussion is starting to revolve around my
inability to accurately describe certain aspects of my own argument.
Not your fault, obviously. Still, I'd like to attempt to cut back my
primary objection to the issue John raised about the type III God,
which is:
Assume that this God CAN change the laws of mathematics and logic.
You've already shown, in the process of nitpicking me into utter
submission, that the laws of the universe under which we exist are not
the same as math and logic. So, how would we tell that math and logic
have changed? What does it mean for them to be different? Unless I'm
mistaken, which is not uncharacteristic, you've successfully argued
that velocities don't "add" in the physical world, bubbles don't
"add" in the physical world. So it would not be totally without
precedent if apples didn't "add" either.
Before Type III God:
1 + 1 = 2
1 bubble "coalesce" 1 bubble is 1 bubble.
1 velocity "dot" 1 velocity is (Lorentz transform).
1 apple and 1 apple are 2 apples.
After Type III God:
1 + 1 = 3
1 bubble "coalesce" 1 bubble is 1 bubble.
1 velocity "dot" 1 velocity is (Lorentz transform).
1 apple "and" 1 apple are 2 apples.
So the number of apples in one's hand hasn't changed. The only thing
that's changed is something _totally independent_ of physics, to use
your phrase. All that would happen is that we'd stop using addition
to describe apples and start using the "and" transformation. But
let's say we start calling the "and" transformation "+". We're back
to where we started. Nothing's changed. Hence, IMO the type III God
is powerless (above and beyond what the type II God can already do.)
I expect that you will inevitably disagree with this. However, I'd
like to see an affirmative defense in this instance. So, instead of
merely insisting, "Dammit Jim, (S)he's changed MATH and LOGIC !!!!!"
please demonstrate how, in fact, it would be possible to distinguish
the type III God's handiwork from the type II God's work. Convince me
that you are right, instead of merely convincing me that I am wrong.
Zunu News
wrote:
>Zunu News wrote:
>
>> I question the powers of the Type III God who manipulates things (like
>> math and logic) that (I'm alleging) only exist as an artifact of our
>> interpretation of the universe.
>
>But they don't -- that's the problem. 1 + 1 = 2 is a totally abstract
>notion, totally independent of the "real" world. Mathematics is not
>physics.
>
>A type III god could change mathematics and logic, not just the boring
>old way the Universe works.
My question still remains: What does it mean to change math and logic
without changing the way the Universe works, and how could we tell the
difference?
Erik Max Francis
> It seems that claims like "1 + 1 = 2 is a totally abstract
> notion, totally independent of the "real" world.
> Mathematics is not physics," are kinda' questionable.
>
> How would we (human beings) prove such an assertion?
Because mathematics can be axiomatized and derived without any reference
whatsoever to the world.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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__
/ \ The opinion of the strongest is always the best.
\__/ Jean de la Fontaine
Erik Max Francis
> My question still remains: What does it mean to change math and logic
> without changing the way the Universe works, and how could we tell the
> difference?
It would be pretty obvious. "Um, these sums aren't coming out right
anymore ..."
Your additional introduction of the assumption that a type III god would
_hide_ (i.e., set things up so that humans only remembered maths working
the new way, changed all records, etc.) is an additional unwarranted
assumption, since in this case the question being asked ("What would
convince you?") implicitly assumes that such a god would not be hiding.
Zunu News
wrote:
>> And it seems pretty
>> clear to me that 1+1 =2 was axiomatic to early mathematics.
>
>How early do you mean? Primitive humans probably understood arithmetic
>at some level, but they didn't have anything that could be called
>"axioms," since that knowledge wasn't formalized.
I don't believe that formalization is necessary for a proposition to
be an axiom Not according to M-W, at any rate, though of course, a
more formal source would define the term, well, more formally.
At any rate, when I say axiom, I mean a statement fundamentally
accepted as true without the need for proof. And I would say that has
applied to 1+1=2 for most of recorded history.
>When you formalize
>that knowledge, you realize that it has nothing to do with the real
>world, and can be formalized completely independent of it. That is the
>point, here.
And that point begs the question, if the knowledge is formalized
completely independent of the real world, then if it changes, what in
the real world would change?
>
>> So I'd prefer to leave set theory out
>> of this as an unneeded abstraction.
>
>But would set theory give you a different answer? What's applicable to
>the real world and what is mathematical abstraction is an essential
>distinction here.
