Why is there something rather than nothing?
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Roger
Aug 8, 2011, 2:40:56 AM8/8/11
to Everything List
Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
physics are at:
https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
rather than nothing?" paper is below.
Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
Sincerely,
Roger Granet (roge...@yahoo.com)
Abstract:
In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
exist?" and "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In regard
to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
completely defined. A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance” and
existence to the thing. In regard to the second question, "Why is
there something rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
about this lack-of-all. It is then shown that this non-existence
itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence, is the complete
description, or definition, of what is present. That is, no energy,
no matter, no volume, no space, no time, no thoughts, etc., in and of
itself, describes, defines, or tells you, exactly what is present.
Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, "nothing", or
non-existence, is actually an existent state. So, what has
traditionally been thought of as "nothing", or non-existence, is, when
seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".
Said yet another way, non-existence can appear as either "nothing" or
"something" depending on the perspective of the observer. Another
argument is also presented that reaches this same conclusion.
Finally, this reasoning is used to form a primitive model of the
universe via what I refer to as "philosophical engineering".
a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
physics are at:
https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
rather than nothing?" paper is below.
Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
Sincerely,
Roger Granet (roge...@yahoo.com)
Abstract:
In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
exist?" and "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In regard
to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
completely defined. A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance” and
existence to the thing. In regard to the second question, "Why is
there something rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
about this lack-of-all. It is then shown that this non-existence
itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence, is the complete
description, or definition, of what is present. That is, no energy,
no matter, no volume, no space, no time, no thoughts, etc., in and of
itself, describes, defines, or tells you, exactly what is present.
Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, "nothing", or
non-existence, is actually an existent state. So, what has
traditionally been thought of as "nothing", or non-existence, is, when
seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".
Said yet another way, non-existence can appear as either "nothing" or
"something" depending on the perspective of the observer. Another
argument is also presented that reaches this same conclusion.
Finally, this reasoning is used to form a primitive model of the
universe via what I refer to as "philosophical engineering".
meekerdb
Aug 8, 2011, 1:59:31 PM8/8/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 8/7/2011 11:40 PM, Roger wrote:
> Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
> something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> physics are at:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
> rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Roger Granet (roge...@yahoo.com)
>
> Abstract:
>
> In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> exist?" and "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In regard
> to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
> thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> completely defined.
> Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
> something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> physics are at:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
> rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Roger Granet (roge...@yahoo.com)
>
> Abstract:
>
> In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> exist?" and "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In regard
> to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
> thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> completely defined.
Things that are completely defined are mathematical abstractions: like a
differentiable manifold or the natural numbers. One might even argue
that an essential characteristic of things that exist is that they can
have unknown properties. But perhaps I'm misreading what you mean by
"defined". Maybe you just mean that things that exist either have a
property or not, independent of our knowledge. So Vic either has a mole
on his left side or he doesn't, even though we don't know which; whereas
is makes no sense to even wonder whether Sherlock Holmes has a mole on
his left side.
Brent
> A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
> boundary defining what is contained within and giving �substance� and
Roger
Aug 9, 2011, 2:36:54 AM8/9/11
to Everything List
Brent,
Thanks for the comment! I always like to distinguish between the
mind's conception/perception of a thing and the thing itself. So, I'd
say that a thing can exist even if its properties are unknown to us
(ie, to our mind's conception of the thing) but those properties have
to be known, or be part of, the thing itself in order to be properties
of that thing. I think this is real important in thinking about
"nothing" or non-existence. Next to our minds, which exist, nothing/
non-existence just looks like the lack of existence, or nothing. But,
existent state. Thanks!
Roger
On Aug 8, 1:59 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 8/7/2011 11:40 PM, Roger wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> > a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
> > something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> > some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> > infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> > physics are at:
>
> >https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> > An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
> > rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> > Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> > Sincerely,
>
> > Roger Granet (roger...@yahoo.com)
Thanks for the comment! I always like to distinguish between the
mind's conception/perception of a thing and the thing itself. So, I'd
say that a thing can exist even if its properties are unknown to us
(ie, to our mind's conception of the thing) but those properties have
to be known, or be part of, the thing itself in order to be properties
of that thing. I think this is real important in thinking about
"nothing" or non-existence. Next to our minds, which exist, nothing/
non-existence just looks like the lack of existence, or nothing. But,
non-existence itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence,
completely describes or defines what is present and is therefore an
existent state. Thanks!
Roger
On Aug 8, 1:59 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 8/7/2011 11:40 PM, Roger wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> > a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
> > something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> > some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> > infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> > physics are at:
>
> >https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> > An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
> > rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> > Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> > Sincerely,
>
>
> > Abstract:
>
> > In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> > exist?" and "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In regard
> > to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
> > thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> > completely defined.
>
> Things that are completely defined are mathematical abstractions: like a
> differentiable manifold or the natural numbers. One might even argue
> that an essential characteristic of things that exist is that they can
> have unknown properties. But perhaps I'm misreading what you mean by
> "defined". Maybe you just mean that things that exist either have a
> property or not, independent of our knowledge. So Vic either has a mole
> on his left side or he doesn't, even though we don't know which; whereas
> is makes no sense to even wonder whether Sherlock Holmes has a mole on
> his left side.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
> > boundary defining what is contained within and giving substance and
> > Abstract:
>
> > In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> > exist?" and "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In regard
> > to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
> > thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> > completely defined.
>
> Things that are completely defined are mathematical abstractions: like a
> differentiable manifold or the natural numbers. One might even argue
> that an essential characteristic of things that exist is that they can
> have unknown properties. But perhaps I'm misreading what you mean by
> "defined". Maybe you just mean that things that exist either have a
> property or not, independent of our knowledge. So Vic either has a mole
> on his left side or he doesn't, even though we don't know which; whereas
> is makes no sense to even wonder whether Sherlock Holmes has a mole on
> his left side.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
David Nyman
Aug 9, 2011, 9:49:56 AM8/9/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9 August 2011 07:36, Roger <roge...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I always like to distinguish between the
> mind's conception/perception of a thing and the thing itself. So, I'd
> say that a thing can exist even if its properties are unknown to us
> (ie, to our mind's conception of the thing) but those properties have
> to be known, or be part of, the thing itself in order to be properties
> of that thing. I think this is real important in thinking about
> "nothing" or non-existence. Next to our minds, which exist, nothing/
> non-existence just looks like the lack of existence, or nothing. But,
> non-existence itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence,
> completely describes or defines what is present and is therefore an
> existent state.
Agreed on the distinction between a conception and what it (may)
ultimately refer to. However, I'm not really convinced of its
centrality in this case. The "nothing" that is here juxtaposed with
"something" is surely intended to rule out any state whatsoever,
including any "properties" or "definitions" thereof. For example, in
the face of such "radical absence", even the truth that "17 is prime"
would be in abeyance (although I suspect Bruno might say that this is
evidence enough that the concept fails to refer). To be sure, given
the brute fact that there IS "something", such radical non-existence
may indeed be excluded as a matter of fact. That is, the IDEA of
"nothing" as the radical absence of any state of affairs whatsoever
may indeed lack any referent in actuality. But notwithstanding this,
any less radical proposal fails to exhaust the concept at its logical
limit (e.g. in your very reliance on the formulation "defines what is
present"). And the dizzying prospect of that ultimate conceptual
limit is, rightly or wrongly, what troubles us when we encounter the
canonical question.
David
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Roger Granet
Aug 9, 2011, 1:16:21 PM8/9/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
David,
Thanks for the feedback. I'm not suggesting that non-existence/radical absence contains a property or definition because I agree that it would then not be non-existence. I'm suggesting that non-existence is the complete description/definition of what is present and can therefore be considered an existent state. Also, because we're talking about non-existence, we have to reify it (by saying "it is", "what is present", etc.) in order to even discuss it, but non-existence itself doesn't have that property. So, when I say that
"non-existence is the complete description of what is present",
by necessity, I'm jumping
back and forth between two meanings of non-existence. The first "non-existence" in the phrase refers to non-existence itself and "what is present" is our mind's conception of non-existence. We're stuck having to do this because we exist, but non-existence itself, and not our mind's conception of non-existence" doesn't have this dependence.
Thanks!
Roger
From: David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com>
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 9, 2011 9:49 AM
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
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David Nyman
Aug 10, 2011, 11:40:23 AM8/10/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9 August 2011 18:16, Roger Granet <roge...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> So, when I say that
> "non-existence is the complete description of what is present",
> by necessity, I'm jumping back and forth between two meanings of
> non-existence. The first "non-existence" in the phrase refers to
> non-existence itself and "what is present" is our mind's conception of
> non-existence. We're stuck having to do this because we exist, but
> non-existence itself, and not our mind's conception of non-existence"
> doesn't have this dependence.
I've read the above several times and, sadly, I still have no clear
idea of what you could possibly mean. You say that: "what is present"
is our mind's conception of non-existence. Substituting this in your
formulation then gives:
"non-existence is the complete description of our mind's conception of
non-existence".
Is this what you meant to say? If so, I can see why you say it is an
"existent state", but I still can't see how you defend such a state as
equivalent to "radical absence of all states". Indeed, the two ideas
seem in direct contradiction.
David
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Roger
Aug 11, 2011, 1:49:02 AM8/11/11
to Everything List
David,
I believe you're right that I misspoke in my previous posting.
Thanks. What I meant was that if we consider non-existence itself and
not our mind's conception of non-existence, then that non-existence
itself (ie, that complete lack of all matter, energy, time, space,
ideas, mathematical constructs, and of minds to try and conceive this
lack of all.) completely defines or describes the entirety of what is
actually "physically" present. There's nothing else there other than
the complete lack of all. Because it is the complete description of
what is "physically" present, it is an existent state. I put
physically in quotes here not to try and linguistically reify non-
existence, but because in order to even consider non-existence itself,
we have to have some physical condition to refer to.
Overall, what this means is that our mind's conception of non-
existence is of just plain "nothingness". But, non-existence itself
is actually an existent state and can really therefore be called
"something" instead of "nothing". This means that non-existence
itself really does have a referent in actuality (the phrase you
mentioned previously). Thanks.
Roger
On Aug 10, 11:40 am, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
I believe you're right that I misspoke in my previous posting.
Thanks. What I meant was that if we consider non-existence itself and
not our mind's conception of non-existence, then that non-existence
itself (ie, that complete lack of all matter, energy, time, space,
ideas, mathematical constructs, and of minds to try and conceive this
lack of all.) completely defines or describes the entirety of what is
actually "physically" present. There's nothing else there other than
the complete lack of all. Because it is the complete description of
what is "physically" present, it is an existent state. I put
physically in quotes here not to try and linguistically reify non-
existence, but because in order to even consider non-existence itself,
we have to have some physical condition to refer to.
Overall, what this means is that our mind's conception of non-
existence is of just plain "nothingness". But, non-existence itself
is actually an existent state and can really therefore be called
"something" instead of "nothing". This means that non-existence
itself really does have a referent in actuality (the phrase you
mentioned previously). Thanks.
Roger
On Aug 10, 11:40 am, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
David Nyman
Aug 11, 2011, 1:34:17 PM8/11/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 11 August 2011 06:49, Roger <roge...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Overall, what this means is that our mind's conception of non-
> existence is of just plain "nothingness". But, non-existence itself
> is actually an existent state and can really therefore be called
> "something" instead of "nothing". This means that non-existence
> itself really does have a referent in actuality (the phrase you
> mentioned previously).
I'm afraid it still seems to me that, in effect, to equate the
"existence" of some state with the "absence" of all existent states is
a direct contradiction. Indeed it may be the case that any conception
of such absence fails to accord with any actual state of affairs, but
I don't see that your argument excludes a priori its brute
possibility, however much the mind may reel from the prospect.
Perhaps the problem stems from the almost insuperable psychological
tendency for any conceptual reference whatsoever (in this case
"non-existence") to vivify its putative object and thereby seem to
lend it some measure of "existence". But however ingenious the
attempt to reify "nothing", it is surely permanently vulnerable to the
objection "no, not that either". Hence it seems an exercise in
futility. If there is some further subtlety here, I'm afraid it
continues to elude me.
David
RMahoney
Aug 11, 2011, 3:21:03 PM8/11/11
to Everything List
I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about this and seem to
approach it from a different perspective than you have.
Not much use in wondering why something exists rather than nothing,
because obviously the latter is not the case.
I came to the conclusion, if "something" exists, why doesn't
everything exist? Why should anything be excluded?
In your paper, you state that if any one spatial dimension is non
existent (zero) then nothing exists. One step further, if time is non
existent, then nothing exists. Time is the change from one state to
the next. If all we have is now, and never a before and never an
after, there is no existance.
As states change, time occurs... does the historical state still
exist? or is "now" the only state that exists?
If whatever started the whole thing rolling happened at some point in
time, maybe the beginning of time, what would preclude it from
happening again, and again, and again, every moment of time that ever
exists. Because time is relative, I think every possible state exists
and has never not existed. Esentially, a multiverse where every
possible state exists and has always existed. The relation between one
state to the next manifests itself as time and experience to the
observer.
If it is possible, it must exist. Else it is not possible. Everything
must exist. Not just "something". "Every"thing.
On Aug 8, 1:40 am, Roger <roger...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
> something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> physics are at:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
> rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Roger Granet (roger...@yahoo.com)
approach it from a different perspective than you have.
Not much use in wondering why something exists rather than nothing,
because obviously the latter is not the case.
I came to the conclusion, if "something" exists, why doesn't
everything exist? Why should anything be excluded?
In your paper, you state that if any one spatial dimension is non
existent (zero) then nothing exists. One step further, if time is non
existent, then nothing exists. Time is the change from one state to
the next. If all we have is now, and never a before and never an
after, there is no existance.
As states change, time occurs... does the historical state still
exist? or is "now" the only state that exists?
If whatever started the whole thing rolling happened at some point in
time, maybe the beginning of time, what would preclude it from
happening again, and again, and again, every moment of time that ever
exists. Because time is relative, I think every possible state exists
and has never not existed. Esentially, a multiverse where every
possible state exists and has always existed. The relation between one
state to the next manifests itself as time and experience to the
observer.
If it is possible, it must exist. Else it is not possible. Everything
must exist. Not just "something". "Every"thing.
On Aug 8, 1:40 am, Roger <roger...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why is there
> something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> physics are at:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why is there something
> rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> Sincerely,
>
Pilar Morales
Aug 11, 2011, 4:48:20 PM8/11/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Roger,
Sorry to butt in, but I was also thoroughly confused. It seems to me that you are re-discovering zero "0", as representing a concept of the absence of any thing.
If you mean that zero is our concept of non existence, and that zero is defined, not by its attributes, but by the absence of them, then you must define zero = not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, ad infinitum. This would make zero, or non existence, an infinite description of every single thing that we can identify in existence or having form, as having non existence. It would actually make zero, or non existence, pure potential in its defining process from an absolute reference.
I believe that trying to define something by describing what is not, doesn't really define it other than conceptually. If I say that zero is something because I have a concept of what it's not, it doesn't really make it something. I think the concept of zero is a powerful one, but then we made into something, made it have meaning after a decimal period: in 50 it is something that multiplies 5 times 10. Going back to the "concept" of non existence of zero, division by zero is inconceivable and if you divide by the definition of zero, the calculations would take you through infinity: 1/(not 1), 1/(not 2), 1/(all the "possible" definitions of what it is not).
Defining zero as a state, not as a concept, can only be done in my view, as an infinite iteration of possible states. Although it is true that non-existence is lack of time, it is only partially true, a partial state. To truly define non-existence, you would have to define a set of all that it is not: no time, no matter, no energy, no ideas, no mathematical constructs, and no each of the etcs to infinity.
Regarding the subjectivity of non-existence and its dependence on an observer, I would say that I agree that zero is defined relatively to the observer/observation: How many apples do I have? Zero apples. How much time do we have? Zero time. What is zero? (changes from relative (state) to absolute (concept)) = zilch, nada. Zero is the absence of any thing; think of "any thing" (iteratively through infinity) and the lack of it is zero.
Non-existence could, I agree, be defined as a boundary of what is. But then again we break into relative and absolute definitions: The non existence of 1, is the state of all minus 1. The non-existence of all, would be the boundary of all that is, in which conceptually, zero is at the center - not outside- the number line.
In a way, this definition of zero (both relative and absolute) goes well with particle physics in that each individual "form" in essence, is both existent and non-existent before it is observed. It seems to me that it is potentially both, until a relative observer identifies one thing, automatically differentiating its non-existence. Bringing consciousness into the equation, I wonder if self-observance makes a difference or if the observer needs to be outside the observed.
Thanks Roger for the article and for allowing me to think outloud,
Pilar
RMahoney
Aug 11, 2011, 7:34:07 PM8/11/11
to Everything List
On Aug 11, 3:48 pm, Pilar Morales <pilarmorales...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ... To truly define non-existence, you would have to define a set of all
> that it is not: no time, no matter, no energy, no ideas, no mathematical
> constructs, and no each of the etcs to infinity.
So out of nothing the universe of everything is born.
> constructs, and no each of the etcs to infinity.
In the beginning there was nothing. But what is nothing. The lack of
an infinite number of potential somethings. So nothing is just one of
an infinite number of possible states. All possible states "exist"
because they are possible. It has all always been here and will
always be here, all possible states, all possible events.
John Mikes
Aug 12, 2011, 4:02:38 PM8/12/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Dear Pilar,
as your fellow "Not-English-Mothertongue" guy. I point to the incompleteness in this language: "Nothing" - "EXISTS" not. It isn't. But it is bad English to write:
"Why 'is-not' nothing?" so we have a discussion point. In my (non-IndoEuropean) mothertongue the question is exactly formulated in the 'wrong(?)' way.
(Miert nincs semmi?)
I see you take it for granted that "the Universe was born". Was it indeed? Maybe "OUR" universe was, but I speak about the "World" (Multiverse, none of them necessarily identical in any sense) in which we inhabit a pretty simple one with 'the' physical system we have.
Our limited imagination can work only with 'somethings', nothing has no meaning (if it includes such meaning - it would negate its true meaning - <G>) E.g. 'Physically' it cannot be bordered - or I ask: is such border inside the nothing (when it is nothing), or outside (when it does not belong (in)to it)?
~2 decades ago I wrote a little silly 'ode' to 'Somethingness" starting with the BLANK:
And there was 'NOTHING" at all. (I don't recall the rhythmic words anymore) And when this nothingness 'realized it's nothingness then it changed into a 'somethingness' - as
indeed it's nothingness. And the World was shaped in the course of such build-up...
I don't think 'nothing' is a 'poosible state' - I don't mix it up with 'zero' or 'null', just think about the meaningless meaning of it. No this, no that - MAYBE. I would not 'negate' ideas (states, as you call them) we don't know about. And we have lots beyond our knowledge.
Best regards
John M
meekerdb
Aug 12, 2011, 4:23:02 PM8/12/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
"What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing!"
--- Norm Levitt, after Quine
--- Norm Levitt, after Quine
Pilar Morales
Aug 12, 2011, 5:08:57 PM8/12/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Dear John, thank you for the feedback. My comments below..
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 4:02 PM, John Mikes <jam...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Pilar,
as your fellow "Not-English-Mothertongue" guy. I point to the incompleteness in this language: "Nothing" - "EXISTS" not. It isn't. But it is bad English to write:"Why 'is-not' nothing?" so we have a discussion point. In my (non-IndoEuropean) mothertongue the question is exactly formulated in the 'wrong(?)' way.(Miert nincs semmi?)
I felt that zero as a concept would take care of that. In fact, zero wasn't part of the numeral system until very late in the game. I'm sure it took a lot of discussion to make it "real", and its acceptance has revolutionized math.
I see you take it for granted that "the Universe was born". Was it indeed? Maybe "OUR" universe was, but I speak about the "World" (Multiverse, none of them necessarily identical in any sense) in which we inhabit a pretty simple one with 'the' physical system we have.
John, I personally don't believe there was a begining with nothing before it. Information is not created or destroyed, just transformed. The Universe is being born every day in a way.
Our limited imagination can work only with 'somethings', nothing has no meaning (if it includes such meaning - it would negate its true meaning - <G>) E.g. 'Physically' it cannot be bordered - or I ask: is such border inside the nothing (when it is nothing), or outside (when it does not belong (in)to it)?
Yes, I understand. However, if you consider the EM Spectrum, what we can see (light) and what we can hear (sound) are very narrow ranges. There's a whole lot that our senses don't pick up, so we have to invent tools to extend our senses in order to know what else is there, where there was "nothing" before.
If you consider also that our bodies are 99% empty space: you may call that space "nothing", only until our human drive and capacity develops the tools, the sensors, the receptors to detect, measure, and observe what this "empty space" is made of and how it behaves. That nothing may be called God, or the Quantum Vacuum, or anything that sounds metaphysical until measured or observed or nobel-prized.
~2 decades ago I wrote a little silly 'ode' to 'Somethingness" starting with the BLANK:And there was 'NOTHING" at all. (I don't recall the rhythmic words anymore) And when this nothingness 'realized it's nothingness then it changed into a 'somethingness' - asindeed it's nothingness. And the World was shaped in the course of such build-up...I don't think 'nothing' is a 'poosible state' - I don't mix it up with 'zero' or 'null', just think about the meaningless meaning of it. No this, no that - MAYBE. I would not 'negate' ideas (states, as you call them) we don't know about. And we have lots beyond our knowledge.