Come to think of it, set theory brings up an interesting point. If
Peano's axioms serve as a formal basis for arithmetic, and if we are
alleging that God III has the power to alter arithmetic, then we are
left with a) One or more of Peano's axioms has been altered or negated
and/or b) one or more of the rules of logic have been altered or
negated. Hypothetically, then, what could God III change that would
still yield self-consistency.
[I realize that, according to Schilling's Postulates, God III could
have changed the necessity for self-consistency, but if so, then we
might as well end all discussion now, because in that case, God III's
powers by strict definition, would be "impossible."]
>> That seems absolutely incorrect to me. There are many different
>> maths, if the world had been different we could've come up with
>> different rules. ISTM that the world came first and our model came
>> next. True, now that we have the model, it has a sort of existence of
>> its own outside of the world.
>
>You are implying that mathematics is a model of the world. It is not;
>you're thinking of physics (note they have different names).
That argument is a bit disingenuous considering that I am not talking
about the current division of sciences, but the initial "discovery" or
"creation" of math by early humanity. And I maintain that at that
time, math was certainly considered a model of the real world. It
probably wasn't until the Pythagoreans that people started to say, "We
can really pursue this subject without it necessarily corresponding to
any reality." But even so, math is littered with concessions to the
idea that it *should" model the real world, i.e., natural numbers,
real numbers, and when it doesn't, it is "irrational", "imaginary",
"transcendental", etc., some of which you mention below.
>
>Indeed, mathematics describes things which are explicitly _not_ "real,"
>in any meaningful sense. Think of geometry, or imaginary numbers, or
>even polynomials or integrals -- certainly some mathematical concepts
>are _inspired_ by the world, and there's no doubt that some are
>applicable to modelling the world. What makes the number 2 "real"?
>That you can apply it to counting things? Or a function? Or a set?
>You can certainly apply these concepts to the world, but that doesn't
>make them dependent on it.
I really agree with everything you have written here. It seems we
both admit to some extent that math is independent of the real world,
but you appear to take from that the idea that if we alter math
without altering the world, it would change something significant. I
think it would change nothing. I merely think we would just switch to
using a different math/logic which more accurately corresponded to the
universe we inhabit.
I could be wrong though. Thought experiment: Imagine that God III's
manipulations changed math in the following way: 0+1 = 1, 1+1=10.
10+1 =11, 11+1=100. (All numbers written in base 10). It seems to me
that this should be internally consistent. But what sort of effect,
if any, would it have on the universe? And assuming it didn't affect
the universe, how would we recognize or acknowledge these specific
changes?
bobg0
<m...@alcyone.com> wrote:
> Because mathematics can be axiomatized and derived
> without any reference
> whatsoever to the world.
This is a myth.
Hop David
Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Hop David wrote:
>
> > Hey, that's pretty good! O.K., I'll be generous and give you four
> > significant figures: 2.7182
> >
> > If you can do that in roman numerals my hat will be off to you.
>
> Sure: ln I. Hey, the other expressions were represented in terms of
> elementary functions as well.
Seems like a circular reference as the natural log is based on e. Besides
isn't the natural log of I=I-I?
Hop
bobg0
> Come to think of it, set theory brings up an
> interesting point. If
> Peano's axioms serve as a formal basis for arithmetic,
> and if we are
> alleging that God III has the power to alter
> arithmetic, then we are
> left with a) One or more of Peano's axioms has been
> altered or negated
> and/or b) one or more of the rules of logic have been
> altered or
> negated. Hypothetically, then, what could God III
> change that would
> still yield self-consistency.
> [I realize that, according to Schilling's Postulates,
> God III could
> have changed the necessity for self-consistency, but
> if so, then we
> might as well end all discussion now, because in that
> case, God III's
> powers by strict definition, would be "impossible."]
Well, for case a) we could for instance have it so that
you keep adding one and eventually you get back to zero.
So there are only finitely many numbers. Of course the
mathematics of that has been done. But it might be
interesting to ask if the god could have created so that
*that* kind of number system seems like the "natural"
numbers and the ones that we did invent and now call the
"natural numbers" an "interesting area of pure math."
But, that, it seems to me, would only require a type II god.
Might also be interesting to ask if a god could create
so that the mandelbrot set was a simple disk. But, once
again, there are probably (no, I don't know -- but it
seems possible to me anyhow) metrics and strange geometries
where that is so. And it seems only a type II god would be
required to make that seem "natural" mathematics.
For b), well there are all sorts of strange logics out
there about which I am to ignorant to speak.
Zunu News
wrote:
>Zunu News wrote:
>
>> My question still remains: What does it mean to change math and logic
>> without changing the way the Universe works, and how could we tell the
>> difference?