That was my first reaction when I read the article, but then I thought about the possibility of the Universe being binary-like. A computer needs the "off" state, it needs the zeroes. Zero is information: "not that", you're right: not physical, not form.
All the Best,
Pilar
meekerdb
Aug 12, 2011, 5:13:54 PM8/12/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 8/12/2011 2:08 PM, Pilar Morales wrote:
I see you take it for granted that "the Universe was born". Was it indeed? Maybe "OUR" universe was, but I speak about the "World" (Multiverse, none of them necessarily identical in any sense) in which we inhabit a pretty simple one with 'the' physical system we have.John, I personally don't believe there was a begining with nothing before it. Information is not created or destroyed, just transformed. The Universe is being born every day in a way.
Since in QM information can be negative, it may be the universe not
only has zero energy it also has zero information (in fact that would
seem implicit in the idea that everything happens).
Brent
The universe is just nothing, rearranged.
--- Yonatan Fishman
Brent
The universe is just nothing, rearranged.
--- Yonatan Fishman
Pilar Morales
Aug 12, 2011, 8:28:03 PM8/12/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Brent,
Is it possible that zero could have negative charge, positive charge, and neutral charge?
Which reminds me, why is it that the photon doesn't have an anti-particle other than itself? It makes no sense to me that Bosons for the most part don't have antimatter equivalents. I would think that the antiparticle of a photon has got to be magnetic in essence. If the word wasn't taken already, I would say that the antiparticle of a photon is a graviton or a magnetron, which to me, gravitation and magnetism are manifestations of the same force, just different reactions to interactions. And at the risk of sounding (even more) crazy, I would say that the photon and its anti-particle are entangled at the essential connection point that bridges between matter and that hidden world. Something that makes planets levitate as a magnet levitates a rotating magnet, that carries light, that in every closed system creates an attracting and repulsive force. It is that something that tips over when it collects enough mass and makes it collapse. Not the Higgs.
I'm sure there's someone out there who has thought of this and has the math to back it up!!
--
Craig Weinberg
Aug 12, 2011, 9:50:40 PM8/12/11
to Everything List
On Aug 12, 8:28 pm, Pilar Morales <pilarmorales...@gmail.com> wrote:
>gravitation and magnetism are manifestations of the same force,
> just different reactions to interactions.
I think that is the case also. To me it seems possible that gravity,
>gravitation and magnetism are manifestations of the same force,
> just different reactions to interactions.
like time, is not a true primitive phenomenon, but actually how the
epiphenomenon of entropy relativistically distorting electromagnetic
interactions related to density, scale, and distance between objects.
> Something that makes planets levitate as a magnet levitates a
> rotating magnet, that carries light, that in every closed system creates an
> attracting and repulsive force. It is that something that tips over when it
> collects enough mass and makes it collapse. Not the Higgs.
particles, do not physically exist. Like 'gravity', they are logical
inferences based upon our lack of first hand interaction with
phenomena on the microcosmic scale. I hypothesize a mutual
telesemantic quorum sensing phenomenology which is an interior/
exterior, input/output system instead of a model of passive
bombardment by dumb light projectiles, with all appearances of
particle or wave behavior being a function of the interactions within
the matter that makes up our physical measuring instruments. In short,
'light' is our experience of visual perception and photons are a
mathematical narrative applied to secondhand atomic perception.
When I have tried to inquire about what evidence we have that photons
physically exist, or even what that would mean given the lack of
physically tangible characteristics, I generally am referred to the
photoelectric effect or other theoretical frameworks in which a
particulate entity could be assumed, or else I'm met with agreement
that yes, photons are actually quantum events having a wavelike or
particle like pattern of occurrence. In either case I think that the
idea of electromagnetic quorum sensing is a more plausible theory with
more explanatory power.
Craig
meekerdb
Aug 12, 2011, 9:55:38 PM8/12/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 8/12/2011 5:28 PM, Pilar Morales wrote:
> Brent,
> Is it possible that zero could have negative charge, positive charge,
> and neutral charge?
> Brent,
> Is it possible that zero could have negative charge, positive charge,
> and neutral charge?
Zero is the cardinality of the empty set. It's not part of the physical
world.
> Which reminds me, why is it that the photon doesn't have an
> anti-particle other than itself? It makes no sense to me that Bosons
> for the most part don't have antimatter equivalents.
They all have anti-particles. It's just that for the uncharged ones may
be their own anti-particle.
> I would think that the antiparticle of a photon has got to be magnetic
> in essence.
Photons don't carry charge. If they did they'd interact with other
photons and we wouldn't be able to see anything.
> If the word wasn't taken already, I would say that the antiparticle of
> a photon is a graviton
The graviton (if it exists) is a spin 2 particle.
> or a magnetron, which to me, gravitation and magnetism are
> manifestations of the same force, just different reactions to
> interactions.
Andre Sakharov wrote a famous paper that suggests gravity is an emergent
curvature of spacetime from the vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields,
including the EM field
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~akempf/sakharov.pdf
The idea is popular again because black hole thermodynamics implies
gravity could be an entropic force.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0204/0204062v1.pdf
> And at the risk of sounding (even more) crazy, I would say that the
> photon and its anti-particle are entangled at the essential connection
> point that bridges between matter and that hidden world. Something
> that makes planets levitate as a magnet levitates a rotating magnet,
> that carries light, that in every closed system creates an attracting
> and repulsive force. It is that something that tips over when it
> collects enough mass and makes it collapse. Not the Higgs.
> I'm sure there's someone out there who has thought of this and has the
> math to back it up!!
Somebody may have thought of it, but nobody's been able to back it up.
Brent
My brother rose thru his gravity, while contrariwise I sank due
to my levity.
--- Mark Twain
Craig Weinberg
Aug 12, 2011, 10:01:23 PM8/12/11
to Everything List
On Aug 12, 9:55 pm, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Photons don't carry charge. If they did they'd interact with other
> photons and we wouldn't be able to see anything.
Would you say that what we see is photons? Even in our dreams?> Photons don't carry charge. If they did they'd interact with other
> photons and we wouldn't be able to see anything.
Pilar Morales
Aug 13, 2011, 12:23:59 AM8/13/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 8/12/2011 5:28 PM, Pilar Morales wrote:Andre Sakharov wrote a famous paper that suggests gravity is an emergent curvature of spacetime from the vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields, including the EM fieldor a magnetron, which to me, gravitation and magnetism are manifestations of the same force, just different reactions to interactions.
That makes more sense to me. The fundamental unit of magnetism is (has to be) spacetime itself, time being the most important differentiator. I think there's a problem when we give the speed of 300Kk/s to the particle of light versus giving it to the field in which it travels. The specific frequency of that field has a sign posted: Speed Limit X, so it makes sense to me that the fields are of greater importance since everything, every particle, is in constant movement. It is the field that makes it move.
Like a leaf carried by the current of a river, it is the current that carries it; or a sailboat when it catches the current of the wind. Nothing can travel faster than the particular current without additional energy, but the speed of the particles depends on their mass, their charge, and the size/speed or frequency of the current in which it wants to travel. This would fit perfectly with conservation of energy. It would be another quality of the spacetime field that puts pressure on the particles that makes them experience entropy, like water pressure.
Or maybe not. Thanks for the link, it's in my queue now :)
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~akempf/sakharov.pdf
The idea is popular again because black hole thermodynamics implies gravity could be an entropic force.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0204/0204062v1.pdf
meekerdb
Aug 13, 2011, 12:26:18 AM8/13/11
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Craig Weinberg
Aug 13, 2011, 12:33:28 AM8/13/11
to Everything List
we know whether it would matter if the interact with other photons.
Why do they seem to be able to interact with our rod and cone cells?
meekerdb
Aug 13, 2011, 1:09:44 AM8/13/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 8/12/2011 9:33 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> On Aug 13, 12:26 am, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> On 8/12/2011 7:01 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:> On Aug 12, 9:55 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> Photons don't carry charge. If they did they'd interact with other
>>>> photons and we wouldn't be able to see anything.
>>>>
>>
>>> Would you say that what we see is photons? Even in our dreams?
>>>
>> No.
>>
> You see where I'm going with this... if we don't see photons, how do
> we know whether it would matter if the interact with other photons.
>
> On Aug 13, 12:26 am, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> On 8/12/2011 7:01 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:> On Aug 12, 9:55 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>> Photons don't carry charge. If they did they'd interact with other
>>>> photons and we wouldn't be able to see anything.
>>>>
>>
>>> Would you say that what we see is photons? Even in our dreams?
>>>
>> No.
>>
> You see where I'm going with this... if we don't see photons, how do
> we know whether it would matter if the interact with other photons.
>
If they interacted with other photons they wouldn't travel in straight
lines and we could form images.
> Why do they seem to be able to interact with our rod and cone cells?
>
>
They have charged particles in them, e.g. electrons.
Brent
Roger
Aug 13, 2011, 2:52:32 AM8/13/11
to Everything List
David,
In regard to my point that "non-existence" itself (not our mind's
conception of non-existence) is actually an existent state, you
suggest that
equating the "existence" of some state with the "absence" of all
existence really is a non-existing state. What I'm suggesting is that
when we get rid of all the states we've traditionally thought of as
existing (matter, energy, space, time, volume, ideas/concepts,
mathematical constructs, minds/perception, etc.), we've always thought
of what's left as not existing, or non-existence. But, what I'm
saying is that we really haven't yet gotten rid of all existent
states. What's left is also an existent state, just not one of the
traditional ones. It's an existent state because it completely
describes or defines the entirety of what is there. Another way of
saying all this is that "non-existence" is an incorrect term; it's a
misnomer. We've always referred to this thing, "non-existence", as
not existing because that's the only we and our existent minds can
think of it, as the lack of existence. But, this "non-existence"
itself, not our mind's conception of it, doesn't have this constraint
of being defined in terms of the lack of the traditional existing
states. It's on its own, and on its own, completely describes the
entirety of what is there and is thus an existent state.
What this all leads me to is that there really is no such thing as
a true non-existing state. Even what we've traditionally called "non-
existence" and thought of as a non-existing state is, when thought of
as described above, really just another existing state. This means
that the question of "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is
an incorrect way of stating things. What we've always called
"nothing" isn't really no-thing or a non-existing state; it also is an
existent state, or "something". So, "something" has always been
here, which is what I concluded in the paper at my website. All of
this may seem like an exercise in futility as you mentioned, but why I
think it's valuable is that:
- It forces us to think about why a thing exists in the first place.
That is, what is the mechanism or reason for why a thing exists? What
I came up with, as described in that paper is that a thing exists if
what is contained within or meant by that thing is completely
defined. This complete definition is like an edge or boundary
defining what is contained within and giving "substance" or existence
to the thing. This is more fully explored in that paper.
- It provides a way, as described in the paper at the website, to
start building a model of the universe that is similar to ours and
that contains a symmetry-asymmetry transition (symmetry-breaking), a
big bang-like creation and expansion of space and a mechanical,
natural reason for why there is energy in the universe.
My view of philosophy is not so much to argue endlessly about
these things but to try and use as few assumptions as possible along
with consistent reasoning to come up with some framework and use it to
build a realistic model of things and to try and make predictions with
that model. This lets philosophy transition into science.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Roger
On Aug 11, 1:34 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
> ...
>
> read more »
In regard to my point that "non-existence" itself (not our mind's
conception of non-existence) is actually an existent state, you
suggest that
equating the "existence" of some state with the "absence" of all
existent states is a direct contradiction.
But, it's only a contradiction if what we've traditionally called non-
existence really is a non-existing state. What I'm suggesting is that
when we get rid of all the states we've traditionally thought of as
existing (matter, energy, space, time, volume, ideas/concepts,
mathematical constructs, minds/perception, etc.), we've always thought
of what's left as not existing, or non-existence. But, what I'm
saying is that we really haven't yet gotten rid of all existent
states. What's left is also an existent state, just not one of the
traditional ones. It's an existent state because it completely
describes or defines the entirety of what is there. Another way of
saying all this is that "non-existence" is an incorrect term; it's a
misnomer. We've always referred to this thing, "non-existence", as
not existing because that's the only we and our existent minds can
think of it, as the lack of existence. But, this "non-existence"
itself, not our mind's conception of it, doesn't have this constraint
of being defined in terms of the lack of the traditional existing
states. It's on its own, and on its own, completely describes the
entirety of what is there and is thus an existent state.
What this all leads me to is that there really is no such thing as
a true non-existing state. Even what we've traditionally called "non-
existence" and thought of as a non-existing state is, when thought of
as described above, really just another existing state. This means
that the question of "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is
an incorrect way of stating things. What we've always called
"nothing" isn't really no-thing or a non-existing state; it also is an
existent state, or "something". So, "something" has always been
here, which is what I concluded in the paper at my website. All of
this may seem like an exercise in futility as you mentioned, but why I
think it's valuable is that:
- It forces us to think about why a thing exists in the first place.
That is, what is the mechanism or reason for why a thing exists? What
I came up with, as described in that paper is that a thing exists if
what is contained within or meant by that thing is completely
defined. This complete definition is like an edge or boundary
defining what is contained within and giving "substance" or existence
to the thing. This is more fully explored in that paper.
- It provides a way, as described in the paper at the website, to
start building a model of the universe that is similar to ours and
that contains a symmetry-asymmetry transition (symmetry-breaking), a
big bang-like creation and expansion of space and a mechanical,
natural reason for why there is energy in the universe.
My view of philosophy is not so much to argue endlessly about
these things but to try and use as few assumptions as possible along
with consistent reasoning to come up with some framework and use it to
build a realistic model of things and to try and make predictions with
that model. This lets philosophy transition into science.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Roger
On Aug 11, 1:34 pm, David Nyman <da...@davidnyman.com> wrote:
>
> read more »
Craig Weinberg
Aug 13, 2011, 3:50:49 AM8/13/11
to Everything List
On Aug 13, 1:09 am, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
> If they interacted with other photons they wouldn't travel in straight
> lines and we could form images.
The images aren't photons though. We can see images clearly in our
> If they interacted with other photons they wouldn't travel in straight
> lines and we could form images.
imagination without anything physically traveling anywhere, as far as
I know. Also, the molecules that make up the air don't travel in a
straight line, yet we are able to hear sound clearly.
> > Why do they seem to be able to interact with our rod and cone cells?
>
> They have charged particles in them, e.g. electrons.
the cell cancel out the effect of the straightness of the photon
paths? I would think that the retina would have to be an immaculate
crystalline surface rather than a lumpy community of breathing protein
sacs in order to retain the integrity of the photon pattern. If the
visual cortex can compensate for all of that, as well as movements of
the eyeball and head, it seems like it could read through the patterns
of photon interactions just as our auditory nerve hears through the
acoustic collisions of charged particles as they interact and
interfere.
I'm not arguing against optics, and I can see that density of
materials can account for the relative lack of distortion of image
through hundreds of miles of atmosphere yet be completely blocked by a
nanometers-thin sheet of gold leaf, but I still think that our
explanation of photon projectiles traveling millions of miles through
space into our retina really doesn't hold water. It would seem that
all of the gas and water vapor in the atmosphere would add up to be
one thin sheet of metal if flattened, so that if each atmospheric
electron absorbed one or more photons of energy, I would expect some
kind of elaborate moire pattern where the cumulative distribution of
molecular shadows would end up causing random blotches of darkness to
appear on a clear sunny day. In order to do what the retina does, it
seems to me that the photons would have to fill in these miles long
molecular shadows and reconstruct the straight line path that could
have been there had not the layers of gas gotten in the way.
I think if all that were necessary to see an image were photons, then
we would be able to see out of our skin. We would feel light in
images. Light is just too unlike any kind of physical substance. It
makes no sense for it to be invisible as a ray in a vacuum, for it not
to exist independently as a substance. If it were a particle, it
should behave in some macrocosmic, commonsense way like other
phenomena composed of particles and not like a phantom non-substance
that is the invisible source of all vision. You can't see light, you
can only see something that is illuminated, and since we can imagine
illumination without having photons input, it makes sense that
illumination is a condition that occurs within our nervous system's
experience, yet is common to matter that is being illuminated as well.
The addition of endless torrents of massless, chargeless, intangibles
filling the universe just to connect one self-illuminating material
object to another through a vacuum seems superfluous.
Craig
David Nyman
Aug 13, 2011, 8:32:10 AM8/13/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 13 August 2011 07:52, Roger <roge...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> My view of philosophy is not so much to argue endlessly about
> these things but to try and use as few assumptions as possible along
> with consistent reasoning to come up with some framework and use it to
> build a realistic model of things and to try and make predictions with
> that model. This lets philosophy transition into science.
I agree with this sentiment and it's very much the spirit of
discussion on this list. I do see what you are trying to say, and
indeed the impossibility of a truly "radical absence" - given the
indubitable presence of "something" - has always seemed inescapable to
me. Of course I am sympathetic to any attempt to derive systematic
results from clearly defined premises.
Nonetheless, the question, as traditionally posed, can still lead to a
different conclusion, albeit one with an ineliminable element of
paradox. "Nothing" implies the elimination of "absolutely
everything". This entails that the very point of origin, whatever it
may be, of "the indubitable presence of something" must itself be
eliminated. Since the elimination of its fons et origo would
logically exclude even the possibility of the thought itself, we have
a stark paradox. Such "absolute absence" would seem to be something
of which we could truly never have spoken; our permanent silence on
the matter would have been assured. By the same token, of course, our
very presence effectively eliminates it as a possibility.
I suspect that this insight is in practice the starting point for your
own argument; i.e. that since the presence of anything at all leads
directly to the conclusion that a truly "radical" absence is simply
ruled out, whatever we conceive of as "nothing" must actually possess
definable characteristics. And that's when things get really
interesting.
David
meekerdb
Aug 13, 2011, 4:47:48 PM8/13/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 8/13/2011 12:50 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> True, but why doesn't the millions of odd electron interactions within
> the cell cancel out the effect of the straightness of the photon
> paths? I would think that the retina would have to be an immaculate
> crystalline surface rather than a lumpy community of breathing protein
> sacs in order to retain the integrity of the photon pattern. If the
> visual cortex can compensate for all of that, as well as movements of
> the eyeball and head, it seems like it could read through the patterns
> of photon interactions just as our auditory nerve hears through the
> acoustic collisions of charged particles as they interact and
> interfere.
>
> True, but why doesn't the millions of odd electron interactions within
> the cell cancel out the effect of the straightness of the photon
> paths? I would think that the retina would have to be an immaculate
> crystalline surface rather than a lumpy community of breathing protein
> sacs in order to retain the integrity of the photon pattern. If the
> visual cortex can compensate for all of that, as well as movements of
> the eyeball and head, it seems like it could read through the patterns
> of photon interactions just as our auditory nerve hears through the
> acoustic collisions of charged particles as they interact and
> interfere.
>
Sorry, I don't have the time to teach physics on this list. Others may
be better qaulified anyway or you could read a textbook.
Brent
RMahoney
Aug 22, 2011, 3:28:56 PM8/22/11
to Everything List
No, we see the effect of photons on our receptors.
Our dreams re-inact that effect.
Our dreams re-inact that effect.
Jason Resch
Aug 22, 2011, 10:45:08 PM8/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 3:28 PM, RMahoney <rmah...@poteau.com> wrote:
No, we see the effect of photons on our receptors.
Our dreams re-inact that effect.
There are many who say that waking life is really just a dream that is modulated by the senses. This is because the brain does a lot of inventing in cases where there is insufficient or no sensory data (such as blind spots). And that the visual center of the brain receives about as much information from memory as it does from the senses.
Jason
nihil0
Sep 19, 2011, 2:27:08 AM9/19/11
to Everything List
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
. . ."
I would like to continue that discussion here on this thread, because
I believe the article Norman cites provides a satisfying answer the
question "Why does anything exist?," which is very closely related to
the question "Why is there something rather than nothing." The author
is David Pearce, who is an active British philosopher.
Here are some highlights of Pearce's answer: "In the Universe as a
whole, the conserved constants (electric charge, angular momentum,
mass-energy) add up to/cancel out to exactly zero. . . Yet why not,
say, 42, rather than 0? Well, if everything -- impossibly, I'm
guessing -- added up/cancelled out instead to 42, then 42 would have
to be accounted for. But if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining. . . The whole of mathematics can, in
principle, be derived from the properties of the empty set, Ø" I think
this last sentence, if true, would support Tegmark's Mathematical
Universe Hypothesis, because if math is derivable from nothing (as
Pearce thinks) and physics is derivable from math (as Tegmark thinks)
and, then physics is derivable from nothing, and presto we have a
theory of everything/nothing.
I think Pearce's conclusion is the following: everything that exists
is a property of (or function of) the number zero (i.e., the empty
set, nothing). Let's call this idea Ontological Nihilism.
Russell Standish seems to endorse this idea in his book "Theory of
Nothing", which I'm reading. He formulates an equation for the amount
of complexity a system has, and says that "The complexity [i.e.,
information content] of the Everything is zero, just as it is of the
Nothing. The simplest set is the set of all possibilities, which is
the dual of the empty set." (pg. 40) He also suggests that Feynman
acknowledged something like Ontological Nihilism. In vol. 2 of his
lectures, Feynmann argued that the grand unified theory of physics
could be expressed as a function of the number zero; just rearrange
all physics equations so they equal zero, then add them all up. After
all, equations have to be balanced on both sides, right?
Personally, I find Ontological Nihilism a remarkably elegant,
scientific and satisfying answer to the question "Why is there
something instead of nothing" because it effectively dissolves the
question. What do you think?
Thanks in advance for your comments,
Jon
On Aug 8, 2:40 am, Roger <roger...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why isthere
> something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> physics are at:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why istheresomething
> rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Roger Granet (roger...@yahoo.com)
>
> Abstract:
>
> In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> exist?" and "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?" In regard
> boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance” and
> existence to the thing. In regard to the second question, "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
. . ."
I would like to continue that discussion here on this thread, because
I believe the article Norman cites provides a satisfying answer the
question "Why does anything exist?," which is very closely related to
the question "Why is there something rather than nothing." The author
is David Pearce, who is an active British philosopher.
Here are some highlights of Pearce's answer: "In the Universe as a
whole, the conserved constants (electric charge, angular momentum,
mass-energy) add up to/cancel out to exactly zero. . . Yet why not,
say, 42, rather than 0? Well, if everything -- impossibly, I'm
guessing -- added up/cancelled out instead to 42, then 42 would have
to be accounted for. But if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining. . . The whole of mathematics can, in
principle, be derived from the properties of the empty set, Ø" I think
this last sentence, if true, would support Tegmark's Mathematical
Universe Hypothesis, because if math is derivable from nothing (as
Pearce thinks) and physics is derivable from math (as Tegmark thinks)
and, then physics is derivable from nothing, and presto we have a
theory of everything/nothing.
I think Pearce's conclusion is the following: everything that exists
is a property of (or function of) the number zero (i.e., the empty
set, nothing). Let's call this idea Ontological Nihilism.
Russell Standish seems to endorse this idea in his book "Theory of
Nothing", which I'm reading. He formulates an equation for the amount
of complexity a system has, and says that "The complexity [i.e.,
information content] of the Everything is zero, just as it is of the
Nothing. The simplest set is the set of all possibilities, which is
the dual of the empty set." (pg. 40) He also suggests that Feynman
acknowledged something like Ontological Nihilism. In vol. 2 of his
lectures, Feynmann argued that the grand unified theory of physics
could be expressed as a function of the number zero; just rearrange
all physics equations so they equal zero, then add them all up. After
all, equations have to be balanced on both sides, right?
Personally, I find Ontological Nihilism a remarkably elegant,
scientific and satisfying answer to the question "Why is there
something instead of nothing" because it effectively dissolves the
question. What do you think?
Thanks in advance for your comments,
Jon
On Aug 8, 2:40 am, Roger <roger...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why isthere
> something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> physics are at:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why istheresomething
> rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Roger Granet (roger...@yahoo.com)
>
> Abstract:
>
> In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
> thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> completely defined. A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
> thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance” and
> existence to the thing. In regard to the second question, "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
> first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
> thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
> about this lack-of-all. It is then shown that this non-existence
> thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
Bruno Marchal
Sep 19, 2011, 5:24:55 AM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
We have of course already discussed this a lot.
In a nutshell, you cannot derive anything just from the empty set
alone: you need some mathematical principles or axioms, like the
comprehension and the reflection axioms. This leads to an axiomatic
set theory, which is nice but somehow too much powerful. But OK, set
theory is already a Löbian observer, and you can derive everything
from this, although you still need some definition, notably of the
internal observers. Assuming mechanism, to proceed in that direction,
then, as I have often explained, you get the derivation of everything
including a notion of "God" (truth), souls and the precise laws of
physics (but this is a sequence of hard number theoretical problems,
yet the conceptual solution already exist. Note that such a derivation
is not a derivation from nothing: it is a derivation from the empty
set + rich powerful axioms. I use traditionnally 0, successor,
addition, and multiplication (in this list), but the combinators +
application are quite handy for that task too.
Note also, that, contrary to what Tegmark defined, if mechanism is
correct, the physical universe is not a mathematical structure, but
more the border of something which can be made 99% into a mathematical
structure, together with a non reductible element, which is related to
the theological aspect of consciousness. The theory of everything
becomes the mind theory of the (universal) numbers, and physics
appears to be a sum or measure on all computations.
In that setting nothing and everything are equivalent dual notions,
but they makes sense only in some theory with some rules of
manipulation of the concept of nothing (like 0, or the empty set, or
the quantum vaccum: but this last one is assuming too much, and I have
provided an argument showing that we have to derived it from numbers
(or from combinators) if we want to be able to explain both the qualia
and the quanta. See my URL for proof of those statements if you are
interested.
In a nutshell: we have still to postulate some primitive elements.
Assuming the empty set + some rules, is equivalent with assuming all
the sets, or all the numbers. Once you have all the numbers (or all
the sets) you can derive the quanta and the qualia, by assuming the
mechanist hypothesis (or any of its multiple weakenings).
We cannot explain the numbers (or the sets) in any theory which does
not postulate them. This is well known by mathematical logicians. So
it looks like the numbers constitute an irreducible mystery.
Bruno
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.
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> .
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
> .
>
Stephen P. King
Sep 19, 2011, 9:45:50 AM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Hi!
On 9/19/2011 5:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 19 Sep 2011, at 08:27, nihil0 wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
��� Welcome to the party! Please feel free to express your ideas and
thoughts. :-)
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
. . ."
I would like to continue that discussion here on this thread, because
I believe the article Norman cites provides a satisfying answer the
question "Why does anything exist?," which is very closely related to
the question "Why is there something rather than nothing." The author
is David Pearce, who is an active British philosopher.
Here are some highlights of Pearce's answer: "In the Universe as a
whole, the conserved constants (electric charge, angular momentum,
mass-energy) add up to/cancel out to exactly zero. . . Yet why not,
say, 42, rather than 0? Well, if everything -- impossibly, I'm
guessing -- added up/cancelled out instead to 42, then 42 would have
to be accounted for. But if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining. . . The whole of mathematics can, in
principle, be derived from the properties of the empty set, �" I think
this last sentence, if true, would support Tegmark's Mathematical
Universe Hypothesis, because if math is derivable from nothing (as
Pearce thinks) and physics is derivable from math (as Tegmark thinks)
and, then physics is derivable from nothing, and presto we have a
theory of everything/nothing.
I think Pearce's conclusion is the following: everything that exists
is a property of (or function of) the number zero (i.e., the empty
set, nothing). Let's call this idea Ontological Nihilism.
Russell Standish seems to endorse this idea in his book "Theory of
Nothing", which I'm reading. He formulates an equation for the amount
of complexity a system has, and says that "The complexity [i.e.,
information content] of the Everything is zero, just as it is of the
Nothing. The simplest set is the set of all possibilities, which is
the dual of the empty set." (pg. 40) He also suggests that Feynman
acknowledged something like Ontological Nihilism. In vol. 2 of his
lectures, Feynmann argued that the grand unified theory of physics
could be expressed as a function of the number zero; just rearrange
all physics equations so they equal zero, then add them all up. After
all, equations have to be balanced on both sides, right?
Personally, I find Ontological Nihilism a remarkably elegant,
scientific and satisfying answer to the question "Why is there
something instead of nothing" because it effectively dissolves the
question. What do you think?
Thanks in advance for your comments,
��� I think I could agree with this reasoning so long as the explanation does not go to an argument for meaninglessness. While we can accept that in the totality of existence all differences dissolve and this the expressibility itself of our questions vanishes, this should not be used as a reasoning to abandon the possibility of meaningfulness at our level of existence. A similar argument and response exists on the nature of Time.� While all notions of temporal transitivity vanish in the limit of a total system, as exemplified by the Wheeler-Dewitt equation, this does not act to void finite subsets of the Totality from having a real notion of time as a measure of change. A great article discussing this particular reasoning can be found here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9708055
We have of course already discussed this a lot.
In a nutshell, you cannot derive anything just from the empty set alone: you need some mathematical principles or axioms, like the comprehension and the reflection axioms. This leads to an axiomatic set theory, which is nice but somehow too much powerful. But OK, set theory is already a L�bian observer, and you can derive everything from this, although you still need some� definition, notably of the internal observers. Assuming mechanism, to proceed in that direction, then, as I have often explained, you get the derivation of everything including a notion of "God" (truth), souls and the precise laws of physics (but this is a sequence of hard number theoretical problems, yet the conceptual solution already exist. Note that such a derivation is not a derivation from nothing: it is a derivation from the empty set + rich powerful axioms. I use traditionnally 0, successor, addition, and multiplication (in this list), but the combinators + application are quite handy for that task too.
Note also, that, contrary to what Tegmark defined, if mechanism is correct, the physical universe is not a mathematical structure, but more the border of something which can be made 99% into a mathematical structure, together with a non reductible element, which is related to the theological aspect of consciousness. The theory of everything becomes the mind theory of the (universal) numbers, and physics appears to be a sum or measure on all computations.
In that setting nothing and everything are equivalent dual notions, but they makes sense only in some theory with some rules of manipulation of the concept of nothing (like 0, or the empty set, or the quantum vaccum: but this last one is assuming too much, and I have provided an argument showing that we have to derived it from numbers (or from combinators) if we want to be able to explain both the qualia and the quanta. See my URL for proof of those statements if you are interested.
��� What about the axiom of choice? Is it included in the collection
of necessary mathematical principles that are needed for our
derivations/explanations of cosmogony? It is
becoming clear that we need a principle that acts to induce a
measure algebra on our universes of entities as the usual axiom of
choice has a fatal
flaw. One possibility is to use the property of compactness to
generate the needed finiteness via the idea expressed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locally_compact
"All discrete spaces are locally compact and Hausdorff (they are just the zero-dimensional manifolds). These are compact only if they are finite."
��� My thought is that the requirement that the Stone duals of our abstract algebras (which would include all of our notions of mechanism!) are given as compact and (via Pontryagin duality) discrete spaces. When and if compactness does not naturally exist, the compactness can be induced by the use of the Stone-Čech compactification.
Some notes on this idea:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locally_compact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locally_compact
"All discrete spaces are locally compact and Hausdorff (they are just the zero-dimensional manifolds). These are compact only if they are finite."
��� My thought is that the requirement that the Stone duals of our abstract algebras (which would include all of our notions of mechanism!) are given as compact and (via Pontryagin duality) discrete spaces. When and if compactness does not naturally exist, the compactness can be induced by the use of the Stone-Čech compactification.
Some notes on this idea:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locally_compact
The point at infinity
"Since every locally compact Hausdorff space X is Tychonoff, it can be embedded in a compact Hausdorff space b(X) using the Stone-Čech compactification. But in fact, there is a simpler method available in the locally compact case; the one-point compactification will embed X in a compact Hausdorff space a(X) with just one extra point. (The one-point compactification can be applied to other spaces, but a(X) will be Hausdorff if and only if X is locally compact and Hausdorff.) The locally compact Hausdorff spaces can thus be characterised as the open subsets of compact Hausdorff spaces.
Intuitively, the extra point in a(X) can be thought of as a point at infinity. The point at infinity should be thought of as lying outside every compact subset of X. Many intuitive notions about tendency towards infinity can be formulated in locally compact Hausdorff spaces using this idea. For example, a continuous real or complex valued function f with domain X is said to vanish at infinity if, given any positive number e, there is a compact subset K of X such that |f(x)| < e whenever the point x lies outside of K. This definition makes sense for any topological space X. If X is locally compact and Hausdorff, such functions are precisely those extendable to a continuous function g on its one-point compactification a(X) = X ∪ {∞} where g(∞) = 0.
The set C0(X) of all continuous complex-valued
functions that vanish at infinity is a C* algebra. In fact, every commutative C*
algebra is isomorphic to C0(X)
for some unique (up to
homeomorphism) locally compact
Hausdorff space X. More precisely, the categories of locally compact
Hausdorff spaces and of commutative C* algebras are dual;
this is shown using the Gelfand representation.
Forming the one-point compactification a(X) of X
corresponds under this duality to adjoining an identity element to C0(X)."
Querry:
��� Is this idea invertible such that we
can consider the notion of an observer as 'existing at' or
'being a homunculus' at the point as infinity. What would allow
the 'Cartesian Theater' schemata a means to generate this
identification, if possible? Does the 'infinite regress' that we
see in the hall of mirrors act as a finite approximation of the
property of "lying outside every compact subset of X" ?
In a nutshell: we have still to postulate some primitive elements. Assuming the empty set + some rules, is equivalent with assuming all the sets, or all the numbers. Once you have all the numbers (or all the sets) you can derive the quanta and the qualia, by assuming the mechanist hypothesis (or any of its multiple weakenings).
��� Bruno, I am unable to read your paper titled "Theoretical computer science and the natural
sciences", as it is behind a paywall.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064505000242
) therefore I need an alternative source that discusses the
mechanism thesis that we can quote from to avoid unintentional straw
men. Would the wiki article, found here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_%28philosophy%29 and/or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy, suffice?
We cannot explain the numbers (or the sets) in any theory which does not postulate them. This is well known by mathematical logicians. So it looks like the numbers constitute an irreducible mystery.
Bruno
��� Would it not be a wonderful coincidence if this irreducible
mystery of number was just a counterpart of the apparent
irreducibility of matter? Any finite expression of existence would
have both a concrete implementative expression and an abstract
qualitative expression once we understand the relation between the
abstract (for example:� numbers) and the concrete (for example:
particles).
��� A nice article on the problem that we are considering can be found here: http://www.spiritone.com/~brucem/666.htm
Onward!
Stephen
��� A nice article on the problem that we are considering can be found here: http://www.spiritone.com/~brucem/666.htm
Onward!
Stephen
Jon
On Aug 8, 2:40 am, Roger <roger...@yahoo.com> wrote:
��� Hi.� I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time.� I'm
a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why isthere
something rather than nothing?" as a hobby.� If you're interested,
some of my ideas on this question and on� "Why do things exist?",
infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
physics are at:
https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why istheresomething
rather than nothing?" paper is below.
��� Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Sincerely,
Roger Granet������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� (roger...@yahoo.com)
Abstract:
�� In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
exist?" and "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?"� In regard
to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
completely defined.� A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
boundary defining what is contained within and giving �substance� and
existence to the thing.� In regard to the second question, "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
about this lack-of-all.� It is then shown that this non-existence
itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence, is the complete
description, or definition, of what is present.� That is, no energy,
no matter, no volume, no space, no time, no thoughts, etc.,� in and of
itself, describes, defines, or tells you, exactly what is present.
Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, "nothing", or
non-existence, is actually an existent state.� So, what has
traditionally been thought of as "nothing", or non-existence, is, when
seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".
Said yet another way, non-existence can appear as either "nothing" or
"something" depending on the perspective of the observer.�� Another
argument is also presented that reaches this same conclusion.
Finally, this reasoning is used to form a primitive model of the
universe via what I refer to as "philosophical engineering".
Jason Resch
Sep 19, 2011, 11:19:46 AM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Thank you for your post. I actually came across that page many years ago, before joining this list. It is interesting to go over it again and I am glad to see it still online. I appreciated the Liebniz quote he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is enough". I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness. ...When we say “out of nothingness” we do not mean out of the vacuum of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing out of nothing everything. — John A. Wheeler
I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when he said:
"There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for, so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently, the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as in its source: this substance is what we call God."
He says that the source of our existence is something that has to exist, it's existence is a necessary property. Of everything humans have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits. It seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency or the universe itself. Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of mathematical truth.
Jason
Stephen P. King
Sep 19, 2011, 1:22:16 PM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/19/2011 11:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Jon,
Thank you for your post.� I actually came across that page many years ago, before joining this list.� It is interesting to go over it again and I am glad to see it still online.� I appreciated the Liebniz quote he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is enough".� I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness. ...When we say �out of nothingness� we do not mean out of the vacuum of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing out of nothing everything. � John A. Wheeler
I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when he said:
"There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for, so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently, the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as in its source: this substance is what we call God."
He says that the source of our existence is something that has to exist, it's existence is a necessary property.� Of everything humans have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits.� It seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency or the universe itself.� Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of mathematical truth.Hi Jason,
Jason
--
��� Very good points and quotes. we might start with the basic principle that Existence exists. From there we elevate Wheeler's elaboration of Leibniz "the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view." This active separation between observer and observed is the key to unlock the Gordian knot of how does Everything obtains from Nothing.�
Onward!
Stephen
Jason Resch
Sep 19, 2011, 2:18:37 PM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/19/2011 11:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Jon,
Thank you for your post. I actually came across that page many years ago, before joining this list. It is interesting to go over it again and I am glad to see it still online. I appreciated the Liebniz quote he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is enough". I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness. ...When we say “out of nothingness” we do not mean out of the vacuum of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing out of nothing everything. — John A. Wheeler
I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when he said:
"There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for, so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently, the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as in its source: this substance is what we call God."
He says that the source of our existence is something that has to exist, it's existence is a necessary property. Of everything humans have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits. It seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency or the universe itself. Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of mathematical truth.Hi Jason,
Jason
--
Very good points and quotes. we might start with the basic principle that Existence exists. From there we elevate Wheeler's elaboration of Leibniz "the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view." This active separation between observer and observed is the key to unlock the Gordian knot of how does Everything obtains from Nothing.
Onward!
Stephen
Thanks Stephen, I thought of another reason for the existence of something rather than nothing,, this one being more from logic than mathematics:
If nothing is defined as "no structure, plan, or law", as Wheeler suggested, then for nothing to ever result from that nothing requires the logical principle that nothing comes from nothing. So minimally, some principles of logic exist. Further, if no laws exist, there is no prohibition against the existence of other structures. I think what Wheeler really meant to say is that there is one law: No structures exist. We must then ask ourselves why we think a meta-reality having this one law is preferred to a meta-reality having no laws?
A meta-reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that can exist. And as Liebniz suggested "everything that is possible demands to exist".
Jason
Craig Weinberg
Sep 19, 2011, 3:09:50 PM9/19/11
to Everything List
On Sep 19, 1:22 pm, "Stephen P. King" <stephe...@charter.net> wrote:
> On 9/19/2011 11:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonathan.wol...@gmail.com
> > <mailto:jonathan.wol...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
>
> > This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
> > I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
> > you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
> > Everything threads.
>
> > Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
> > May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
>
> > "I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
> > about the validity of an article at
> > http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
>
> > Jon,
>
> > Thank you for your post. I actually came across that page many years
> On 9/19/2011 11:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonathan.wol...@gmail.com
> > <mailto:jonathan.wol...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
>
> > This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
> > I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
> > you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
> > Everything threads.
>
> > Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
> > May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
>
> > "I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
> > about the validity of an article at
> > http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
>
> > Jon,
>
> > ago, before joining this list. It is interesting to go over it again
> > and I am glad to see it still online. I appreciated the Liebniz quote
> > he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates
> > as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is
> > enough". I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
> > as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is
>
> > /The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness.
> > ...When we say �out of nothingness� we do not mean out of the vacuum
> > of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure
> > and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe
> > is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak
> > of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor
> > plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is
> > enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz
> > nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the
> > necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the
> > system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the
> > central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing
> > out of nothing everything. / � John A. Wheeler
> > of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure
> > and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe
> > is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak
> > of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor
> > plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is
> > enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz
> > nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the
> > necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the
> > system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the
> > central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing
>
> > I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when
> > he said:
>
> > "There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all
> > of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each
> > of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for,
> > so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate
> > reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of
> > contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently,
> > the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary
> > substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as
> > in its source: this substance is what we call God."
>
> > He says that the source of our existence is something that has to
> > exist, it's existence is a necessary property. Of everything humans
> > I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when
> > he said:
>
> > "There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all
> > of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each
> > of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for,
> > so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate
> > reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of
> > contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently,
> > the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary
> > substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as
> > in its source: this substance is what we call God."
>
> > He says that the source of our existence is something that has to
> > have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits. It
> > seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency
> > or the universe itself. Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the
> > universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of
> > mathematical truth.
>
> > Jason
> > --
>
> Hi Jason,
>
> > mathematical truth.
>
> > Jason
> > --
>
> Hi Jason,
>
> Very good points and quotes. we might start with the basic
> principle that Existence exists. From there we elevate Wheeler's
> elaboration of Leibniz "/the necessity to draw a line between the
> principle that Existence exists. From there we elevate Wheeler's
> observer-participator and the system under view/." This active
> separation between observer and observed is the key to unlock the
> Gordian knot of how does Everything obtains from Nothing.
>
> Onward!
> Gordian knot of how does Everything obtains from Nothing.
>
>
> Stephen
> //
If we understand that our sensory perception is not reporting the same
realities that we have deduced through experiment and reason, then I
think that we need to consider that this may extend to causality. Our
experience of order is a sense, like any other, it can be distorted
and disrupted by natural and artificial means. We contribute to our
sense of order, and our experience changes to a certain extent
according to what we choose to pay attention to.
What I'm saying is that this observation suggests that something from
nothing is no more or less possible than something from everything. We
are not impartial, since we are participating in the universe as a
living negentropy rather than an unconscious inanimate object. What we
see is phenomena going from simple to complex, from one to many, but
what we are is complex to simple, many to one.
Our physical existence is pitched toward entropy, a particular
fragment of matter representing an unbroken strand of the entire
history of the universe. Our consciousness however, aspires toward
significance. At it's most inspired, individual consciousness is
prescient, telescopically visionary, and an agent for change which is
pulled by and pulls others toward the future. It may be the case that
from an objective, 3-p point of view, our 1-p subjective experience
runs temporally backwards, putting the Big Bang of the universe of
physical matter and space at the end of our subjective temporal
universe of experience rather than the beginning.