>
>It would be pretty obvious. "Um, these sums aren't coming out right
>anymore ..."
You seem to keep not answering my question, and I can only conclude
that it is either because I am not explaining myself well at all, or
because my question is so absurd that you think I must be asking
something other than what I am asking. So I will try one more time,
then (hopefully) give up. (Huzzah...)
Let's say I'm staring at a little basic algebra problem.
3 + 4 = x
Your claim is that the sum isn't going to come out right anymore,
because, say, God III up and changed the answer to 23 behind
everyone's back. And when I notice that the correct answer is 23,
when it used to be 7, that's when I'll know that the laws of math are
different.
Now here's where I have the problem with your solution.
When I plug in "7", I'm not subconsciously deriving the laws of
arithmetic from Peano's axioms. I'm not applying logic. I'm not even
doing a calculation. All I'm doing is going into my memory where I
have a little table set up that says:
+ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
3 4 5 6 7 <---
That's it, a simple lookup. So even if the "laws of mathematics" have
changed, I'm going to get the same answer, a symbol known as "7" And
that goes for everyone else, because they have the same table in their
head, or on their little pencil boxes, or in their arithmetics
primers, etc.
Now although Type III God has played a rather nasty trick on us, and
has now made 3+4=23, according to you we can assume that God3 has made
these changes without altering the laws of physics. So "7" (even
though it's "wrong" by the revised laws of math, still corresponds
with what I get when I take 3 apples and put them next to 4 apples. I
won't notice any difference in the physical world. So when, where,
and why is it going to occur to me or anyone else that this answer "7"
is now wrong?
And what I've said about "7" seems (to me) to correspond with roughly
all areas of mathematics. We've got records which, as you've noted,
it would be unwarranted to assume have changed. We've got
trigonometic lookup tables, so we're not going to notice that the
value of sin and cos have changed. Even logical operations on
computers are hardwired, so things like AND, XOR and ROL are going to
come out the same, which means, at the higher level, workstations
running C++ are still going to come up with the same answers to fluid
dynamics simulations. All of our maths that can be "applied" to
reality are still going to do so, even though they are "wrong"
according to pure math.
And this is why I claim it makes little sense for the laws of math to
change without a corresponding change in the laws of physics.
The question is, assume I'm wrong. What can we expect to indicate
such? I mean, specifically, not in terms of generalities (e.g. 'well,
math won't work out right')
(If you've already answered this in another post, please ignore. My
followups have been uncontrollably proliferating.)
>Your additional introduction of the assumption that a type III god would
>_hide_ (i.e., set things up so that humans only remembered maths working
>the new way, changed all records, etc.) is an additional unwarranted
>assumption, since in this case the question being asked ("What would
>convince you?") implicitly assumes that such a god would not be hiding.
Okay, but that wasn't an assumption at all, it was a conjecture.
The reason I made that conjecture was because I am alleging that
without a retroactive change, we won't, for the reasons I state above,
ever realize that 3 + 4 is now 23.
Hmm. But maybe.
Maybe GodIII has *already* made some sneaky little changes to math.
You doubtless know the story of the Tower of Babel. God decided "He"
didn't like the idea of mankind unifying and building a tower to the
heavens, for soon we'd know as much has "Him." So he confused our
speech, and to this day, we speak many different languages. Well,
the same thing happened in the early part of this century. GodIII got
wind of what Russell and Whitehead were up to. They thought they'd
put down the entirety of mathematics upon paper. David Hilbert only
made things worse when he came along and said he could formalize the
whole thing. What hubris. If he succeeded, humanity would know
everything. We'd be like GodIII "Her"self! So GodIII made a few
subtle changes to logic. And shortly thereafter, "She" picked the
preturnaturally young Kurt Gödel (hmm, God, Gödel, coincidence?) to
"discover" that math was incomplete. We'd never know as much as God.
Well, could be.
Brooks Moses
> Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
> > Hop David wrote:
> >
> > > Hey, that's pretty good! O.K., I'll be generous and give you four
> > > significant figures: 2.7182
> > >
> > > If you can do that in roman numerals my hat will be off to you.
> >
> > Sure: ln I. Hey, the other expressions were represented in terms of
> > elementary functions as well.
>
> Seems like a circular reference as the natural log is based on e.
Nah. It's defined by the integral of 1/x. The bit about being "based
on e" is simply a convenient way to express it, but it doesn't need to
be there.
> Besides
> isn't the natural log of I=I-I?
Yup. The relevant equation is inverse-ln I.