Craig
meekerdb
Sep 19, 2011, 3:59:23 PM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/19/2011 8:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Jon,
Thank you for your post.� I actually came across that page many years ago, before joining this list.� It is interesting to go over it again and I am glad to see it still online.� I appreciated the Liebniz quote he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is enough".� I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness. ...When we say �out of nothingness� we do not mean out of the vacuum of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing out of nothing everything. � John A. Wheeler
Yet the central premise of this list is that there is no such demarcation. Every distinct observation defines a distinct observer because observer and observed are both quantum mechanical.
I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when he said:
"There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for, so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently, the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as in its source: this substance is what we call God."
This just Aquinas argument from infinite regress in different
words.� It's a demand that the world be comprehensible in
anthropomorphic terms.� That everything must have reason as we
conceive efficient causes.� If the world is infinite it must not be
infinitely contingent because then I couldn't comprehend it; so it
must be comprehended as the effect of necessary being.
Brent
�People are more unwilling to give up the word �God� than to give up the idea for which the word has hitherto stood�
��� --- Bertrand Russell
Brent
�People are more unwilling to give up the word �God� than to give up the idea for which the word has hitherto stood�
��� --- Bertrand Russell
He says that the source of our existence is something that has to exist, it's existence is a necessary property.� Of everything humans have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits.� It seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency or the universe itself.� Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of mathematical truth.
Jason
Stephen P. King
Sep 19, 2011, 4:28:11 PM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/19/2011 2:18 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On 9/19/2011 11:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Jon,
Thank you for your post.� I actually came across that page many years ago, before joining this list.� It is interesting to go over it again and I am glad to see it still online.� I appreciated the Liebniz quote he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is enough".� I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness. ...When we say �out of nothingness� we do not mean out of the vacuum of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing out of nothing everything. � John A. Wheeler
I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when he said:
"There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for, so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently, the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as in its source: this substance is what we call God."
He says that the source of our existence is something that has to exist, it's existence is a necessary property.� Of everything humans have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits.� It seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency or the universe itself.� Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of mathematical truth.Hi Jason,
Jason
--
��� Very good points and quotes. we might start with the basic principle that Existence exists. From there we elevate Wheeler's elaboration of Leibniz "the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view." This active separation between observer and observed is the key to unlock the Gordian knot of how does Everything obtains from Nothing.�
Onward!
Stephen
Thanks Stephen, I thought of another reason for the existence of something rather than nothing,, this one being more from logic than mathematics:
If nothing is defined as "no structure, plan, or law", as Wheeler suggested, then for nothing to ever result from that nothing requires the logical principle that nothing comes from nothing. �So minimally, some principles of logic exist. �Further, if no laws exist, there is no prohibition against the existence of other structures. �I think what Wheeler really meant to say is that there is one law: No structures exist. �We must then ask ourselves why we think a meta-reality having this one law is preferred to a meta-reality having no laws?
A meta-reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that can exist. �And as Liebniz suggested "everything that is possible demands to exist".
Jason
��� Hi Jason,
��� To add more fuel to this fire, I invite all to read Wheeler's essay found here: what-buddha-said.net/library/pdfs/wheeler_law_without_law.pdf
��� It was the suggestion by Leibniz that you quoted here which inspired my claim that Existence is necessary possibility. We could also say: "Nature explores all possibilities."
Onward!
Stephen
Jason Resch
Sep 19, 2011, 5:23:18 PM9/19/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/19/2011 8:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Jon,
Thank you for your post. I actually came across that page many years ago, before joining this list. It is interesting to go over it again and I am glad to see it still online. I appreciated the Liebniz quote he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is enough". I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness. ...When we say “out of nothingness” we do not mean out of the vacuum of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing out of nothing everything. — John A. Wheeler
Yet the central premise of this list is that there is no such demarcation.
First, I should say I disagree with wheeler that our existence comes out of nothing. It is a fault of our intuition which equates zero information with nothing, rather than with all possibilities. And as a consequence our intuition tells us the "default case" of the reality ought to be a void.
Second, Wheeler's idea of a partipatory universe I think was more similar to a many-minds type of interpretation, rather than the CI which suggests observers are somehow different from the system.
Every distinct observation defines a distinct observer because observer and observed are both quantum mechanical.
I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when he said:
"There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for, so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently, the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as in its source: this substance is what we call God."
This just Aquinas argument from infinite regress in different words. It's a demand that the world be comprehensible in anthropomorphic terms. That everything must have reason as we conceive efficient causes. If the world is infinite it must not be infinitely contingent because then I couldn't comprehend it; so it must be comprehended as the effect of necessary being.
Even if it were infinitely contingent it would have no ultimate cause, just as there is no largest negative number. Thus an infinite chain of contingencies is also uncaused and self existent.
Brent
“People are more unwilling to give up the word ‘God’ than to give up the idea for which the word has hitherto stood”
--- Bertrand Russell
That might be true, but I think the same happens for anything we develop an understanding of over time. Think of how the word "universe" has evolved over time.
Let me ask you, what is your theory of reality? Why does this universe exist with the laws it has? I realize you have a degree of uncertainty on these questions, but if you had to correctly guess to save your life, what would your guess be?
Jason
He says that the source of our existence is something that has to exist, it's existence is a necessary property. Of everything humans have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits. It seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency or the universe itself. Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of mathematical truth.
Jason
--
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Roger
Sep 20, 2011, 2:05:41 AM9/20/11
to Everything List
Jon,
Hi. Thanks for the feedback. The empty set as the building block
of existence is exactly the point I as making in my original posting
that started this thread. What you're referring to as the empty set,
I was referring to as how what has previously been called absolute
"non-existence" or "nothing" completely describes, or defines, the
entirety of what is present and is thus an existent state, or
something. This existent state of mine is what others would call the
empty set. The reason this is worth thinking about is because just
saying that the empty set is the basis of existence doesn't explain
why that empty set is there in the first place. This is what I was
trying to get at. Additionally, there has to be some mechanism
inherent in this existent state previously referred to as absolute
"non-existence" (ie, the empty set) that allows it to replicate itself
and produce the universe, energy, etc. This is needed because it
appears that there's more to the universe than just a single empty
existent state and that things are moving around. What I suggested in
the paper at my website was that:
1. Assume what has previously been called "absolute non-existence".
2. This "absolute non-existence" itself, and not our mind's conception
of "non-existence", completely describes, or defines, the entirety of
what is there and is thus actually an existent state, or "something".
This complete definition is equivalent to an edge or boundary defining
what is present and thus giving "substance" or existence to the the
thing. This complete definition, edge, or boundary is like the curly
braces around the empty set.
3. Now, by the assumption in step 1, there is also "absolute non-
existence" all around the edge of the existent state formed in step
2. This "absolute non-existence" also completely describes, or
defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent
state. That is, the first existent state has reproduced itself. I
think that the existenet state that is what has been previously called
"absolute non-existence" has the unique property of being able to
reproduce itself.
4. This process continues ad infinitum in kind of a cellular automaton-
like process to form in a big bang-like expansion a larger set of
existent states - our universe.
This is described in more detail in the paper at my website at:
https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-exist-something-nothing
There's also some more detail on how the above process can lead to the
presence of energy in the universe.
Tegmark's assumption of a mathematical construct as the basis of
our existence doesn't explain where this construct comes from or how
it reproduces to form the universe. Wheeler's idea that the
distinction between the observer and the observed could be the
mechanism of giving existence to non-existence could be fit into my
idea, I think, by saying that the observed is what has previously been
called "absolute non-existence", and the observer is the fact that
this "absolute non-existence" completely defines the entirety of what
is present and is like the edge or boundary defining what is there.
Speculating even further, one could say that this edge or boundary is
the same as the strings/membranes that physicists think make up the
universe.
Anyways, thanks again for restarting this thread!
Roger
On Sep 19, 2:27 am, nihil0 <jonathan.wol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
> I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
> you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
> Everything threads.
>
> Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
> May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
>
> "I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
> about the validity of an article athttp://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Hi. Thanks for the feedback. The empty set as the building block
of existence is exactly the point I as making in my original posting
that started this thread. What you're referring to as the empty set,
I was referring to as how what has previously been called absolute
"non-existence" or "nothing" completely describes, or defines, the
entirety of what is present and is thus an existent state, or
something. This existent state of mine is what others would call the
empty set. The reason this is worth thinking about is because just
saying that the empty set is the basis of existence doesn't explain
why that empty set is there in the first place. This is what I was
trying to get at. Additionally, there has to be some mechanism
inherent in this existent state previously referred to as absolute
"non-existence" (ie, the empty set) that allows it to replicate itself
and produce the universe, energy, etc. This is needed because it
appears that there's more to the universe than just a single empty
existent state and that things are moving around. What I suggested in
the paper at my website was that:
1. Assume what has previously been called "absolute non-existence".
2. This "absolute non-existence" itself, and not our mind's conception
of "non-existence", completely describes, or defines, the entirety of
what is there and is thus actually an existent state, or "something".
This complete definition is equivalent to an edge or boundary defining
what is present and thus giving "substance" or existence to the the
thing. This complete definition, edge, or boundary is like the curly
braces around the empty set.
3. Now, by the assumption in step 1, there is also "absolute non-
existence" all around the edge of the existent state formed in step
2. This "absolute non-existence" also completely describes, or
defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent
state. That is, the first existent state has reproduced itself. I
think that the existenet state that is what has been previously called
"absolute non-existence" has the unique property of being able to
reproduce itself.
4. This process continues ad infinitum in kind of a cellular automaton-
like process to form in a big bang-like expansion a larger set of
existent states - our universe.
This is described in more detail in the paper at my website at:
https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-exist-something-nothing
There's also some more detail on how the above process can lead to the
presence of energy in the universe.
Tegmark's assumption of a mathematical construct as the basis of
our existence doesn't explain where this construct comes from or how
it reproduces to form the universe. Wheeler's idea that the
distinction between the observer and the observed could be the
mechanism of giving existence to non-existence could be fit into my
idea, I think, by saying that the observed is what has previously been
called "absolute non-existence", and the observer is the fact that
this "absolute non-existence" completely defines the entirety of what
is present and is like the edge or boundary defining what is there.
Speculating even further, one could say that this edge or boundary is
the same as the strings/membranes that physicists think make up the
universe.
Anyways, thanks again for restarting this thread!
Roger
On Sep 19, 2:27 am, nihil0 <jonathan.wol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
> I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
> you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
> Everything threads.
>
> Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
> May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
>
> "I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
nihil0
Sep 21, 2011, 2:01:41 AM9/21/11
to Everything List
Hi everyone,
I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth. The
proposition "apples are apples" conveys no meaning. X = X is just the
Law of Identity.
I believe contra Bruno that all mathematical/logical/physical truths
are tautological. Somehow or other, they must all be reducible to 0 =
0. Bertrand Russell said, "Everything that is a proposition of logic
has got to be in some sense or the other like a tautology."
Unfortunately, I cannot back up this awfully ambitious thesis since
I'm not a mathematician, I'm just a philosophy major at the University
of Michigan. Many mathematicians (perhaps Gödel) might have already
disproven it or (worse) shown it to be unfalsifiable. Nonetheless, I
trust Russell and Pearce on this one.
Pearce says in his article (http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/
nihilfil.htm):
"The whole of mathematics can, in principle, be derived from the
properties of the empty set, Ø. [Since Ø has no members, in the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers it can be
identified with the number zero, 0. (this is still problematic; should
0 be regarded, not as the empty set, but as the number of items in the
empty set? And what's the ontological status of the empty set?)] The
number 1 can be defined as the set containing 0, i.e. simply the set
{0} that contains only one member. Since 0 is defined to be the empty
set, this means that the number 1 is the set that contains the empty
set as a member {Ø}. The number 2 can be understood as the set, {0,
1}, which is just the set {Ø, {Ø}}. Carrying on, the number 3 is
defined to be the set {0, 1, 2} which reduces to {Ø, {Ø}, {Ø, {Ø}}}
Generalising, the number N can be defined as the set containing 0 and
all the numbers smaller than N. Thus N = {0, 1, 2 ...N-1} is a set
with N members. Assuming only the concept of the empty set Ø, each of
the numbers in this set N can be replaced by its definition in terms
of nested sets. Proceeding to derive the rest of maths from the
properties of the natural numbers is more ambitious; but it's
conceivable in principle. All that then remains to be done is to
explain the empty set i.e. why (a condition analogous to our concept
of) the empty set must be the case]"
Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
anything exists?
Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
are saying the same thing just in different words.
I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
think you would agree with me, then, that the Law of Identity
determines what can and cannot be the case. For example, I cannot have
one hand and two hands at the same time and place (though I might have
two hands in one Hubble volume and one hand in another,
unfortunately).
Stephen, you say "Existence exists". Heidegger said "Nothing
noths." (I just thought that might titillate you)
Any comments and critiques are welcome!
Best regards,
Jon
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-...
I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth. The
proposition "apples are apples" conveys no meaning. X = X is just the
Law of Identity.
I believe contra Bruno that all mathematical/logical/physical truths
are tautological. Somehow or other, they must all be reducible to 0 =
0. Bertrand Russell said, "Everything that is a proposition of logic
has got to be in some sense or the other like a tautology."
Unfortunately, I cannot back up this awfully ambitious thesis since
I'm not a mathematician, I'm just a philosophy major at the University
of Michigan. Many mathematicians (perhaps Gödel) might have already
disproven it or (worse) shown it to be unfalsifiable. Nonetheless, I
trust Russell and Pearce on this one.
Pearce says in his article (http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/
nihilfil.htm):
"The whole of mathematics can, in principle, be derived from the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers it can be
identified with the number zero, 0. (this is still problematic; should
0 be regarded, not as the empty set, but as the number of items in the
empty set? And what's the ontological status of the empty set?)] The
number 1 can be defined as the set containing 0, i.e. simply the set
{0} that contains only one member. Since 0 is defined to be the empty
set, this means that the number 1 is the set that contains the empty
set as a member {Ø}. The number 2 can be understood as the set, {0,
1}, which is just the set {Ø, {Ø}}. Carrying on, the number 3 is
defined to be the set {0, 1, 2} which reduces to {Ø, {Ø}, {Ø, {Ø}}}
Generalising, the number N can be defined as the set containing 0 and
all the numbers smaller than N. Thus N = {0, 1, 2 ...N-1} is a set
with N members. Assuming only the concept of the empty set Ø, each of
the numbers in this set N can be replaced by its definition in terms
of nested sets. Proceeding to derive the rest of maths from the
properties of the natural numbers is more ambitious; but it's
conceivable in principle. All that then remains to be done is to
explain the empty set i.e. why (a condition analogous to our concept
of) the empty set must be the case]"
Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this
explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
anything exists?
Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
what has been previously called "absolute non-existence" has the
unique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys
are saying the same thing just in different words.
I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that can
exist." I think you imply here that only *some* things can exist. I
think you would agree with me, then, that the Law of Identity
determines what can and cannot be the case. For example, I cannot have
one hand and two hands at the same time and place (though I might have
two hands in one Hubble volume and one hand in another,
unfortunately).
Stephen, you say "Existence exists". Heidegger said "Nothing
noths." (I just thought that might titillate you)
Any comments and critiques are welcome!
Best regards,
Jon
Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 3:04:34 AM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:01 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth.
I'm not so sure that all truths are empty. Take for example the truth of the statement that the 131st Fibonacci number is 1,066,340,417,491,710,595,814,572,169. If the 131st Fibonacci number has some objectively true value, then so does the 10^100th. An infinite series is formed by this simple definition and its elements have set values without we humans having to discover them.
Other series through the integers exist, defined other functions. Some of these functions are be elaborate enough to support internal patterns which form between successive integers, a simple example:
1000000000000000000000000100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000001000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000010000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100000000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000000000000000000000
The "1" digit could be said to be moving through the number. But the rules of the function can define any type of behavior, for example, if a "1" digit happens upon a "2", then the 1's digit "eats" the 2 and then "reproduces"
1000000000000000000000020100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000021000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000011000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100100000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000010000000000000000
A very primitive example, but hopefully you can see the potential for more elaborate functions, which can represent three dimensional worlds, support self-reproducing patterns, evolution, and consciousness.
Thus, such a "Truth" would not be empty, but might very well be a world in which we live.
There are simpler axiomatic systems, such as Robinson arithmetic, which contain the notion of zero while assuming less than Set theory.
Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantivewhich needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this
explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
anything exists?
I agree that the concept of zero cannot exist in isolation from either the other integers or their properties. However I would be less apt to say "everything comes from 0". Why not "everything comes from 5" or any other number? If all numbers exist, I think they all existed from the start. As to your question, of whether I think no meta-explanation is needed, I can agree with this.
Consider sitting at a computer terminal waiting for my e-mail response. Before you receive my reply, you have received zero information, and correspondingly, all possibilities for my response remain open. It is only when you receive my e-mail (the reception of information) that I have narrowed down to one from all. Another way to see this is to consider that, had I sent you every possible message as a response, you have just as much information as if I had sent nothing at all.
Think of the meta-reality as a big block of marble. Within the marble exist all possible sculptures. Only with the addition of information (in the form of chiselling) does one narrow down the infinite possibility to one sculpture. Before adding information, they all existed. Likewise, with the meta-reality, if God remained silent on what was to exist, then everything is there and the information content of the everything is zero bits. A universe that contains nothing would take some non-zero amount of information to describe.
Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
what has been previously called "absolute non-existence" has theunique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys
are saying the same thing just in different words.
I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that canexist." I think you imply here that only *some* things can exist.
I think every structure not ruled out by its definition could be said to exist. Examples of things that do not exist would include, a third integer factor of 7, A triangle in Euclidean space whose internal angles do not add to 180 degrees, etc.
I
think you would agree with me, then, that the Law of Identity
determines what can and cannot be the case. For example, I cannot have
one hand and two hands at the same time and place (though I might have
two hands in one Hubble volume and one hand in another,
unfortunately).
I am not sure if all self-contradiction follows from the law of identity, but I think we are in general agreement that self-contradiction is a candidate for precluding the existence of certain things.
Craig Weinberg
Sep 21, 2011, 10:33:35 AM9/21/11
to Everything List
On Sep 21, 3:04 am, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>1000000000000000000000000100000000000000000
>1000000000000000000000001000000000000000000
>1000000000000000000000010000000000000000000
>1000000000000000000000100000000000000000000
>1000000000000000000001000000000000000000000
>The "1" digit could be said to be moving through the number.
100000000000000000000000 :o) 000000000000000000
>1000000000000000000000000100000000000000000
>1000000000000000000000001000000000000000000
>1000000000000000000000010000000000000000000
>1000000000000000000000100000000000000000000
>1000000000000000000001000000000000000000000
>The "1" digit could be said to be moving through the number.
The ) could also be said to be smiling at you. It isn't though. Not
objectively. The patterns that we perceive belong to our ability to
recognize and make sense of them.
I think that attempts to reconcile all phenomena to quantitative
logical propositions are incomplete in that they stop short of
acknowledging deeper sensorimotive primitives. To say that 0 = 0
presupposes a concept of equality. What is equality? Where does it
come from? What is it made of?
It is certainly not logical to say that in some way one thing is a
different thing. Every event, every particle or pattern is unique in
some way, otherwise we could not reference it as a discrete instance.
The proposition of equality then, is a second order inference; a
comparison of qualities among separated and unique incidences. That
second order inference is undeniably subject to interpretation. To say
that one thing is equal to another is to triangulate that equality
from the perspective of a third entity (or con-sens-us of entities).
If I look at two 'little brown mushrooms' I may say that they are
equal, but an expert mycologist will be able to tell that they are not
at all equal.
It is very seductive to equate arithmetic equalities with universal
truths, but for purposes of understanding First Cause and
consciousness, we must probe that presumption of primacy more deeply.
Equality is an intellectual concept that arises, in entities capable
of symbolic cognition (but nothing else), from perception or
detection. It is an experience of detecting a pattern within a
pattern. An experience feels 'like' another experience from memory. An
image 'looks like' another image or reminds you of experiences through
another channel of sense.
Arithmetic truths work to program semiconductors because they have
certain qualities which we share (and many others that we do not). You
can't program clouds of steam to compute in the same way. By selecting
a particular type of substance which reflects back to us our own
certainties about primitive logic, we reify the part of our nature
which is most solid, crystalline, and mechanical. These are the polar
opposite from the qualities which are responsible for being able to
imagine the moving 1 through the matrix of 0s, or the emoticon
smiling.
As discrete and predictably stable as the binary logic is, with it's
absolute literal equalities, the psyche is utterly fluid, ephemeral,
and wild. Not that it doesn't have it's own 'rules' - it does, but
they are figurative rules of thumb - themes, such as attention and
distraction, high and low significance, etc. Equivalences and
associative leaps can be fuzzy or tenuous. The psyche reads between
the lines, fills in the gaps between each step. It's hard to get a
glimpse of this, because this is actually what we are 'made of', but
we can deduce it.
Craig
Stephen P. King
Sep 21, 2011, 10:52:11 AM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 3:04 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:01 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth.
[SPK]
I'm not so sure that all truths are empty.� Take for example the truth of the statement that the 131st Fibonacci number is 1,066,340,417,491,710,595,814,572,169.� If the 131st Fibonacci number has some objectively true value, then so does the 10^100th.� An infinite series is formed by this simple definition and its elements have set values without we humans having to discover them.
��� This argument for Platonism is a pungent red herring!
���
��� Nevertheless the original definition must be representable in some form of physical implementation to be knowable and thus meaningful to us fallible humans. But this argument is flawed! The fact is that the n'th number of the series is implicit in the definition, its existence is fully given in principle by the existence of the definition. The fact that the n'th number may haev some interesting properties other than being the n'th number in the Fibonachi sequence flows from other number theoretical considerations, but all of number theory itself is implicit in its definitions in the same way. I worry that this simple fact is consistently ignored by proponents of mathematical Platonism as it manifest a flawed assumption about the nature and reality of abstract objects.
��� Of course the properties of pi, for example, are not subject to the whim of mortals, that is not my point. The point is that once a defition/logical framework is posited then all of its implied and entailed aspects also follow. The question of whether or not some number has some properties is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the 'discoverer' there of.
Other series through the integers exist, defined other functions.� Some of these functions are be elaborate enough to support internal patterns which form between successive integers, a simple example:
1000000000000000000000000100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000001000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000010000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100000000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000000000000000000000
The "1" digit could be said to be moving through the number.� But the rules of the function can define any type of behavior, for example, if a "1" digit happens upon a "2", then the 1's digit "eats" the 2 and then "reproduces"
1000000000000000000000020100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000021000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000011000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100100000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000010000000000000000
A very primitive example, but hopefully you can see the potential for more elaborate functions, which can represent three dimensional worlds, support self-reproducing patterns, evolution, and consciousness.
[SPK]
��� And what exactly acts as the background within which these digits contrast themselves as separate entities such that the illusion of motion can obtain? Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can exist. Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits, but I hope that my point is understood.
Thus, such a "Truth" would not be empty, but might very well be a world in which we live.
[SPK]
��� A tautology might be 'empty' in some sense but it is still meaningful. Meaning obtains from relations between many; absent the universe of relations meaning vanishes.
�Consider a simple dictionary. each word entry in it is defined by some set of other words in some relation to each other. Consider a dictionary where each different entry had an identical set of words and relations as its definition. What would any word 'mean'?
��� A tautology might be 'empty' in some sense but it is still meaningful. Meaning obtains from relations between many; absent the universe of relations meaning vanishes.
�Consider a simple dictionary. each word entry in it is defined by some set of other words in some relation to each other. Consider a dictionary where each different entry had an identical set of words and relations as its definition. What would any word 'mean'?
�
The
proposition "apples are apples" conveys no meaning. X = X is just the
Law of Identity.
I believe contra Bruno that all mathematical/logical/physical truths
are tautological. Somehow or other, they must all be reducible to 0 =
0. Bertrand Russell said, "Everything that is a proposition of logic
has got to be in some sense or the other like a tautology."
Unfortunately, I cannot back up this awfully ambitious thesis since
I'm not a mathematician, I'm just a philosophy major at the University
of Michigan. Many mathematicians (perhaps G�del) might have already
disproven it or (worse) shown it to be unfalsifiable. Nonetheless, I
trust Russell and Pearce on this one.
Pearce says in his article (http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/
nihilfil.htm):
"The whole of mathematics can, in principle, be derived from the
properties of the empty set, �. [Since � has no members, in the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers it can be
identified with the number zero, 0. (this is still problematic; should
0 be regarded, not as the empty set, but as the number of items in the
empty set? And what's the ontological status of the empty set?)] The
number 1 can be defined as the set containing 0, i.e. simply the set
{0} that contains only one member. Since 0 is defined to be the empty
set, this means that the number 1 is the set that contains the empty
set as a member {�}. The number 2 can be understood as the set, {0,
1}, which is just the set {�, {�}}. Carrying on, the number 3 is
defined to be the set {0, 1, 2} which reduces to {�, {�}, {�, {�}}}
Generalising, the number N can be defined as the set containing 0 and
all the numbers smaller than N. Thus N = {0, 1, 2 ...N-1} is a set
with N members. Assuming only the concept of the empty set �, each of
the numbers in this set N can be replaced by its definition in terms
of nested sets. Proceeding to derive the rest of maths from the
properties of the natural numbers is more ambitious; but it's
conceivable in principle. All that then remains to be done is to
explain the empty set i.e. why (a condition analogous to our concept
of) the empty set must be the case]"
There are simpler axiomatic systems, such as Robinson arithmetic, which contain the notion of zero while assuming less than Set theory.
[SPK]�
��� It has been conjectured that there may be an infinite number of axiomatic systems, for example the axiomatic form of p-adics! Consider also that there is not just one self-consistent Set Theory!
Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining." �Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this
explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
anything exists?
[SPK]
I agree that the concept of zero cannot exist in isolation from either the other integers or their properties.� However I would be less apt to say "everything comes from 0".� Why not "everything comes from 5" or any other number?� If all numbers exist, I think they all existed from the start.� As to your question, of whether I think no meta-explanation is needed, I can agree with this.
��� I too agree for similar reasons.
[SPK]
Consider sitting at a computer terminal waiting for my e-mail response.� Before you receive my reply, you have received zero information, and correspondingly, all possibilities for my response remain open.� It is only when you receive my e-mail (the reception of information) that I have narrowed down to one from all.� Another way to see this is to consider that, had I sent you every possible message as a response, you have just as much information as if I had sent nothing at all.
��� An interesting point! In fact, within MWI it is considered that we actually do send all possible mesages, it is just that each message is correlated with only one distinguishable world containing a version of the message sender. But there is also a symmetrical situation with regard to the receiver of those messages. A message that is meaningful to one particular receiver is such because of the particularities and history of that receiver. Messages that contain information that is inconsistent with the physical laws and decoding schemes of a given receiver are, at best, noise. So the receiver is the object of many messages only one of which is meaningful. So the one-to-many mapping of sender is matched with a many to one map of the receiver.
[SPK]Think of the meta-reality as a big block of marble.� Within the marble exist all possible sculptures.� Only with the addition of information (in the form of chiselling) does one narrow down the infinite possibility to one sculpture.� Before adding information, they all existed.� Likewise, with the meta-reality, if God remained silent on what was to exist, then everything is there and the information content of the everything is zero bits.� A universe that contains nothing would take some non-zero amount of information to describe.
�
��� Sadly this block of marble must be infinitely dimensional for this scheme to work, since all possible sculptures must be orthogonal to each other in order to be considered to exist as separate entities. Only when we restrict ourselves to mere potential sculptures does the analogy of a 3-d block obtain as a coherent notion since 'possible sculptures' are undefined until the chisel does its job. The act of making a distinction between the sculptures is the key to this line of reasoning and must not be unappreciated.
Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
what has been previously called "absolute non-existence" has theunique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys
are saying the same thing just in different words.
[SPK]
��� Maybe!� ;-) I like that you are reintroducing the ideas of Pearce. I am utterly fascinated by his sematic ideas. The Triple is an endless source of study for me and I have even gone so far as to define an interpretation of Bateson's definition of information in its terms: "Information is a difference between two that makes a difference to a third".
��� Maybe!� ;-) I like that you are reintroducing the ideas of Pearce. I am utterly fascinated by his sematic ideas. The Triple is an endless source of study for me and I have even gone so far as to define an interpretation of Bateson's definition of information in its terms: "Information is a difference between two that makes a difference to a third".
I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that canexist." I think you imply here that only *some* things can exist.
[SPK]
I think every structure not ruled out by its definition could be said to exist.� Examples of things that do not exist would include, a third integer factor of 7, A triangle in Euclidean space whose internal angles do not add to 180 degrees, etc.
�
��� Yes and their non-existence follows from their violation of the rules/definitions. This cements the relationship between definition and implied entities that I mentioned previously.
I think you would agree with me, then, that the Law of Identity
determines what can and cannot be the case. For example, I cannot have
one hand and two hands at the same time and place (though I might have
two hands in one Hubble volume and one hand in another,
unfortunately).
I am not sure if all self-contradiction follows from the law of identity, but I think we are in general agreement that self-contradiction is a candidate for precluding the existence of certain things.
[SPK]�
��� Non-contradiction is a separate axiom.
Stephen, you say "Existence exists". Heidegger said "Nothing
noths." (I just thought that might titillate you)
[SPK]
��� Yes, another form of this thought is "Nothingness cannot non-exist". It is from this idea that I reason that Existence itself is formless, property-less, undivided and unnamable. Its nature, from our point of view is pure paradox. My dear friend Prof. Hitoshi Kitada has written several papers on this that you might find here: http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Kitada_H/0/1/0/all/0/1
Onward!
Stephen
PS, I am very happy that you joined our discussions. I look forward to your future postings.
��� Yes, another form of this thought is "Nothingness cannot non-exist". It is from this idea that I reason that Existence itself is formless, property-less, undivided and unnamable. Its nature, from our point of view is pure paradox. My dear friend Prof. Hitoshi Kitada has written several papers on this that you might find here: http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Kitada_H/0/1/0/all/0/1
Onward!
Stephen
PS, I am very happy that you joined our discussions. I look forward to your future postings.
Any comments and critiques are welcome!
Best regards,
Jon
> � � Hi. �Thanks for the feedback. �The empty set as the building block
> of existence is exactly the point I as making in my original posting
> that started this thread. �What you're referring to as the empty set,
> I was referring to as how what has previously been called absolute
> "non-existence" or "nothing" completely describes, or defines, the
> entirety of what is present and is thus an existent state, or
> something. This existent state of mine is what others would call the
> empty set. � The reason this is worth thinking about is because just
> saying that the empty set is the basis of existence doesn't explain
> why that empty set is there in the first place. �This is what I was
> trying to get at. �Additionally, there has to be some mechanism
> inherent in this existent state previously referred to as absolute
> "non-existence" (ie, the empty set) that allows it to replicate itself
> and produce the universe, energy, etc. This is needed because it
> appears that there's more to the universe than just a single empty
> existent state and that things are moving around. �What I suggested in
> the paper at my website was that:
>
> 1. Assume what has previously been called "absolute non-existence".
>
> 2. This "absolute non-existence" itself, and not our mind's conception
> of "non-existence", completely describes, or defines, the entirety of
> what is there and is thus actually an existent state, or "something".
> This complete definition is equivalent to an edge or boundary defining
> what is present and thus giving "substance" or existence to the the
> thing. � This complete definition, edge, or boundary is like the curly
> braces around the empty set.
>
> 3. Now, by the assumption in step 1, there is also "absolute non-
> existence" all around the edge of the existent state formed in step
> 2. � This "absolute non-existence" also completely describes, or
> defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent
> state. �That is, the first existent state has reproduced itself. �I
> think that the existenet state that is what has been previously called
> "absolute non-existence" has the unique property of being able to
> reproduce itself.
>
> 4. This process continues ad infinitum in kind of a cellular automaton-
> like process to form in a big bang-like expansion a larger set of
> existent states - our universe.
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-...> � � This is described in more detail in the paper at my website at:
>
>
> There's also some more detail on how the above process can lead to the
> presence of energy in the universe.
>
> � � Tegmark's assumption of a mathematical construct as the basis of
> our existence doesn't explain where this construct comes from or how
> it reproduces to form the universe. �Wheeler's idea that the
> distinction between the observer and the observed could be the
> mechanism of giving existence to non-existence could be fit into my
> idea, I think, by saying that the observed is what has previously been
> called "absolute non-existence", and the observer is the fact that
> this "absolute non-existence" completely defines the entirety of what
> is present and is like the edge or boundary defining what is there.
> Speculating even further, one could say that this edge or boundary is
> the same as the strings/membranes that physicists think make up the
> universe.
>
> � � Anyways, thanks again for restarting this thread!
>
> � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �Roger
>
> On Sep 19, 2:27�am, nihil0 <jonathan.wol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi everyone,
>
> > This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
> > I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
> > you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
> > Everything threads.
>
> > Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
> > May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
>
> > "I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
> > about the validity of an article athttp://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
> > . . ."
>
> > I would like to continue that discussion here on this thread, because
> > I believe the article Norman cites provides a satisfying answer the
> > question "Why does anything exist?," which is very closely related to
> > the question "Why is there something rather than nothing." The author
> > is David Pearce, who is an active British philosopher.
>
> > Here are some highlights of Pearce's answer: "In the Universe as a
> > whole, the conserved constants (electric charge, angular momentum,
> > mass-energy) add up to/cancel out to exactly zero. . . Yet why not,
> > say, 42, rather than 0? Well, if everything -- impossibly, I'm
> > guessing -- added up/cancelled out instead to 42, then 42 would have
> > to be accounted for. But if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
> > properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
> > which needs explaining. . . The whole of mathematics can, in
> > principle, be derived from the properties of the empty set, �" I think
> > On Aug 8, 2:40�am, Roger <roger...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > � � Hi. �I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. �I'm
> > > a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why isthere
> > > something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. �If you're interested,
> > > some of my ideas on this question and on �"Why do things exist?",
> > > infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> > > physics are at:
>
> > >https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> > > An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why istheresomething
> > > rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> > > � � Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> > > � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � Sincerely,
>
> > > Roger Granet � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �(roger...@yahoo.com)
>
> > > Abstract:
>
> > > � �In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> > > exist?" and "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?" �In regard
> > > to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
> > > thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> > > completely defined. �A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
> > > boundary defining what is contained within and giving �substance� and
> > > existence to the thing. �In regard to the second question, "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
> > > first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
> > > thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
> > > about this lack-of-all. �It is then shown that this non-existence
> > > itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence, is the complete
> > > description, or definition, of what is present. �That is, no energy,
> > > no matter, no volume, no space, no time, no thoughts, etc., �in and of
> > > itself, describes, defines, or tells you, exactly what is present.
> > > Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, "nothing", or
> > > non-existence, is actually an existent state. �So, what has
> > > traditionally been thought of as "nothing", or non-existence, is, when
> > > seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".
> > > Said yet another way, non-existence can appear as either "nothing" or
> > > "something" depending on the perspective of the observer. � Another
> > > argument is also presented that reaches this same conclusion.
> > > Finally, this reasoning is used to form a primitive model of the
> > > universe via what I refer to as "philosophical engineering".
--
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Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 12:20:18 PM9/21/11
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On 9/21/2011 3:04 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:01 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth.
[SPK]
I'm not so sure that all truths are empty. Take for example the truth of the statement that the 131st Fibonacci number is 1,066,340,417,491,710,595,814,572,169. If the 131st Fibonacci number has some objectively true value, then so does the 10^100th. An infinite series is formed by this simple definition and its elements have set values without we humans having to discover them.
This argument for Platonism is a pungent red herring!
Nevertheless the original definition must be representable in some form of physical implementation to be knowable and thus meaningful to us fallible humans.
Yes to we humans.
But this argument is flawed! The fact is that the n'th number of the series is implicit in the definition, its existence is fully given in principle by the existence of the definition.
As are the digits if Pi, which you seem to think exists without us having to define it.
The fact that the n'th number may haev some interesting properties other than being the n'th number in the Fibonachi sequence flows from other number theoretical considerations, but all of number theory itself is implicit in its definitions in the same way.
If you think the integers exist you have to admit that there are only 2 integers that divide 7. You could say this is "implicit in our definition of division" but we can't define new integers which when myleiplued yield 7. Math pushes back.
I worry that this simple fact is consistently ignored by proponents of mathematical Platonism as it manifest a flawed assumption about the nature and reality of abstract objects.
The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? If we have to define something for it to exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Of course the properties of pi, for example, are not subject to the whim of mortals, that is not my point. The point is that once a defition/logical framework is posited then all of its implied and entailed aspects also follow.
Not quite. You might say all the mathematical Truth follows from the framework of the axioms, but that is not true.
The question of whether or not some number has some properties is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the 'discoverer' there of.
What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Other series through the integers exist, defined other functions. Some of these functions are be elaborate enough to support internal patterns which form between successive integers, a simple example:
1000000000000000000000000100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000001000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000010000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100000000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000000000000000000000
The "1" digit could be said to be moving through the number. But the rules of the function can define any type of behavior, for example, if a "1" digit happens upon a "2", then the 1's digit "eats" the 2 and then "reproduces"
1000000000000000000000020100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000021000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000011000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100100000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000010000000000000000
A very primitive example, but hopefully you can see the potential for more elaborate functions, which can represent three dimensional worlds, support self-reproducing patterns, evolution, and consciousness.
[SPK]
And what exactly acts as the background within which these digits contrast themselves as separate entities such that the illusion of motion can obtain?
Their histories, minds, memories.
Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can exist.
Consider that the game of life is merely a progression of integers, defined by a simple function. Yet all kinds of patterns and motion are supported. Now consider a three dimensional game of life: it might enable simple "particles" that move through it's "space".
Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits, but I hope that my point is understood.
It is not what appears to us, but what appears to the beings inside. If you sat at a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe changing over time your viewing of that screen is not necessary for you or I to experience.
[SPK]Thus, such a "Truth" would not be empty, but might very well be a world in which we live.
A tautology might be 'empty' in some sense but it is still meaningful. Meaning obtains from relations between many; absent the universe of relations meaning vanishes.
Consider a simple dictionary. each word entry in it is defined by some set of other words in some relation to each other. Consider a dictionary where each different entry had an identical set of words and relations as its definition. What would any word 'mean'?
Can you give a short example? I am not sue I follow.
The
proposition "apples are apples" conveys no meaning. X = X is just the
Law of Identity.
I believe contra Bruno that all mathematical/logical/physical truths
are tautological. Somehow or other, they must all be reducible to 0 =
0. Bertrand Russell said, "Everything that is a proposition of logic
has got to be in some sense or the other like a tautology."
Unfortunately, I cannot back up this awfully ambitious thesis since
I'm not a mathematician, I'm just a philosophy major at the University
of Michigan. Many mathematicians (perhaps Gödel) might have already
disproven it or (worse) shown it to be unfalsifiable. Nonetheless, I
trust Russell and Pearce on this one.
Pearce says in his article (http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/
nihilfil.htm):
"The whole of mathematics can, in principle, be derived from the
properties of the empty set, Ø. [Since Ø has no members, in the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers it can be
identified with the number zero, 0. (this is still problematic; should
0 be regarded, not as the empty set, but as the number of items in the
empty set? And what's the ontological status of the empty set?)] The
number 1 can be defined as the set containing 0, i.e. simply the set
{0} that contains only one member. Since 0 is defined to be the empty
set, this means that the number 1 is the set that contains the empty
set as a member {Ø}. The number 2 can be understood as the set, {0,
1}, which is just the set {Ø, {Ø}}. Carrying on, the number 3 is
defined to be the set {0, 1, 2} which reduces to {Ø, {Ø}, {Ø, {Ø}}}
Generalising, the number N can be defined as the set containing 0 and
all the numbers smaller than N. Thus N = {0, 1, 2 ...N-1} is a set
with N members. Assuming only the concept of the empty set Ø, each of
the numbers in this set N can be replaced by its definition in terms
of nested sets. Proceeding to derive the rest of maths from the
properties of the natural numbers is more ambitious; but it's
conceivable in principle. All that then remains to be done is to
explain the empty set i.e. why (a condition analogous to our concept
of) the empty set must be the case]"
There are simpler axiomatic systems, such as Robinson arithmetic, which contain the notion of zero while assuming less than Set theory.
[SPK]
It has been conjectured that there may be an infinite number of axiomatic systems, for example the axiomatic form of p-adics! Consider also that there is not just one self-consistent Set Theory!
Yes and the mathematical truth concerning just the integers, escapes all of them.
Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this
explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
anything exists?
[SPK]
I agree that the concept of zero cannot exist in isolation from either the other integers or their properties. However I would be less apt to say "everything comes from 0". Why not "everything comes from 5" or any other number? If all numbers exist, I think they all existed from the start. As to your question, of whether I think no meta-explanation is needed, I can agree with this.
I too agree for similar reasons.
[SPK]
Consider sitting at a computer terminal waiting for my e-mail response. Before you receive my reply, you have received zero information, and correspondingly, all possibilities for my response remain open. It is only when you receive my e-mail (the reception of information) that I have narrowed down to one from all. Another way to see this is to consider that, had I sent you every possible message as a response, you have just as much information as if I had sent nothing at all.
An interesting point! In fact, within MWI it is considered that we actually do send all possible mesages, it is just that each message is correlated with only one distinguishable world containing a version of the message sender. But there is also a symmetrical situation with regard to the receiver of those messages. A message that is meaningful to one particular receiver is such because of the particularities and history of that receiver. Messages that contain information that is inconsistent with the physical laws and decoding schemes of a given receiver are, at best, noise. So the receiver is the object of many messages only one of which is meaningful. So the one-to-many mapping of sender is matched with a many to one map of the receiver.
[SPK]Think of the meta-reality as a big block of marble. Within the marble exist all possible sculptures. Only with the addition of information (in the form of chiselling) does one narrow down the infinite possibility to one sculpture. Before adding information, they all existed. Likewise, with the meta-reality, if God remained silent on what was to exist, then everything is there and the information content of the everything is zero bits. A universe that contains nothing would take some non-zero amount of information to describe.
Sadly this block of marble must be infinitely dimensional for this scheme to work, since all possible sculptures must be orthogonal to each other in order to be considered to exist as separate entities.
You may be taking my illustration a little too literally.
Only when we restrict ourselves to mere potential sculptures does the analogy of a 3-d block obtain as a coherent notion since 'possible sculptures' are undefined until the chisel does its job. The act of making a distinction between the sculptures is the key to this line of reasoning and must not be unappreciated.
[SPK]Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
what has been previously called "absolute non-existence" has theunique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys
are saying the same thing just in different words.