- Brooks
Erik Max Francis
> And this is why I claim it makes little sense for the laws of math to
> change without a corresponding change in the laws of physics.
I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion.
> The question is, assume I'm wrong. What can we expect to indicate
> such? I mean, specifically, not in terms of generalities (e.g. 'well,
> math won't work out right')
It's certainly reasonable to suggest that a type III god is inconsistent
with mathematics and logic. I still don't see how you're making this
bridge from mathematics to the real world.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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USA | Thu 1999 Sep 16 (21%/949) | &tSftDotIotE
__
/ \ Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
\__/ King Lear (Act I, Scene I)
Erik Max Francis
> Seems like a circular reference as the natural log is based on e.
> Besides
> isn't the natural log of I=I-I?
Urf, duh. I meant exp I. Yes, it's rather cheating, but then the
question is rather unfair, anyway.
Tony Suessine
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote in message
> But they don't -- that's the problem. 1 + 1 = 2 is a totally abstract
> notion, totally independent of the "real" world. Mathematics is not
Not for sure. Under the right conditions
with the right race(?) 1+1= >2. Let's assume a universe that
behaves at the macro level like ours does at the micro level.
I am really pushing this so please be kind.
Take the volume of a proton(X). Take the volume of an electron(y).
Add them together the way we think. Answer is of course X+Y.
Now consider a race in this universe with a predispostion toward
considering volume. The volume of an individual proton and electron
is less than the volume of the atom they create. 1+1 in this
race's way of thinking is >2 and many different answers to 1+1
may exist.
Tony
An example in our own universe. The volume
of volume x and volume y adds to less than x+y in our way of thinking
if a black hole is the result of the combination.
Zunu News
wrote:
>Zunu News wrote:
>
>> And this is why I claim it makes little sense for the laws of math to
>> change without a corresponding change in the laws of physics.
>
>I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion.
It's that new Type III logic. You're not hip to it yet. :-)
Well, I did say I'd give up now, so unless someone else has something
new to add, I'll let the matter rest.
Erik Max Francis
> I am really pushing this so please be kind.
> Take the volume of a proton(X). Take the volume of an electron(y).
> Add them together the way we think. Answer is of course X+Y.
> Now consider a race in this universe with a predispostion toward
> considering volume. The volume of an individual proton and electron
> is less than the volume of the atom they create. 1+1 in this
> race's way of thinking is >2 and many different answers to 1+1
> may exist.
But that's not numerical addition, because 1 + 1 = 2. That's an
operation intimately ties to the particle physics interactions (despite
the fact that "volume of a subatomic particle" is not a very meaningful
concept, but we'll ignore that for now). Naturally, that's intimately
tied to the real world, because you made it that way.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA | languages en, eo | icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
USA | Thu 1999 Sep 16 (22%/949) | &tSftDotIotE
__
/ \ God grant me to contend with those that understand me.
\__/ Thomas Fuller
Russell Easterly
> Type III god -- Can change the laws of logic. Can make it so if you
> have two apples in each hand, that adds to five
> apples total. "Square root of pi? Might as well
> encode Shakespeare in the decimal expansion."
>
> We started out with the question of what a skeptic or atheist would
> consider a convincing proof of the existence of a deity. The
> conversation has now evolved into a question of whether a Type III god,
> as defined above, is even a conceivable entity.
Is that all you want.
No problem.
Consider Grey's code.
Grey Binary Decimal
0000 0000 0
0001 0001 1
0011 0010 2
0010 0011 3
0110 0100 4
0111 0101 5
0101 0110 6
0100 0111 7
I can show that Grey code is a valid numbering system.
By this I mean that evey positive integer can be assigned
a unique Grey code and every Grey code represents a
unique positive integer.
I do this by showing that any binary integer can be converted
into a unique Grey integer and that any Grey integer
can be conveted into a unique binary integer.
There exists a set of Boolean expressions that will do this.
So in Grey code, 0011 + 0011 = 0111.
In decimal this would be 3+3=7.
I can also show that there exists a set of Boolean relations
that allow addition of Grey integers just as
there exists a set of Boolean expressions that allow
addition of binary integers.
In fact, addition can be defined for any system
that assigns a unique bit pattern to each positive integer.
This applies to even completely arbitrary mappings.
I can also show that the complexity of an integer function
depends entirely on the way integers are represented.
For any integer function there exists a "numbering system"
(assignment of bit patterns to positive integers)
in which this function has a simple form.
The "order" of numbers seems to be a physical constant
rather than something required by logic.
The way I look at it
God rolled the dice and they came up 123 instead of 325.
Russell
-2 many 4 counting
bo...@my-deja.com
"Tony Suessine" <asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>
> Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com> wrote in message
> > But they don't -- that's the problem. 1 + 1 = 2 is a totally
abstract
> > notion, totally independent of the "real" world. Mathematics is not
> > physics.
>
> Not for sure. Under the right conditions
> with the right race(?) 1+1= >2. Let's assume a universe that
> behaves at the macro level like ours does at the micro level.
> Take the volume of a proton(X). Take the volume of an electron(y).
> Add them together the way we think. Answer is of course X+Y.
> Now consider a race in this universe with a predispostion toward
> considering volume. The volume of an individual proton and electron
> is less than the volume of the atom they create. 1+1 in this
> race's way of thinking is >2 and many different answers to 1+1
> may exist.
>
And then when this race discovers pebbles, they find that there is
a "real world" application of this strange arithmetic their pure
mathematicians have been playing with where 1 + 1 = 2 ...
Not unsimilar to our finding a application for "abstract" Riemannian
geometry with relativity.
bo...@my-deja.com
Zunu News <ne...@zuME.nu> wrote:
> Maybe GodIII has *already* made some sneaky little changes to math.
>
> You doubtless know the story of the Tower of Babel. God decided "He"
> didn't like the idea of mankind unifying and building a tower to the
> heavens, for soon we'd know as much has "Him." So he confused our
> speech, and to this day, we speak many different languages. Well,
> the same thing happened in the early part of this century. GodIII got
> wind of what Russell and Whitehead were up to. They thought they'd
> put down the entirety of mathematics upon paper. David Hilbert only
> made things worse when he came along and said he could formalize the
> whole thing. What hubris. If he succeeded, humanity would know
> everything. We'd be like GodIII "Her"self! So GodIII made a few
> subtle changes to logic. And shortly thereafter, "She" picked the
> preturnaturally young Kurt Gödel (hmm, God, Gödel, coincidence?) to
> "discover" that math was incomplete. We'd never know as much as God.
>
> Well, could be.
> --
I like the story idea.
Could also argue that GodIII has been doing this all along with
Pythagoras' discovery of the irrationality of square root of 2,
Euclid's of the infinitude of primes, problems with infinitesimals
after Newton and Leibnitz, Weierstrass's everywhere continuous nowhere
differentiable function, Cantor's discovery of different "sizes of
infinity". Like Victorian physicists thinking they had solved
everything and then Einstein.
And now that Mandelbrot and computers have with the study of fractals
given us a handle on the types of monsters discovered by Weierstrass,
et.al., could GodIII be preparing to act again? Can you say "Y2K"?
Yes, I know that this message appears to contradict my messages
yesterday. Type III logic?
How about GodIII changing the distribution of primes? So that they
are either more evenly distributed or more sparse?
Dennis Paul Himes
>
> Consider Grey's code.
>
> Grey Binary Decimal
> 0000 0000 0
> 0001 0001 1
> 0011 0010 2
> 0010 0011 3
> 0110 0100 4
> 0111 0101 5
> 0101 0110 6
> 0100 0111 7
>
>
> I can show that Grey code is a valid numbering system.
> By this I mean that evey positive integer can be assigned
> a unique Grey code and every Grey code represents a
> unique positive integer.
It is, in other words, just a different notation.
> I do this by showing that any binary integer can be converted
> into a unique Grey integer and that any Grey integer
> can be conveted into a unique binary integer.
> There exists a set of Boolean expressions that will do this.
I'm not sure in what way the conversion is "Boolean", but obviously the
naturals written in one notation is isomorphic to the naturals written in
another.
> So in Grey code, 0011 + 0011 = 0111.
> In decimal this would be 3+3=7.
By your own table this is 2+2=5 in decimal.
Now you're no longer using "+" to mean addition. You should pick
another symbol, because addition has an obvious meaning when applied to Grey
encoded natural, and by that meaning 0011 + 0011 = 0110.
> I can also show that there exists a set of Boolean relations
> that allow addition of Grey integers just as
> there exists a set of Boolean expressions that allow
> addition of binary integers.
Again, I don't understand in what sense this is "Boolean". In a Boolean
algebra there are two operations. However, the fact that the naturals are
isomorphic to themselves is trivial.
> I can also show that the complexity of an integer function
> depends entirely on the way integers are represented.
I don't understand what you mean by "complexity" here. A function on
the naturals is not any more or less complex due to the notation used by
any definition of "complexity" which comes to mind.