Maybe! ;-) I like that you are reintroducing the ideas of Pearce. I am utterly fascinated by his sematic ideas. The Triple is an endless source of study for me and I have even gone so far as to define an interpretation of Bateson's definition of information in its terms: "Information is a difference between two that makes a difference to a third".
I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that canexist." I think you imply here that only *some* things can exist.
[SPK]
I think every structure not ruled out by its definition could be said to exist. Examples of things that do not exist would include, a third integer factor of 7, A triangle in Euclidean space whose internal angles do not add to 180 degrees, etc.
Yes and their non-existence follows from their violation of the rules/definitions. This cements the relationship between definition and implied entities that I mentioned previously.
So do you think all consistent structures in all consistent sets of axioms exist? Or do we need a human being to write down the axioms on a piece of paper and write some proofs first?
I think you would agree with me, then, that the Law of Identity
determines what can and cannot be the case. For example, I cannot have
one hand and two hands at the same time and place (though I might have
two hands in one Hubble volume and one hand in another,
unfortunately).
I am not sure if all self-contradiction follows from the law of identity, but I think we are in general agreement that self-contradiction is a candidate for precluding the existence of certain things.
[SPK]
Non-contradiction is a separate axiom.
[SPK]
Stephen, you say "Existence exists". Heidegger said "Nothing
noths." (I just thought that might titillate you)
Yes, another form of this thought is "Nothingness cannot non-exist". It is from this idea that I reason that Existence itself is formless, property-less, undivided and unnamable. Its nature, from our point of view is pure paradox. My dear friend Prof. Hitoshi Kitada has written several papers on this that you might find here: http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Kitada_H/0/1/0/all/0/1
Onward!
Stephen
PS, I am very happy that you joined our discussions. I look forward to your future postings.
Any comments and critiques are welcome!
Best regards,
Jon
> Hi. Thanks for the feedback. The empty set as the building block
> of existence is exactly the point I as making in my original posting
> that started this thread. What you're referring to as the empty set,
> I was referring to as how what has previously been called absolute
> "non-existence" or "nothing" completely describes, or defines, the
> entirety of what is present and is thus an existent state, or
> something. This existent state of mine is what others would call the
> empty set. The reason this is worth thinking about is because just
> saying that the empty set is the basis of existence doesn't explain
> why that empty set is there in the first place. This is what I was
> trying to get at. Additionally, there has to be some mechanism
> inherent in this existent state previously referred to as absolute
> "non-existence" (ie, the empty set) that allows it to replicate itself
> and produce the universe, energy, etc. This is needed because it
> appears that there's more to the universe than just a single empty
> existent state and that things are moving around. What I suggested in
> the paper at my website was that:
>
> 1. Assume what has previously been called "absolute non-existence".
>
> 2. This "absolute non-existence" itself, and not our mind's conception
> of "non-existence", completely describes, or defines, the entirety of
> what is there and is thus actually an existent state, or "something".
> This complete definition is equivalent to an edge or boundary defining
> what is present and thus giving "substance" or existence to the the
> thing. This complete definition, edge, or boundary is like the curly
> braces around the empty set.
>
> 3. Now, by the assumption in step 1, there is also "absolute non-
> existence" all around the edge of the existent state formed in step
> 2. This "absolute non-existence" also completely describes, or
> defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent
> state. That is, the first existent state has reproduced itself. I
> think that the existenet state that is what has been previously called
> "absolute non-existence" has the unique property of being able to
> reproduce itself.
>
> 4. This process continues ad infinitum in kind of a cellular automaton-
> like process to form in a big bang-like expansion a larger set of
> existent states - our universe.
>
> This is described in more detail in the paper at my website at:
>
>
> There's also some more detail on how the above process can lead to the
> presence of energy in the universe.
>
> Tegmark's assumption of a mathematical construct as the basis of
> our existence doesn't explain where this construct comes from or how
> it reproduces to form the universe. Wheeler's idea that the
> distinction between the observer and the observed could be the
> mechanism of giving existence to non-existence could be fit into my
> idea, I think, by saying that the observed is what has previously been
> called "absolute non-existence", and the observer is the fact that
> this "absolute non-existence" completely defines the entirety of what
> is present and is like the edge or boundary defining what is there.
> Speculating even further, one could say that this edge or boundary is
> the same as the strings/membranes that physicists think make up the
> universe.
>
> Anyways, thanks again for restarting this thread!
>
> > principle, be derived from the properties of the empty set, Ø" I think
> > > Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time. I'm
> > > a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why isthere
> > > something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
> > > some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
> > > infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics and
> > > physics are at:
>
> > >https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>
> > > An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why istheresomething
> > > rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>
> > > Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>
> > > In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do things
> > > exist?" and "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?" In regard
> > > to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
> > > thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
> > > completely defined. A complete definition is equivalent to an edge or
> > > boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance” and
> > > existence to the thing. In regard to the second question, "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
> > > first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
> > > thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
> > > about this lack-of-all. It is then shown that this non-existence
> > > itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence, is the complete
> > > description, or definition, of what is present. That is, no energy,
> > > no matter, no volume, no space, no time, no thoughts, etc., in and of
> > > itself, describes, defines, or tells you, exactly what is present.
> > > Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, "nothing", or
> > > non-existence, is actually an existent state. So, what has
> > > traditionally been thought of as "nothing", or non-existence, is, when
> > > seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".
> > > Said yet another way, non-existence can appear as either "nothing" or
> > > "something" depending on the perspective of the observer. Another
> > > argument is also presented that reaches this same conclusion.
> > > Finally, this reasoning is used to form a primitive model of the
> > > universe via what I refer to as "philosophical engineering".
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Craig Weinberg
Sep 21, 2011, 1:47:09 PM9/21/11
to Everything List
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then what
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
The universe always has/is/results from awareness.
>
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology.
>
> > Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic
> > distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is
> > requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can
> > exist.
>
> Consider that the game of life is merely a progression of integers,
> defined by a simple function. Yet all kinds of patterns and motion
> are supported. Now consider a three dimensional game of life: it
> might enable simple "particles" that move through it's "space".
>
> > Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the
> > role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits,
> > but I hope that my point is understood.
>
> It is not what appears to us, but what appears to the beings inside.
> If you sat at a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe
> changing over time your viewing of that screen is not necessary for
> you or I to experience.
But as beings inside our universe, we DO need material interfaces to
see, feel, and think. Our eyeballs are necessary for us to see the
world outside of ourselves. It's not enough that the arithmetic of
visual phenomena exists, we cannot contact it through arithmetic means
alone.
Craig
Sorry to jump in here..
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then what
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
>
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
>
> > Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic
> > distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is
> > requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can
> > exist.
>
> Consider that the game of life is merely a progression of integers,
> defined by a simple function. Yet all kinds of patterns and motion
> are supported. Now consider a three dimensional game of life: it
> might enable simple "particles" that move through it's "space".
>
> > Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the
> > role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits,
> > but I hope that my point is understood.
>
> It is not what appears to us, but what appears to the beings inside.
> If you sat at a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe
> changing over time your viewing of that screen is not necessary for
> you or I to experience.
see, feel, and think. Our eyeballs are necessary for us to see the
world outside of ourselves. It's not enough that the arithmetic of
visual phenomena exists, we cannot contact it through arithmetic means
alone.
Craig
Bruno Marchal
Sep 21, 2011, 2:07:15 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 21 Sep 2011, at 08:01, nihil0 wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
> far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
> out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
>
> I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
> as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
> see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
> truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
> be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
> other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
> vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
> take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
> world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
> comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Not really. Well, not at all. comprehension and reflection are some
possible axioms which together with some other axioms can axiomatize
set theory (in first order logic). In that theory you can define 0,
and successor and develop arithmetic.
Set theory is a stupendously rich theory. far too rich, and personnaly
I don't believe in it, even if I appreciate it a lot. Actually I use
it also as an example of a Löbian machine, with much more power (in
the ability to prove even just arithmetical statements) than Peano
Arithmetic (my generic observer-being).
But the TOE, which is meta-extracted from the mechanist hypothesis, is
a much weaker theory. It is Robinson Arithmetic. basically it is logic
+ the addition laws:
Ax x + 0 = x (0 adds nothing)
AxAy x + s(y) = s(x + y) ( meaning x + (y +1) = (x + y) +1)
and the multiplication laws (axioms)
Ax x *0 = 0
AxAy x*s(y) = x*y + x
with "A" = FOR ALL (the universal quantifier) and "E" = "IT
EXISTS" (the existencial quantifier).
>
> Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth.
I don't think so. If that were true, we would not have axioms in
propositional calculus, nor any weaker logic than classical logic. But
there are an infinities of weaker logics than classical logic (like
intuitionist logic, quantum logic, relevance logic, linear logic,
etc.). It is even a fashion among some analytical philosopher to try
to cast doubt on the classical tautologies, which indeed are actually
very strong statements. There are quasi-operational definition of
Platonism in math. They lead to the acceptation of non constructive
proofs and object. For example intuitionists reject the excluded
middle (p V ~p).
> The
> proposition "apples are apples" conveys no meaning. X = X is just the
> Law of Identity.
>
> I believe contra Bruno that all mathematical/logical/physical truths
> are tautological.
You can't be serious. You extend the meaning of tautology too far.
> Somehow or other, they must all be reducible to 0 =
> 0.
Prove me that 17 is a prime number, from 0=0.
> Bertrand Russell said, "Everything that is a proposition of logic
> has got to be in some sense or the other like a tautology."
Bertrand Russell is a nice guy, but its philosophy of math did not
survive the Gödel's discovery.
Russell and Whitehead wrote Principia Mathematica to illustrates that
everything in math is a tautology, but Gödel blew up that very idea.
Gödel 1931 paper concerns a rigorous version of principia mathematica,
and a proof that such approach can't work at all.
It is a reason of joy, because it makes math FULL of unpredictibel
surprises, of many varieties.
>
> Unfortunately, I cannot back up this awfully ambitious thesis since
> I'm not a mathematician, I'm just a philosophy major at the University
> of Michigan. Many mathematicians (perhaps Gödel) might have already
> disproven it or (worse) shown it to be unfalsifiable.
Gödel disprove it, indeed.
> Nonetheless, I
> trust Russell and Pearce on this one.
Hmm....
>
> Pearce says in his article (http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/
> nihilfil.htm):
>
> "The whole of mathematics can, in principle, be derived from the
> properties of the empty set, Ø.
No, you can't.
In fact the whole of mathematics cannot be derived from anything, not
even infinite structures. It probably does not even make sense.
> [Since Ø has no members, in the
> standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers it can be
> identified with the number zero, 0.
It is better to say that the empty set can implement, or represent,
the number 0. You cannot identify them when thinking about conceptual
issue. If you *do* math, you can identify them as an abuse of language
to be shorter and more efficacious, but for conceptual reasoning, this
can only be misleading. 0 is simply not the empty set. You can say
that 0 is the number element of the empty set, and you can represent
in set theoretical language, the arithmetical notion of 0.
> (this is still problematic; should
> 0 be regarded, not as the empty set, but as the number of items in the
> empty set? And what's the ontological status of the empty set?)]
In most set theories, you can usually prove the existence of the empty
set. That is Ex(x = { }) can be proved from the axioms and inference
rules.
> The
> number 1 can be defined as the set containing 0, i.e. simply the set
> {0} that contains only one member. Since 0 is defined to be the empty
> set, this means that the number 1 is the set that contains the empty
> set as a member {Ø}. The number 2 can be understood as the set, {0,
> 1}, which is just the set {Ø, {Ø}}. Carrying on, the number 3 is
> defined to be the set {0, 1, 2} which reduces to {Ø, {Ø}, {Ø, {Ø}}}
> Generalising, the number N can be defined as the set containing 0 and
> all the numbers smaller than N. Thus N = {0, 1, 2 ...N-1} is a set
> with N members. Assuming only the concept of the empty set Ø, each of
> the numbers in this set N can be replaced by its definition in terms
> of nested sets. Proceeding to derive the rest of maths from the
> properties of the natural numbers is more ambitious; but it's
> conceivable in principle.
Nowadays, we know it is not. Even set theory itself (a quite powerful
theory) cannot get all the "simple" arithmetical truth. There are just
no complete theory at all.
> All that then remains to be done is to
> explain the empty set i.e. why (a condition analogous to our concept
> of) the empty set must be the case]"
>
> Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
> properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
> which needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this
> explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
> anything exists?
>
> Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
> standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
> is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
> to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
> identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
> is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
> constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
> supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
> what has been previously called "absolute non-existence" has the
> unique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys
> are saying the same thing just in different words.
You might be interested in what I am explaining on this list. From an
assumption about the functioning of the brain, I derive that the TOE
is any first order specification of any theory which can prove the
existence of a universal machine. Amazingly, ver simple theories can
do that, like addition and multiplication (like above), or the
combinators laws Kxy = x and Sxyz = xz(yz).
This already entails the existence of believer (or theories much
richer that those theories, *in* the theory, and physics (both quanta
and qualia) arise from a first person indeterminacy (which most on
this list seems to have grasped, I think).
>
> I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
> though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
> reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that can
> exist." I think you imply here that only *some* things can exist. I
> think you would agree with me, then, that the Law of Identity
> determines what can and cannot be the case. For example, I cannot have
> one hand and two hands at the same time and place (though I might have
> two hands in one Hubble volume and one hand in another,
> unfortunately).
>
> Stephen, you say "Existence exists". Heidegger said "Nothing
> noths." (I just thought that might titillate you)
>
> Any comments and critiques are welcome!
I really hate to look like patronizing, but I hate not to be honest,
also, and I think you should study some good book on logic (or better
to follow some good introductory course in both proof theory and model
theory). I feel sorry, but Gödel's theorem impact is not just the
destruction of HIlbert's program, but the whole philosophy of math by
Russell.
Bruno
>>>> Sincerely
>>>> ,
>>
>>>> Roger
>>>> Granet
>>>> (roger
>>>> ...@yahoo.com)
>>
> --
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>
meekerdb
Sep 21, 2011, 2:37:54 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 7:52 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
> [SPK]
> A tautology might be 'empty' in some sense but it is still meaningful. Meaning
> obtains from relations between many; absent the universe of relations meaning vanishes.
> [SPK]
> A tautology might be 'empty' in some sense but it is still meaningful. Meaning
> obtains from relations between many; absent the universe of relations meaning vanishes.
> Consider a simple dictionary. each word entry in it is defined by some set of other
> words in some relation to each other. Consider a dictionary where each different entry
> had an identical set of words and relations as its definition. What would any word 'mean'?
> words in some relation to each other. Consider a dictionary where each different entry
> had an identical set of words and relations as its definition. What would any word 'mean'?
Consider a dictionary (like real dictionaries) in which every word has a different set of
words in its definition. And further suppose that (unlike real dictionaries) if you
started at any word and looked up the definition of every word in its definition and then
did so recursively you would eventually have looked up every word in the dictionary.
Would you know the meaning of any of the words? I'd say you would not until you had an
ostensive definition of a sufficient subset of the words.
Brent
meekerdb
Sep 21, 2011, 2:51:24 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 9:20 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. Would
> you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? If we have to define
> something for it to exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious
> beings in it?
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. Would
> you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? If we have to define
> something for it to exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious
> beings in it?
"To exist" just means to occur in the ontology of some model. We have a model of
enumeration, which we call "the integers" and a model of combining them, which we call
"arithmetic". In this model prime numbers "exist" because they satisfy the rules for the
ontology. But this kind of "exist" is quite different from the way my chair "exists" and
the way dinosaurs "existed". Whenever one is tempted to write "exist" he should first
count to ten.
Brent
Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 2:58:27 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
I've wondered this myself: would it be possible to make sense out of an alien dictionary? I think it might be possible if we compare the semantic network (formed in terms of the word relations through the definitions) to the same generated by one of our dictionaries, then attempt to build most probable candidate definitions for words (based on similarities in the networks) and see whether or not it fits. I think it would be very easy to tell when a word definition is completely wrong, as it would lead to conflicts with the candidate meanings decided for other words. This is all just a speculation of mine, there may be enough self-valid, but nonetheless incorrect mappings of words to make it impossible, perhaps it depends on the lengths of the definitions in the dictionary and the total number of words.
Jason
Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 3:06:49 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist.
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then whatThe universe always has/is/results from awareness.
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Then you get into a bootstrap problem. How did the first aware creation come to be if there was not already some structure with a previous history during which that creature evolved? Your idea suggests the universe and its 5 billion history were created when the first life form opened its eyes.
This idea is not unlike Wheeler's participatory universe, which I think has some merit. With Wheeler's idea, however, both awareness and the universe feed on each other and affect each other. With your idea it sounds like you think awareness drives everything. How do you explain the physical laws (the fact that there are laws at all) if sense and awareness are all that are required?
>Our neurology.
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology is contingent on the universe. What I was asking is if we need to define everything in order that it exist, how can we explain our own existence? Obviously things can exist independently of our mathematical definitions or discoveries. Our universe being a case in point.
>But as beings inside our universe, we DO need material interfaces to
> > Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic
> > distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is
> > requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can
> > exist.
>
> Consider that the game of life is merely a progression of integers,
> defined by a simple function. Yet all kinds of patterns and motion
> are supported. Now consider a three dimensional game of life: it
> might enable simple "particles" that move through it's "space".
>
> > Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the
> > role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits,
> > but I hope that my point is understood.
>
> It is not what appears to us, but what appears to the beings inside.
> If you sat at a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe
> changing over time your viewing of that screen is not necessary for
> you or I to experience.
see, feel, and think.
What is material but its relation to other material in this universe?
Our eyeballs are necessary for us to see the
world outside of ourselves. It's not enough that the arithmetic of
visual phenomena exists, we cannot contact it through arithmetic means
alone.
A being that evolved eyes in the game of life could respond to the reception of "game of life photons" just as we do to our photons. You would then have to admit that this being can see (or perhaps you would not, since you have finally admitted your belief in zombies).
Jason
Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 3:11:38 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:51 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 9:20 AM, Jason Resch wrote:"To exist" just means to occur in the ontology of some model. We have a model of enumeration, which we call "the integers" and a model of combining them, which we call "arithmetic". In this model prime numbers "exist" because they satisfy the rules for the ontology. But this kind of "exist" is quite different from the way my chair "exists"
The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? If we have to define something for it to exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Until you find that the mathematical object which exists in some model happens to be the universe containing you and your chair.
Jason
Stephen P. King
Sep 21, 2011, 5:12:37 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Hi Jason,
On 9/21/2011 12:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On 9/21/2011 3:04 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:01 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth.
[SPK]
I'm not so sure that all truths are empty.� Take for example the truth of the statement that the 131st Fibonacci number is 1,066,340,417,491,710,595,814,572,169.� If the 131st Fibonacci number has some objectively true value, then so does the 10^100th.� An infinite series is formed by this simple definition and its elements have set values without we humans having to discover them.
��� This argument for Platonism is a pungent red herring!
���
��� Nevertheless the original definition must be representable in some form of physical implementation to be knowable and thus meaningful to us fallible humans.
Yes to we humans.
But this argument is flawed! The fact is that the n'th number of the series is implicit in the definition, its existence is fully given in principle by the existence of the definition.
As are the digits if Pi, which you seem to think exists without us having to define it.
[SPK]
��� The digits of pi are defined by arithmetic and arithmetics have definitions themselves. My claim here is not complicated! No object, abstract or concrete, has definite properties absent associations with other entities. BTW, this is one of the lessons that we learn the hard way from QM.
The fact that the n'th number may haev some interesting properties other than being the n'th number in the Fibonachi sequence flows from other number theoretical considerations, but all of number theory itself is implicit in its definitions in the same way.
[SPK]If you think the integers exist you have to admit that there are only 2 integers that divide 7. �You could say this is "implicit in our definition of division" but we can't define new integers which when myleiplued yield 7. �Math pushes back.
��� Do I need to repeat my claim? OK. The existence of numbers, or any other object, abstract or concrete, has no properties independent of other entities. Definitions are a form of this claimed association between entities. The existence of an entity is neutral, it is not even a property that an object can have or not have. This is a basic fact that one must learn in the study of philosophy.
I worry that this simple fact is consistently ignored by proponents of mathematical Platonism as it manifest a flawed assumption about the nature and reality of abstract objects.
[SPK]The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. �Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? �If we have to define something for it to exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
��� OK, do you not understand the definition of "to exist" that I am using? Perhaps you think that existence is contingent on your ability to observe the extant... To define a thing is to determine its properties. Its existence is not subject to our actions nor the actions of anything at all. Existence is mere necessary possibility not some divine finger carving the void into shapes and forms.
��� Of course the properties of pi, for example, are not subject to the whim of mortals, that is not my point. The point is that once a defition/logical framework is posited then all of its implied and entailed aspects also follow.
Not quite. �You might say all the mathematical Truth follows from the framework of the axioms, but that is not true.
The question of whether or not some number has some properties is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the 'discoverer' there of.
What created the definition of the universe we are in?
[SPK]
��� In a way, we do. This occurs via concurrent and ongoing process similar to consensus of all and between of the observations of the entities (that have as a consistent universe the particular one), thus the appearance of universal laws of physics obtains. This claim follows from a careful examination of the anthropic principle. Just as it is impossible for an entity to experience as real a universe that is inconsistent with its existence in it, so to our interactions with each other mutually limit the information we can have of that universe from the mutual consistency of our messages. Think of how noise is different from signal in Shannon's information theory. Messages that have information are distinguishable. Messages that have only noise content are indistinguishable, generally speaking.