> The "order" of numbers seems to be a physical constant
> rather than something required by logic.
This statement makes no sense to me, and doesn't seem to follow from
anything else you've written. The successor of the successor of zero is
two, regardless of whether two is written "2", "0010", "0011", or "DVO".
============================================================================
Dennis Paul Himes <> den...@sculptware.com
http://www.connix.com/~dennis/dennis.htm
Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as
the air." - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse 96-99
William Clifford
wrote:
>John Schilling wrote in message <7rm1lv$8ru$1...@spock.usc.edu>...
>[snippage below]
>> Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
>> Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to order.
>> Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic.
>>Whether or not Type II/III Gods even *can* exist is of course questionable,
>>but we need to be clear on what we are talking about.
>>
>The problem with this classification scheme is that a type I god would have
>undetectable, irresistible mind control, which means that a type I could
>provide proof of being one of the 'stronger' two types simply by making you
>think he did. It renders the classification scheme worthless in actual
>application, since the weakest type can always provide proof that he is one
>of the stronger types.
<nitpick>
Being *only* a type I god, I doubt that it's mind control is
completely undetectable or irresistable. However it would still be
powerful enough relative to the philosophers who only want it to make
rocks so heavy it can't lift them that the actual limits of it's
abilities are irrelevant.
</nitpick>
--
|William Clifford |"Dear Theo, |
|wo...@yahoo.com | I've been trying to paint the wheat- |
|lame webpage at: | feild but there's all these damned |
|http://www.ionline.com/wobh | crows in my way. I need a gun..." |
Tony Suessine
> operation intimately ties to the particle physics interactions (despite
> the fact that "volume of a subatomic particle" is not a very meaningful
> concept, but we'll ignore that for now). Naturally, that's intimately
> tied to the real world, because you made it that way.
I agree with what you say I am wired to not conceive of it any
other way either. (:
A "god" that could pick the laws of and create a universe
would be able to make sure the conditions would ensure
the life that evolved understood only a certain subset of logic.
Or conversely, restrict the life from certain parts of logic.
Best example that I can think of at the moment but here I go.....
Improbable but if life evolved on a high-G, oceanless world,
airless world then 3d movement (swimming, flying) would be greatly
hindered. Thinking in 3d would be far more difficult for races that
evolved there.
A mostly unrelated aside... relativity prior to (oh i don't know) 1900
would be so illogical as to be laughable.
Tony
Erik Max Francis
> A "god" that could pick the laws of and create a universe
> would be able to make sure the conditions would ensure
> the life that evolved understood only a certain subset of logic.
> Or conversely, restrict the life from certain parts of logic.
> Best example that I can think of at the moment but here I go.....
> Improbable but if life evolved on a high-G, oceanless world,
> airless world then 3d movement (swimming, flying) would be greatly
> hindered.
Well, yeah, but that kind of goes without saying. Evolving complex
forms in vacuum seems a little unlikely, though -- and how can it have
high gravity but absolutely no atmosphere?
> Thinking in 3d would be far more difficult for races that
> evolved there.
Humans can't fly or swim, but we have no problems with three-dimensional
thinking (as a whole, anyway; obviously some individuals have trouble
visualizing it).
> A mostly unrelated aside... relativity prior to (oh i don't know) 1900
> would be so illogical as to be laughable.
Before special relativity we had Galilean relativity, which worked fine.
It just turned out to be wrong, that's all.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA | languages en, eo | icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
USA | Fri 1999 Sep 17 (25%/949) | &tSftDotIotE
__
/ \ Even paranoids have real enemies.
\__/ Delmore Schwartz
Hop David
Brooks Moses wrote:
> Hop David wrote:
> > Erik Max Francis wrote:
> >
> > > Hop David wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hey, that's pretty good! O.K., I'll be generous and give you four
> > > > significant figures: 2.7182
> > > >
> > > > If you can do that in roman numerals my hat will be off to you.
> > >
> > > Sure: ln I. Hey, the other expressions were represented in terms of
> > > elementary functions as well.
> >
> > Seems like a circular reference as the natural log is based on e.
>
> Nah. It's defined by the integral of 1/x. The bit about being "based
> on e" is simply a convenient way to express it, but it doesn't need to
> be there.
Let's see. The integral of 1/X over the interval from I to X is, let's see .
. . IX/X+a constant.
Heeee heee
Sorry, I'm feeling kind of mischievous today.