��� The ability to make the distinction must not be taken for granted. Our observational acts are not passive, but are active behaviors determining what we observe by the choice that they make of what to look at, feel, hear or to measure by some means.
��� In a way, we do. This occurs via concurrent and ongoing process similar to consensus of all and between of the observations of the entities (that have as a consistent universe the particular one), thus the appearance of universal laws of physics obtains. This claim follows from a careful examination of the anthropic principle. Just as it is impossible for an entity to experience as real a universe that is inconsistent with its existence in it, so to our interactions with each other mutually limit the information we can have of that universe from the mutual consistency of our messages. Think of how noise is different from signal in Shannon's information theory. Messages that have information are distinguishable. Messages that have only noise content are indistinguishable, generally speaking.
��� The ability to make the distinction must not be taken for granted. Our observational acts are not passive, but are active behaviors determining what we observe by the choice that they make of what to look at, feel, hear or to measure by some means.
Other series through the integers exist, defined other functions.� Some of these functions are be elaborate enough to support internal patterns which form between successive integers, a simple example:
1000000000000000000000000100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000001000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000010000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100000000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000000000000000000000
The "1" digit could be said to be moving through the number.� But the rules of the function can define any type of behavior, for example, if a "1" digit happens upon a "2", then the 1's digit "eats" the 2 and then "reproduces"
1000000000000000000000020100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000021000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000011000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100100000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000010000000000000000
A very primitive example, but hopefully you can see the potential for more elaborate functions, which can represent three dimensional worlds, support self-reproducing patterns, evolution, and consciousness.
[SPK][SPK]
��� And what exactly acts as the background within which these digits contrast themselves as separate entities such that the illusion of motion can obtain?
Their histories, minds, memories.
��� Yes, and what allows these histories, minds, memories, etc. to have an identity independent of each other?
���
Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can exist.
[SPK]Consider that the game of life is merely a progression of integers, defined by a simple function. �Yet all kinds of patterns and motion are supported. �Now consider a three dimensional game of life: it might enable simple "particles" that move through it's "space".�
��� I agree, but notice that phrase "defined by a simple function"! Without the definition of that "simple function" there is no pattern wherein we can find some surprise.
Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits, but I hope that my point is understood.
[SPK]It is not what appears to us, but what appears to the beings inside. �If you sat at a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe changing over time your viewing of that screen is not necessary for you or I to experience.�
��� Ah but the fact that an actual implementation of that data stream does not occur without causal effects on the universe. Does the terminal's computation contain a description of a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe (and the physical effects of that implementation) which contains a representation of a terminal showing all the bits describing the universe ... This obvious infinite regress might be seen as a reason to reject the argument out of hand, but let us examine it a bit more closely. Consider the fact that an actual physical activity needs to be represented at each of the recursions of the regress. If the physical process involved at each step in the 'regress' then the regress will only be a finite number of steps deep, no longer infinite.
��� For instance, in the case of the brain it could be argued that the 'sense of self in the world' that we experience is produced by a short regress of self-modelings, where are each step some aspect fo the physical body is models via computations and these models are continuously updated by information from both memory and sense data. The "humonculus" of this Cartesian Theater would not exist at any location of the brain but instead would be the computational model that the brain is generating in and by its global activities. It would be more like a pattern of brain activities and habits that forms a sort of 'strange attractor' in the space of brain activities.
[SPK]Thus, such a "Truth" would not be empty, but might very well be a world in which we live.
[SPK]��� A tautology might be 'empty' in some sense but it is still meaningful. Meaning obtains from relations between many; absent the universe of relations meaning vanishes.
�Consider a simple dictionary. each word entry in it is defined by some set of other words in some relation to each other. Consider a dictionary where each different entry had an identical set of words and relations as its definition. What would any word 'mean'?
Can you give a short example? �I am not sure I follow.
��� In the case of the dictionary where all the 'definitions' where identical, all of the words would have identical defintions.
Atom: A step cap frup dblep
...
Car: A step cap frup dblep.
...
Horse: A step cap frup dblep
...
...
Rocket: A step cap frup dblep.
...
��� Thus making car equal to Horse equal to Rocket, etc. all have the same meaning, thereby collapsing the very notion of meaningfulness. Now before you jump to the responce that this example violates the Law of Identity let me add a caveat. In that weird dictionary that I just gave an example of, there is a small legend in the front of the book that reads:
"A step cap frup dbled" has many meanings that depend on the code that one is using to decypher them. In page 1000002 there is a table of codes that will give the code for each and every word entry in this dictionary."
��� When you turn to page 1000002 of the dictioanry you find a list of words in no particular order and next to each word is a string of numbers. The number represents the sequence of pages and entries therein that make up the actual words used to define each word in the dictionary. So in fact "A step cap frup dblep." has a unique meaning for each and every word.
��� Now, what happens if someone happens to find a copy of this book that is missing pages 100002 and greater? They will think that is is the writings of a madman, devoid of any meaning or utility. What happens if the number of the word entries is infinite?
��� My claim is that numbers, taken in isolation, are just like the first set of entries in the Strange Dictionary. It is only with the definitions of Arithmetic that they obtain meaning. Arithmetic with its defined rules and relations literally are the "decoding cypher" that, together with the physical process of associating one set of neuronal patterns to another in the case of the human brain, allows meaning to be associated with the numbers; meanings that are at best only potential in the isolated numbers themselves.
�
The
proposition "apples are apples" conveys no meaning. X = X is just the
Law of Identity.
I believe contra Bruno that all mathematical/logical/physical truths
are tautological. Somehow or other, they must all be reducible to 0 =
0. Bertrand Russell said, "Everything that is a proposition of logic
has got to be in some sense or the other like a tautology."
Unfortunately, I cannot back up this awfully ambitious thesis since
I'm not a mathematician, I'm just a philosophy major at the University
of Michigan. Many mathematicians (perhaps G�del) might have already
disproven it or (worse) shown it to be unfalsifiable. Nonetheless, I
trust Russell and Pearce on this one.
Pearce says in his article (http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/
nihilfil.htm):
"The whole of mathematics can, in principle, be derived from the
properties of the empty set, �. [Since � has no members, in the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers it can be
identified with the number zero, 0. (this is still problematic; should
0 be regarded, not as the empty set, but as the number of items in the
empty set? And what's the ontological status of the empty set?)] The
number 1 can be defined as the set containing 0, i.e. simply the set
{0} that contains only one member. Since 0 is defined to be the empty
set, this means that the number 1 is the set that contains the empty
set as a member {�}. The number 2 can be understood as the set, {0,
1}, which is just the set {�, {�}}. Carrying on, the number 3 is
defined to be the set {0, 1, 2} which reduces to {�, {�}, {�, {�}}}
Generalising, the number N can be defined as the set containing 0 and
all the numbers smaller than N. Thus N = {0, 1, 2 ...N-1} is a set
with N members. Assuming only the concept of the empty set �, each of
the numbers in this set N can be replaced by its definition in terms
of nested sets. Proceeding to derive the rest of maths from the
properties of the natural numbers is more ambitious; but it's
conceivable in principle. All that then remains to be done is to
explain the empty set i.e. why (a condition analogous to our concept
of) the empty set must be the case]"
There are simpler axiomatic systems, such as Robinson arithmetic, which contain the notion of zero while assuming less than Set theory.
[SPK]�
��� It has been conjectured that there may be an infinite number of axiomatic systems, for example the axiomatic form of p-adics! Consider also that there is not just one self-consistent Set Theory!
Yes and the mathematical truth concerning just the integers, escapes all of them.
[SPK]
��� How so?
��� How so?
Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining." �Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this
explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
anything exists?
[SPK]
I agree that the concept of zero cannot exist in isolation from either the other integers or their properties.� However I would be less apt to say "everything comes from 0".� Why not "everything comes from 5" or any other number?� If all numbers exist, I think they all existed from the start.� As to your question, of whether I think no meta-explanation is needed, I can agree with this.
��� I too agree for similar reasons.
[SPK]
Consider sitting at a computer terminal waiting for my e-mail response.� Before you receive my reply, you have received zero information, and correspondingly, all possibilities for my response remain open.� It is only when you receive my e-mail (the reception of information) that I have narrowed down to one from all.� Another way to see this is to consider that, had I sent you every possible message as a response, you have just as much information as if I had sent nothing at all.
��� An interesting point! In fact, within MWI it is considered that we actually do send all possible mesages, it is just that each message is correlated with only one distinguishable world containing a version of the message sender. But there is also a symmetrical situation with regard to the receiver of those messages. A message that is meaningful to one particular receiver is such because of the particularities and history of that receiver. Messages that contain information that is inconsistent with the physical laws and decoding schemes of a given receiver are, at best, noise. So the receiver is the object of many messages only one of which is meaningful. So the one-to-many mapping of sender is matched with a many to one map of the receiver.
[SPK]Think of the meta-reality as a big block of marble.� Within the marble exist all possible sculptures.� Only with the addition of information (in the form of chiselling) does one narrow down the infinite possibility to one sculpture.� Before adding information, they all existed.� Likewise, with the meta-reality, if God remained silent on what was to exist, then everything is there and the information content of the everything is zero bits.� A universe that contains nothing would take some non-zero amount of information to describe.
�
��� Sadly this block of marble must be infinitely dimensional for this scheme to work, since all possible sculptures must be orthogonal to each other in order to be considered to exist as separate entities.
You may be taking my illustration a little too literally.
[SPK]
��� Maybe not! A block of marble may just sit there and decay by water erosion into nothing, never experiencing the chiseling. So much for it acting as an analogy of potential sculptures. :_(
��� Maybe not! A block of marble may just sit there and decay by water erosion into nothing, never experiencing the chiseling. So much for it acting as an analogy of potential sculptures. :_(
Only when we restrict ourselves to mere potential sculptures does the analogy of a 3-d block obtain as a coherent notion since 'possible sculptures' are undefined until the chisel does its job. The act of making a distinction between the sculptures is the key to this line of reasoning and must not be unappreciated.
[SPK]Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
what has been previously called "absolute non-existence" has theunique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys
are saying the same thing just in different words.
��� Maybe!� ;-) I like that you are reintroducing the ideas of Pearce. I am utterly fascinated by his sematic ideas. The Triple is an endless source of study for me and I have even gone so far as to define an interpretation of Bateson's definition of information in its terms: "Information is a difference between two that makes a difference to a third".
I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that canexist." I think you imply here that only *some* things can exist.
snip[SPK]
I think every structure not ruled out by its definition could be said to exist.� Examples of things that do not exist would include, a third integer factor of 7, A triangle in Euclidean space whose internal angles do not add to 180 degrees, etc.
�
��� Yes and their non-existence follows from their violation of the rules/definitions. This cements the relationship between definition and implied entities that I mentioned previously.
So do you think all consistent structures in all consistent sets of axioms exist? �Or do we need a human being to write down the axioms on a piece of paper and write some proofs first?
��� I think that all possible self-consistent sets of axioms exist and the structures that they represent but must be physically implementable to be known by us. David Deutsch elaborates this point very well in his new book.
Onward!
Stephen
meekerdb
Sep 21, 2011, 6:36:15 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
> Think of how noise is different from signal in Shannon's information theory. Messages
> that have information are distinguishable. Messages that have only noise content are
> indistinguishable, generally speaking.
> Think of how noise is different from signal in Shannon's information theory. Messages
> that have information are distinguishable. Messages that have only noise content are
> indistinguishable, generally speaking.
A signal that looks like noise is one that carries the most information, i.e. is
incompressible.
Brent
Stephen P. King
Sep 21, 2011, 7:07:38 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 3:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist.
[SPK]
Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it is not!
Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it is not!
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
[SPK]
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then whatThe universe always has/is/results from awareness.
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Then you get into a bootstrap problem. How did the first aware creation come to be if there was not already some structure with a previous history during which that creature evolved? Your idea suggests the universe and its 5 billion history were created when the first life form opened its eyes.
[SPK]
A bootstrap problem can only occur if there is a boundary that cannot be overstepped or crossed by some means.
Why is it assumed that there had to be a structure with no prior history that somehow just appears and all else proceeds from it? We chastise silly creationists for making the same claim! Existence is eternal, just because we observe a finite universe does not mean that the total universe is not infinite or that that finite observed universe is the totality of existence. It could be just the simple fact that a finite system (within an infinite Totality) with finite physical resources can only resolve a finite universe (which is just a finite subset of the Totality. Not too complicated at all.
There is no need to concoct weird explanations such as Singularities and Inflatons and Dark Energy, just use some observation, logic and a liberal dose of Occam's razor.
A bootstrap problem can only occur if there is a boundary that cannot be overstepped or crossed by some means.
Why is it assumed that there had to be a structure with no prior history that somehow just appears and all else proceeds from it? We chastise silly creationists for making the same claim! Existence is eternal, just because we observe a finite universe does not mean that the total universe is not infinite or that that finite observed universe is the totality of existence. It could be just the simple fact that a finite system (within an infinite Totality) with finite physical resources can only resolve a finite universe (which is just a finite subset of the Totality. Not too complicated at all.
There is no need to concoct weird explanations such as Singularities and Inflatons and Dark Energy, just use some observation, logic and a liberal dose of Occam's razor.
This idea is not unlike Wheeler's participatory universe, which I think has some merit. With Wheeler's idea, however, both awareness and the universe feed on each other and affect each other. With your idea it sounds like you think awareness drives everything. How do you explain the physical laws (the fact that there are laws at all) if sense and awareness are all that are required?
[SPK]
You might not have noticed that Craig's thesis is symmetric with respect to "sense" and "thing". He calls them the Omni and the Acme, if I recall correctly.
You might not have noticed that Craig's thesis is symmetric with respect to "sense" and "thing". He calls them the Omni and the Acme, if I recall correctly.
>Our neurology.
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology is contingent on the universe. What I was asking is if we need to define everything in order that it exist, how can we explain our own existence? Obviously things can exist independently of our mathematical definitions or discoveries. Our universe being a case in point.
[SPK]
We are aware of only a tiny sliver of what exists. Naive realism is a form of hysterical blindness, IMHO. This notion that somehow the existence of an entity is linked to its properties is worse than fallacious. It is dumb.
We are aware of only a tiny sliver of what exists. Naive realism is a form of hysterical blindness, IMHO. This notion that somehow the existence of an entity is linked to its properties is worse than fallacious. It is dumb.
>But as beings inside our universe, we DO need material interfaces to
> > Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic
> > distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is
> > requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can
> > exist.
>
> Consider that the game of life is merely a progression of integers,
> defined by a simple function. Yet all kinds of patterns and motion
> are supported. Now consider a three dimensional game of life: it
> might enable simple "particles" that move through it's "space".
>
> > Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the
> > role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits,
> > but I hope that my point is understood.
>
> It is not what appears to us, but what appears to the beings inside.
> If you sat at a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe
> changing over time your viewing of that screen is not necessary for
> you or I to experience.
see, feel, and think.
What is material but its relation to other material in this universe?
[SPK]
Correct, but the kind of relation that it is matters, literally!
Correct, but the kind of relation that it is matters, literally!
Our eyeballs are necessary for us to see the
world outside of ourselves. It's not enough that the arithmetic of
visual phenomena exists, we cannot contact it through arithmetic means
alone.
A being that evolved eyes in the game of life could respond to the reception of "game of life photons" just as we do to our photons. You would then have to admit that this being can see (or perhaps you would not, since you have finally admitted your belief in zombies).
Jason
--{SPK]
Umm, where in the rules of the Game of Life is there an analogue of a photon? The game merely states somethign like "if your neighboring cell is empty do change to x state". There is no photon there as this 'neighborhood state detection system depends on a global synchronization of the cell detections and transitions, thus there is no signal delay nor permittivity and permeability functions involved. One would have to radically alter the rules of the GoL to make photon facsimiles appear.
Onward!
Stephen
Stephen P. King
Sep 21, 2011, 7:09:35 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Interesting, so if one happens to not have the proper decoding key,
how is it distinguished from noise?
Onward!
Stephen
meekerdb
Sep 21, 2011, 8:00:37 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
It isn't. That's why encryption works.
Brent
Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 9:01:39 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 4:12 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
Hi Jason,
On 9/21/2011 12:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On 9/21/2011 3:04 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 1:01 AM, nihil0 <jonatha...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I would like to reply to various people's comments since my post so
far. I'll try to be as clear as I can, though words aren't well cut
out for metaphysics, as you probably are aware.
I think we all want to know what principles and axioms we must accept
as primitives to construct a theory of everything. However, I want to
see how far we can get assuming no primitives. By primitives, I mean
truths (or as Nietzsche liked to call them, "assumptions") that can't
be proved with certainty, but can be used to derive and justify many
other truths. An example of a primitive is "I am not a brain in a
vat"; I can't prove it beyond an unreasonable doubt, but nonetheless I
take it for granted in my normal day-to-day theorizing about the
world. Bruno says he takes as primitives in his TOE axioms such as
comprehensibility and reflection, and 0 and succesor.
Unlike a primitive truth, a tautology is a vacuous, empty truth.
[SPK]
I'm not so sure that all truths are empty. Take for example the truth of the statement that the 131st Fibonacci number is 1,066,340,417,491,710,595,814,572,169. If the 131st Fibonacci number has some objectively true value, then so does the 10^100th. An infinite series is formed by this simple definition and its elements have set values without we humans having to discover them.
This argument for Platonism is a pungent red herring!
Nevertheless the original definition must be representable in some form of physical implementation to be knowable and thus meaningful to us fallible humans.
Yes to we humans.
But this argument is flawed! The fact is that the n'th number of the series is implicit in the definition, its existence is fully given in principle by the existence of the definition.
As are the digits if Pi, which you seem to think exists without us having to define it.
[SPK]
The digits of pi are defined by arithmetic and arithmetics have definitions themselves. My claim here is not complicated! No object, abstract or concrete, has definite properties absent associations with other entities. BTW, this is one of the lessons that we learn the hard way from QM.
The fact that the n'th number may haev some interesting properties other than being the n'th number in the Fibonachi sequence flows from other number theoretical considerations, but all of number theory itself is implicit in its definitions in the same way.
[SPK]If you think the integers exist you have to admit that there are only 2 integers that divide 7. You could say this is "implicit in our definition of division" but we can't define new integers which when myleiplued yield 7. Math pushes back.
Do I need to repeat my claim? OK. The existence of numbers, or any other object, abstract or concrete, has no properties independent of other entities.
What you are saying is that all things are connected?
Definitions are a form of this claimed association between entities. The existence of an entity is neutral, it is not even a property that an object can have or not have.
That is one way to look at it. Marvin Minsky seems to also believe the word is meaningless.
http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Does-Information-Create-the-Cosmos-Marvin-Minsky-/1393
This is a basic fact that one must learn in the study of philosophy.
I worry that this simple fact is consistently ignored by proponents of mathematical Platonism as it manifest a flawed assumption about the nature and reality of abstract objects.
[SPK]The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's properties. Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot found it? If we have to define something for it to exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
OK, do you not understand the definition of "to exist" that I am using? Perhaps you think that existence is contingent on your ability to observe the extant...
Certainly not.
To define a thing is to determine its properties.
We humans have defined twin primes, but we haven't determined all of the properties of twin primes. E.g., we don't know whether or not there are an infinite number of them. It may even be that under our definition (axioms, definition of primes, twin primes, and integers) are insufficient to determine an answer to that question.
Its existence is not subject to our actions nor the actions of anything at all.
I agree.
Existence is mere necessary possibility
What makes one possibility necessary and another not? I think all possibilities exist.
not some divine finger carving the void into shapes and forms.
Sure.
Of course the properties of pi, for example, are not subject to the whim of mortals, that is not my point. The point is that once a defition/logical framework is posited then all of its implied and entailed aspects also follow.
Not quite. You might say all the mathematical Truth follows from the framework of the axioms, but that is not true.
The question of whether or not some number has some properties is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the 'discoverer' there of.
What created the definition of the universe we are in?
[SPK]
In a way, we do. This occurs via concurrent and ongoing process similar to consensus of all and between of the observations of the entities (that have as a consistent universe the particular one),
What if we were fish, and never did any science. What determined the properties of the universe?
thus the appearance of universal laws of physics obtains. This claim follows from a careful examination of the anthropic principle.
I think the anthropic principal, together with the conception of a reality containing many or all possibilities can explain a lot about the properties of the universe. Do you agree with this?
Just as it is impossible for an entity to experience as real a universe that is inconsistent with its existence in it, so to our interactions with each other mutually limit the information we can have of that universe from the mutual consistency of our messages. Think of how noise is different from signal in Shannon's information theory. Messages that have information are distinguishable. Messages that have only noise content are indistinguishable, generally speaking.
The ability to make the distinction must not be taken for granted. Our observational acts are not passive, but are active behaviors determining what we observe by the choice that they make of what to look at, feel, hear or to measure by some means.
When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to.
Other series through the integers exist, defined other functions. Some of these functions are be elaborate enough to support internal patterns which form between successive integers, a simple example:
1000000000000000000000000100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000001000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000010000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100000000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000000000000000000000
The "1" digit could be said to be moving through the number. But the rules of the function can define any type of behavior, for example, if a "1" digit happens upon a "2", then the 1's digit "eats" the 2 and then "reproduces"
1000000000000000000000020100000000000000000
1000000000000000000000021000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000011000000000000000000
1000000000000000000000100100000000000000000
1000000000000000000001000010000000000000000
A very primitive example, but hopefully you can see the potential for more elaborate functions, which can represent three dimensional worlds, support self-reproducing patterns, evolution, and consciousness.