Regards,
Hop
jiul...@my-deja.com
wo...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> [context preserved below]
>
> It still seems to me that a Type I God could
convincingly spoof for us
> mere mortals the effects we would expect of the
other two kinds.
>
> Consider: it would be a bad, bad, bad idea to
ask a Type II God to
> rewrite physical laws for us. We evolved under
the physical conditions
> that we know a love right now. If the least of
those gets pushed up or
> down a little we could find ourselves in a lot
of trouble. Trouble
> breathing, trouble keeping the atoms together...
>
> A Type III God could keep us safe in a bubble of
physical paradox.
>
> I'm not sure how a GII could keep us safe. If it
seems that there be a
> limit in how well we could observe events
outside our bubble, where
> the rules are different.
>
> A GI could use special effects to mimic the
effects of a GIII or some
> fast talk to convince us of its GII limitations.
>
> None of these types of God are really obligated
to prove anything to
> we mere mortals. They could probably bribe us
for our worship much
> cheaper than 'prove' it through the elaborate
tests we devise here.
> If, for some unfathomable reason, it's really
necessary for a given
> unbeliever to be convinced the God in question
could just rewrite the
> individual's brain until they did.
>
> On 14 Sep 1999 10:46:39 -0700,
schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling)
> wrote:
> >wo...@yahoo.com (William Clifford) writes:
> >>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:10:30 -0400, "Tony
Suessine"
> >><asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
> >>>Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people
to respond.
> >>>(totally against any higher intelligence
creating the universe
> >>>God, Aliens doesn't matter)
> >>>Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it.
What would convince
> >>>you? It much be part of basic
science/physics/mathematics.
> >>>i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more
advanced than us
> >>>couldn't trick us with. I can't think of
much. Most is ridiculous.
> >>Are you sure you want this as a condition? Any
evidence that a given
> >>diety could give us for his/her/their
existence could certainly be
> >>forged by other godlike entities. How could we
possibly tell the
> >>difference between God and a Godlike fake?
> >
> >I think he is trying to make a distinction
between "merely" ultra-advanced
> >tecnology and literal, theological omnipotence.
At least in the abstract
> >this is a distinction worth making. A basic
taxonomy:
> >
> > Type I God: Sufficiently advanced
technology. Can do absolutely
of natural, physical law.
> >
> > Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to
> > this universe and wrote its
physical law in the first
> > place.
> >
> > Type III God: Not subject to laws of
> > maintain irresistible force
and immovable object at
> > same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1?
No problem?
> >
> >Whether or not Type II/III Gods even *can*
exist is of course questionable,
> >but we need to be clear on what we are talking
about.
> >
> >
Sagan's suggestion of messages
> >encoded in basic mathematical constants might
work, modulo concerns about
> >implementation and statistical ambiguity. But
if the value of pi or e or
> >radical 2 has been unambiguously written to
order, there's a Type III God
> >at work.
> >
> >For a Type II God, use the same mechanism but
with dimensionless physical
> >constants like the fine-structure constant or
the electron/proton mass ratio.
> >
> >Type I Gods can just perform suitably
impressive physical feats. Set up
> >a wormhole transit system to dump a couple
hundred blue-white supergiants
> >into a constellation ten light-years out
spelling "Yes, Earthlings, I Exist".
>
> -William Clifford
>
Fine-structure can be shown by this equation:
82944^(1/PI)=(10^2)*cos[(7.297352468*10^-3)^-1]
1998 codata=137.03599973(50)
82944 derivative=137.036000986
Gravity can be shown by this equation:
82944^(PI/8)=(10^2)*cos[(6.672430000986*10^-8)^-1]
Weak force can be shown by this equation:
82944^(PI/8)=(10^2)*cos[(1.166390094221*10^-5)^-1]
82944^(PI/8)=(10^2)*cos[(1.1663900942214*10^5)^1]
These are pretty powerfull uses of PI
The weak force and gravity are described by the
same equation but are seperated by 4,743,234
phases of PI.
J.Iuliano(fermalink)
jiul...@my-deja.com
82944^(PI/8)=(10^2)*cos[(6.672430000986*10^-8)^-1]=GRAVITY
82944^(PI/8)=(10^2)*cos[(1.1663900942214*10^-5)^-1]=WEAK
82944^(1/PI)=(10^2)*cos[(7.29735246810^-3)^-1]=FINE_STRUCTURE
The 1998 codata for fine-structure=137.03599973(50)
82944 derivative=137.036000986
eMev=electron energy=.5109993
pMev=proton energy=938.271093647
82944=(10*pMev)^[(eMev^(-1/PI)]
J.Iuliano
Tony Suessine
> Well, yeah, but that kind of goes without saying. Evolving complex
> forms in vacuum seems a little unlikely, though -- and how can it have
> high gravity but absolutely no atmosphere?
I did say improbable didn't I?
> > Thinking in 3d would be far more difficult for races that
> > evolved there.
>
> Humans can't fly or swim, but we have no problems with three-dimensional
> thinking (as a whole, anyway; obviously some individuals have trouble
> visualizing it).
Well yes but we are evolved in a biosphere where 3d lifeforms
are common. Isn't it possible that some of our mental processes
wouldn't be (at the least) as easy if our brains didn't come from
simplier life forms in which this way of thinking was critical.
(And why can't humans swim - don't understand that one)
(personal belief however irrational u may consider it - the
aquatic ape theory is one of my favorite non-mainstream theories)
> > A mostly unrelated aside... relativity prior to (oh i don't know) 1900
> > would be so illogical as to be laughable.
>
> Before special relativity we had Galilean relativity, which worked fine.
> It just turned out to be wrong, that's all.
>
Sigh.. Stole that from you (: . I was just trying to demonstrate that
logic and reality don't necessarily agree.
Tony
Erik Max Francis
> 82944^(PI/8)=(10^2)*cos[(6.672430000986*10^-8)^-1]=GRAVITY
> 82944^(PI/8)=(10^2)*cos[(1.1663900942214*10^-5)^-1]=WEAK
> 82944^(1/PI)=(10^2)*cos[(7.29735246810^-3)^-1]=FINE_STRUCTURE
> The 1998 codata for fine-structure=137.03599973(50)
> 82944 derivative=137.036000986
> eMev=electron energy=.5109993
> pMev=proton energy=938.271093647
> 82944=(10*pMev)^[(eMev^(-1/PI)]
> J.Iuliano
Feeling okay? Hit your head, or anything?
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA | languages en, eo | icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
USA | Sat 1999 Sep 18 (26%/949) | &tSftDotIotE
__
/ \ Only the winners decide what were war crimes.
\__/ Gary Wills
Danny Sichel
>
> > Type III god -- Can change the laws of logic. Can make it so if you
> > have two apples in each hand, that adds to five
> > apples total. "Square root of pi? Might as well
> > encode Shakespeare in the decimal expansion."
> >
> > We started out with the question of what a skeptic or atheist would
> > consider a convincing proof of the existence of a deity. The
> > conversation has now evolved into a question of whether a Type III god,
> > as defined above, is even a conceivable entity.
>
> Is that all you want.
> No problem.
> Consider Grey's code.
> By this I mean that evey positive integer can be assigned
> a unique Grey code and every Grey code represents a
> unique positive integer.
> into a unique Grey integer and that any Grey integer
> can be conveted into a unique binary integer.
> There exists a set of Boolean expressions that will do this.
> In decimal this would be 3+3=7.
Aaaaaaah!
He's a type-III god!
Worship him! Worship him!
Tony Suessine
Danny Sichel <eds...@umoncton.ca> wrote in message
news:37E42D...@umoncton.ca...
> > So in Grey code, 0011 + 0011 = 0111.
> > In decimal this would be 3+3=7.
>
>
> Aaaaaaah!
>
> He's a type-III god!
>
> Worship him! Worship him!
I have lost a lot of messages during my conversion from
OE4 to OE5. If I missed something plz ignore this post.
0011+ 0011 is 0110.
Suspect I should just ask for good link explaining "Grey code"
Tony
jh
Grosberg wrote
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.com>
Zunu News wrote:
>> >
>> >> My question still remains: What does it mean to change math and logic
>> >> without changing the way the Universe works, and how could we tell the
>> >> difference?
>> >
>> >It would be pretty obvious. "Um, these sums aren't coming out right
>> >anymore ..."
>>
it "comes out right" in the first place. Consider Wittgenstein's
paradox in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics:
The sequence 1, 4,9,16 ... is presented. What
is the next number? Perhaps the rule is that each number is
taken in turn and squared, so the next number would be
25. Alternatively the next number could be taken as
27 - the reasoning here being that the sequence grows by
adding successive odd primes. The only sense in
which either answer could be right or wrong we be in terms
of the intentions of the individual presenting the sequence.
But what if there was no intention ( ie there was nothing
which the presenter "had in mind"). On this view mathematics
would be seen as an invention not a discovery, and
the issue of "changing math and logic" rendered
irrelevant.
Jim Humphreys
nedc...@my-deja.com
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