[SPK]
And what exactly acts as the background within which these digits contrast themselves as separate entities such that the illusion of motion can obtain?
[SPK]
Their histories, minds, memories.
Yes, and what allows these histories, minds, memories, etc. to have an identity independent of each other?
The same that allows the (perhaps illusory) difference between your mind and mine. One pattern in the number may not share the same information with a different pattern elsewhere in the number.
Without a separate and concrete space to act an an extrinsic distinguisher (sorry for the sad wording, a better one is requested!) of the numbers from each other, no pattern at all can exist.
[SPK]Consider that the game of life is merely a progression of integers, defined by a simple function. Yet all kinds of patterns and motion are supported. Now consider a three dimensional game of life: it might enable simple "particles" that move through it's "space".
I agree, but notice that phrase "defined by a simple function"! Without the definition of that "simple function" there is no pattern wherein we can find some surprise.
It is there, but *you* might not be able to see it or learn things about it.
Here the 2-dimensional space of the computer monitor is playing the role and allows us to contrast the symbols representing the digits, but I hope that my point is understood.
[SPK]It is not what appears to us, but what appears to the beings inside. If you sat at a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe changing over time your viewing of that screen is not necessary for you or I to experience.
Ah but the fact that an actual implementation of that data stream does not occur without causal effects on the universe. Does the terminal's computation contain a description of a terminal showing all the bits describing this universe (and the physical effects of that implementation) which contains a representation of a terminal showing all the bits describing the universe ... This obvious infinite regress might be seen as a reason to reject the argument out of hand, but let us examine it a bit more closely.
I think you misunderstand. I am talking about a "God's eye view" from outside this universe, just as we have a "God's eye view" of our game of life simulations. There is no infinite regress when this terminal is not an artefact within the universe.
[SPK]Thus, such a "Truth" would not be empty, but might very well be a world in which we live.
A tautology might be 'empty' in some sense but it is still meaningful. Meaning obtains from relations between many; absent the universe of relations meaning vanishes.
Consider a simple dictionary. each word entry in it is defined by some set of other words in some relation to each other. Consider a dictionary where each different entry had an identical set of words and relations as its definition. What would any word 'mean'?
[SPK]
Can you give a short example? I am not sure I follow.
In the case of the dictionary where all the 'definitions' where identical, all of the words would have identical defintions.
Atom: A step cap frup dblep
...
Car: A step cap frup dblep.
...
Horse: A step cap frup dblep
...
...
Rocket: A step cap frup dblep.
...
Thus making car equal to Horse equal to Rocket, etc. all have
the same meaning, thereby collapsing the very notion of
meaningfulness. Now before you jump to the responce that this
example violates the Law of Identity let me add a caveat. In that
weird dictionary that I just gave an example of, there is a small
legend in the front of the book that reads:
"A step cap frup dbled" has many meanings that depend on the code that one is using to decypher them. In page 1000002 there is a table of codes that will give the code for each and every word entry in this dictionary."
"A step cap frup dbled" has many meanings that depend on the code that one is using to decypher them. In page 1000002 there is a table of codes that will give the code for each and every word entry in this dictionary."
When you turn to page 1000002 of the dictioanry you find a list
of words in no particular order and next to each word is a string of
numbers. The number represents the sequence of pages and entries
therein that make up the actual words used to define each word in
the dictionary. So in fact "A step cap frup dblep." has a unique
meaning for each and every word.
Now, what happens if someone happens to find a copy of this book
that is missing pages 100002 and greater? They will think that is is
the writings of a madman, devoid of any meaning or utility. What
happens if the number of the word entries is infinite?
My claim is that numbers, taken in isolation, are just like the
first set of entries in the Strange Dictionary. It is only with the
definitions of Arithmetic that they obtain meaning.
[Jason]
I think it is only with a definition can the meaning become understandable to us. All the properties of the integers (or even of a single integer) cannot be determined from any one definition.
[SPK]
I think it is only with a definition can the meaning become understandable to us. All the properties of the integers (or even of a single integer) cannot be determined from any one definition.
[SPK]
Arithmetic with its defined rules and relations literally are the "decoding cypher" that, together with the physical process of associating one set of neuronal patterns to another in the case of the human brain, allows meaning to be associated with the numbers; meanings that are at best only potential in the isolated numbers themselves.
The
proposition "apples are apples" conveys no meaning. X = X is just the
Law of Identity.
I believe contra Bruno that all mathematical/logical/physical truths
are tautological. Somehow or other, they must all be reducible to 0 =
0. Bertrand Russell said, "Everything that is a proposition of logic
has got to be in some sense or the other like a tautology."
Unfortunately, I cannot back up this awfully ambitious thesis since
I'm not a mathematician, I'm just a philosophy major at the University
of Michigan. Many mathematicians (perhaps Gödel) might have already
disproven it or (worse) shown it to be unfalsifiable. Nonetheless, I
trust Russell and Pearce on this one.
Pearce says in his article (http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/
nihilfil.htm):
"The whole of mathematics can, in principle, be derived from the
properties of the empty set, Ø. [Since Ø has no members, in the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers it can be
identified with the number zero, 0. (this is still problematic; should
0 be regarded, not as the empty set, but as the number of items in the
empty set? And what's the ontological status of the empty set?)] The
number 1 can be defined as the set containing 0, i.e. simply the set
{0} that contains only one member. Since 0 is defined to be the empty
set, this means that the number 1 is the set that contains the empty
set as a member {Ø}. The number 2 can be understood as the set, {0,
1}, which is just the set {Ø, {Ø}}. Carrying on, the number 3 is
defined to be the set {0, 1, 2} which reduces to {Ø, {Ø}, {Ø, {Ø}}}
Generalising, the number N can be defined as the set containing 0 and
all the numbers smaller than N. Thus N = {0, 1, 2 ...N-1} is a set
with N members. Assuming only the concept of the empty set Ø, each of
the numbers in this set N can be replaced by its definition in terms
of nested sets. Proceeding to derive the rest of maths from the
properties of the natural numbers is more ambitious; but it's
conceivable in principle. All that then remains to be done is to
explain the empty set i.e. why (a condition analogous to our concept
of) the empty set must be the case]"
There are simpler axiomatic systems, such as Robinson arithmetic, which contain the notion of zero while assuming less than Set theory.
[SPK]
It has been conjectured that there may be an infinite number of axiomatic systems, for example the axiomatic form of p-adics! Consider also that there is not just one self-consistent Set Theory!
Yes and the mathematical truth concerning just the integers, escapes all of them.
How so?
[Jason]
Godel proved that in any axiomatic system, there are things that are unprovable. For example, the Whitehead problem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehead_problem ) cannot be made within set theory.
Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
which needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this
explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why
anything exists?
[SPK]
I agree that the concept of zero cannot exist in isolation from either the other integers or their properties. However I would be less apt to say "everything comes from 0". Why not "everything comes from 5" or any other number? If all numbers exist, I think they all existed from the start. As to your question, of whether I think no meta-explanation is needed, I can agree with this.
I too agree for similar reasons.
[SPK]
Consider sitting at a computer terminal waiting for my e-mail response. Before you receive my reply, you have received zero information, and correspondingly, all possibilities for my response remain open. It is only when you receive my e-mail (the reception of information) that I have narrowed down to one from all. Another way to see this is to consider that, had I sent you every possible message as a response, you have just as much information as if I had sent nothing at all.
An interesting point! In fact, within MWI it is considered that we actually do send all possible mesages, it is just that each message is correlated with only one distinguishable world containing a version of the message sender. But there is also a symmetrical situation with regard to the receiver of those messages. A message that is meaningful to one particular receiver is such because of the particularities and history of that receiver. Messages that contain information that is inconsistent with the physical laws and decoding schemes of a given receiver are, at best, noise. So the receiver is the object of many messages only one of which is meaningful. So the one-to-many mapping of sender is matched with a many to one map of the receiver.
[SPK]Think of the meta-reality as a big block of marble. Within the marble exist all possible sculptures. Only with the addition of information (in the form of chiselling) does one narrow down the infinite possibility to one sculpture. Before adding information, they all existed. Likewise, with the meta-reality, if God remained silent on what was to exist, then everything is there and the information content of the everything is zero bits. A universe that contains nothing would take some non-zero amount of information to describe.
Sadly this block of marble must be infinitely dimensional for this scheme to work, since all possible sculptures must be orthogonal to each other in order to be considered to exist as separate entities.
You may be taking my illustration a little too literally.
[SPK]
Maybe not! A block of marble may just sit there and decay by water erosion into nothing, never experiencing the chiseling. So much for it acting as an analogy of potential sculptures. :_(
[Jason]
What I meant to convey in my example is that information is not constructive, but destructive. It doesn't define what is but rather defines what it is not. Every additional letter you read from this message narrows down the message from among all possibilities (which remained open for the yet unread characters).
Only when we restrict ourselves to mere potential sculptures does the analogy of a 3-d block obtain as a coherent notion since 'possible sculptures' are undefined until the chisel does its job. The act of making a distinction between the sculptures is the key to this line of reasoning and must not be unappreciated.
[SPK]Bruno you might object and say that Pearce takes as a primitive "the
standard set-theoretic definition of natural numbers", in which zero
is identical with the empty set and sets can be nested inside others
to define other numbers (successor). But if zero and the empty set are
identical, then their equality doesn't require further proof, it just
is the Law of Identity. Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is
constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is
what has been previously called "absolute non-existence" has theunique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys
are saying the same thing just in different words.
Maybe! ;-) I like that you are reintroducing the ideas of Pearce. I am utterly fascinated by his sematic ideas. The Triple is an endless source of study for me and I have even gone so far as to define an interpretation of Bateson's definition of information in its terms: "Information is a difference between two that makes a difference to a third".
I think the Law of Identity (0 = 0) is the fundamental law of reality,
though it's a rather circular and vacuous law. Jason you say, "A meta-
reality with no laws permits the existence of any structure that canexist." I think you imply here that only *some* things can exist.
[SPK]
I think every structure not ruled out by its definition could be said to exist. Examples of things that do not exist would include, a third integer factor of 7, A triangle in Euclidean space whose internal angles do not add to 180 degrees, etc.
Yes and their non-existence follows from their violation of the rules/definitions. This cements the relationship between definition and implied entities that I mentioned previously.
So do you think all consistent structures in all consistent sets of axioms exist? Or do we need a human being to write down the axioms on a piece of paper and write some proofs first?
snip
I think that all possible self-consistent sets of axioms exist and the structures that they represent but must be physically implementable to be known by us.
[Jason]
I agree with this. Not all sets of consistent axioms or the structures they allow can be known to us, since some systems of axioms may include more axioms than there are particles in the observable universe. There would be no way to implement it to learn anything about them, just as our material limitations prevent us from learning the 10^100th digit of Pi.
I agree with this. Not all sets of consistent axioms or the structures they allow can be known to us, since some systems of axioms may include more axioms than there are particles in the observable universe. There would be no way to implement it to learn anything about them, just as our material limitations prevent us from learning the 10^100th digit of Pi.
Jason
Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 9:24:02 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 3:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist.
Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it is not!
My point is that existence is independent of our implementing or discovering such properties. Mandelbrot didn't have to discover the definition of the Mandelbrot set for the set to have the properties it has. He only had to discover it for us to learn about some of its properties. If there is another Mathematical object, and one of its properties is that it contains self-reproducing patterns which behave intelligently and form civilizations, we need not find such objects nor simulate them for those intelligent agents to be.
[SPK]
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
The properties are onknown to us, or to you. Doesn't mean it is unknown to everyone. We know that if we look at a spot we have never looked at before we will see something. Each time we conduct this "experiment" we affirm that it existed, even though we had no confirmation by previously looking at it. Why should we ever assume it's existence as a complete and coherent structure is unknown?
[SPK]
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then whatThe universe always has/is/results from awareness.
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Then you get into a bootstrap problem. How did the first aware creation come to be if there was not already some structure with a previous history during which that creature evolved? Your idea suggests the universe and its 5 billion history were created when the first life form opened its eyes.
A bootstrap problem can only occur if there is a boundary that cannot be overstepped or crossed by some means.
Yes, like evolving a conscious brain without having had an environment or history of evolution.
Why is it assumed that there had to be a structure with no prior history that somehow just appears and all else proceeds from it? We chastise silly creationists for making the same claim!
Who is assuming this?
Existence is eternal,
Yes.
just because we observe a finite universe does not mean that the total universe is not infinite or that that finite observed universe is the totality of existence.
Yes.
It could be just the simple fact that a finite system (within an infinite Totality) with finite physical resources can only resolve a finite universe (which is just a finite subset of the Totality. Not too complicated at all.
Yes.
There is no need to concoct weird explanations such as Singularities and Inflatons and Dark Energy, just use some observation, logic and a liberal dose of Occam's razor.
Okay.
[SPK]
This idea is not unlike Wheeler's participatory universe, which I think has some merit. With Wheeler's idea, however, both awareness and the universe feed on each other and affect each other. With your idea it sounds like you think awareness drives everything. How do you explain the physical laws (the fact that there are laws at all) if sense and awareness are all that are required?
You might not have noticed that Craig's thesis is symmetric with respect to "sense" and "thing". He calls them the Omni and the Acme, if I recall correctly.
Sounds like the pre-established harmony of Leibniz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-established_harmony
Which explains very little, besides "Well that's how God decided it should be"
[SPK]
>Our neurology.
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology is contingent on the universe. What I was asking is if we need to define everything in order that it exist, how can we explain our own existence? Obviously things can exist independently of our mathematical definitions or discoveries. Our universe being a case in point.
We are aware of only a tiny sliver of what exists.
I agree.
Naive realism is a form of hysterical blindness, IMHO.
Idealism, in contrast to realism, says what we are blind of does not exist.
This notion that somehow the existence of an entity is linked to its properties is worse than fallacious. It is dumb.
An object might have two mutually incompatible properties, which implies it cannot exist anywhere.
A glider could be seen seen in a similar way to a photon. There could be a system which can register the impact of a glider and convey and process this information, just like a cone cell in the retina can. In previous posts I showed how Turing machines have already been implemented in GoL, so it is possible to have thinking feeling beings in the GoL if you accept mechanism.
The game merely states somethign like "if your neighboring cell is empty do change to x state".
At the lowest level of physics, there might be a similarly simple set of rules.
See:
http://htwins.net/scale/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_theory
There is no photon there as this 'neighborhood state detection system depends on a global synchronization of the cell detections and transitions,
Our physics is also local. (With Everett)
thus there is no signal delay nor permittivity and permeability functions involved.
There is a signal delay: information can only move one cell at a time. Similarly photons can only move one Plank length in one Plank time.
One would have to radically alter the rules of the GoL to make photon facsimiles appear.
A Turing machine in the game of life could produce any simulated environment.
http://rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm
Jason
Stephen P. King
Sep 21, 2011, 10:11:14 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 9:24 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 3:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist.
Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it is not!
My point is that existence is independent of our implementing or discovering such properties. Mandelbrot didn't have to discover the definition of the Mandelbrot set for the set to have the properties it has. He only had to discover it for us to learn about some of its properties. If there is another Mathematical object, and one of its properties is that it contains self-reproducing patterns which behave intelligently and form civilizations, we need not find such objects nor simulate them for those intelligent agents to be.
[SPK]
And my point is that the *properties* cannot be said to be definite absent specification by equation, rule or equivalent. Existence is not contingent. Period.
And my point is that the *properties* cannot be said to be definite absent specification by equation, rule or equivalent. Existence is not contingent. Period.
[SPK]
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
The properties are onknown to us, or to you. Doesn't mean it is unknown to everyone. We know that if we look at a spot we have never looked at before we will see something. Each time we conduct this "experiment" we affirm that it existed, even though we had no confirmation by previously looking at it. Why should we ever assume it's existence as a complete and coherent structure is unknown?
[SPK]
No, experiments reveal properties, not existence. Again, existence is not contingent on observation or measurement or anything at all. Thus the entire question of "does it exist" is a red herring.
No, experiments reveal properties, not existence. Again, existence is not contingent on observation or measurement or anything at all. Thus the entire question of "does it exist" is a red herring.
[SPK]
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then whatThe universe always has/is/results from awareness.
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Then you get into a bootstrap problem. How did the first aware creation come to be if there was not already some structure with a previous history during which that creature evolved? Your idea suggests the universe and its 5 billion history were created when the first life form opened its eyes.
A bootstrap problem can only occur if there is a boundary that cannot be overstepped or crossed by some means.
Yes, like evolving a conscious brain without having had an environment or history of evolution.
[SPK]
Obviously that cannot happen so why bring it up?
Obviously that cannot happen so why bring it up?
Why is it assumed that there had to be a structure with no prior history that somehow just appears and all else proceeds from it? We chastise silly creationists for making the same claim!
Who is assuming this?
Existence is eternal,
Yes.
just because we observe a finite universe does not mean that the total universe is not infinite or that that finite observed universe is the totality of existence.
Yes.
It could be just the simple fact that a finite system (within an infinite Totality) with finite physical resources can only resolve a finite universe (which is just a finite subset of the Totality. Not too complicated at all.
Yes.
There is no need to concoct weird explanations such as Singularities and Inflatons and Dark Energy, just use some observation, logic and a liberal dose of Occam's razor.
Okay.
[SPK]
This idea is not unlike Wheeler's participatory universe, which I think has some merit. With Wheeler's idea, however, both awareness and the universe feed on each other and affect each other. With your idea it sounds like you think awareness drives everything. How do you explain the physical laws (the fact that there are laws at all) if sense and awareness are all that are required?
You might not have noticed that Craig's thesis is symmetric with respect to "sense" and "thing". He calls them the Omni and the Acme, if I recall correctly.
Sounds like the pre-established harmony of Leibniz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-established_harmony
Which explains very little, besides "Well that's how God decided it should be"
[SPK]
/smile. I recall pointing that out to Craig in a phone chat I had some time ago, but you are completely missing Craig's thesis.
/smile. I recall pointing that out to Craig in a phone chat I had some time ago, but you are completely missing Craig's thesis.
[SPK]
>Our neurology.
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology is contingent on the universe. What I was asking is if we need to define everything in order that it exist, how can we explain our own existence? Obviously things can exist independently of our mathematical definitions or discoveries. Our universe being a case in point.
We are aware of only a tiny sliver of what exists.
I agree.
Naive realism is a form of hysterical blindness, IMHO.
Idealism, in contrast to realism, says what we are blind of does not exist.
This notion that somehow the existence of an entity is linked to its properties is worse than fallacious. It is dumb.
An object might have two mutually incompatible properties, which implies it cannot exist anywhere.
[SPK]
So if it cannot exist, because it is self-contradictory how can it haev any properties at all? Existence is prior to properties.
So if it cannot exist, because it is self-contradictory how can it haev any properties at all? Existence is prior to properties.
--{SPK]
Y
I look forward to shaking hands with these folks. When will the GoL creatures attempt communication with us?
Onward!
Stephen
Jason Resch
Sep 21, 2011, 11:00:04 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 9:24 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 3:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist.
Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it is not!
My point is that existence is independent of our implementing or discovering such properties. Mandelbrot didn't have to discover the definition of the Mandelbrot set for the set to have the properties it has. He only had to discover it for us to learn about some of its properties. If there is another Mathematical object, and one of its properties is that it contains self-reproducing patterns which behave intelligently and form civilizations, we need not find such objects nor simulate them for those intelligent agents to be.
And my point is that the *properties* cannot be said to be definite absent specification by equation, rule or equivalent. Existence is not contingent. Period.
I agree existence is not contingent. But I go further and say the properties of those extant things is not contingent either.
[SPK][SPK]
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
The properties are onknown to us, or to you. Doesn't mean it is unknown to everyone. We know that if we look at a spot we have never looked at before we will see something. Each time we conduct this "experiment" we affirm that it existed, even though we had no confirmation by previously looking at it. Why should we ever assume it's existence as a complete and coherent structure is unknown?
No, experiments reveal properties, not existence. Again, existence is not contingent on observation or measurement or anything at all.
This is what I have been saying!
Thus the entire question of "does it exist" is a red herring.
There are many people, even on this list, who would say most possible worlds do nit exist. So there isca reason to affirm the existence of things we cannot see or define, for we cannot see nor define everything.
[SPK][SPK]
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then whatThe universe always has/is/results from awareness.
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Then you get into a bootstrap problem. How did the first aware creation come to be if there was not already some structure with a previous history during which that creature evolved? Your idea suggests the universe and its 5 billion history were created when the first life form opened its eyes.
A bootstrap problem can only occur if there is a boundary that cannot be overstepped or crossed by some means.
Yes, like evolving a conscious brain without having had an environment or history of evolution.
Obviously that cannot happen so why bring it up?
Craig brought it up. (see above) "this unuverse results from awareness"
[SPK]
Why is it assumed that there had to be a structure with no prior history that somehow just appears and all else proceeds from it? We chastise silly creationists for making the same claim!
Who is assuming this?
Existence is eternal,
Yes.
just because we observe a finite universe does not mean that the total universe is not infinite or that that finite observed universe is the totality of existence.
Yes.
It could be just the simple fact that a finite system (within an infinite Totality) with finite physical resources can only resolve a finite universe (which is just a finite subset of the Totality. Not too complicated at all.
Yes.
There is no need to concoct weird explanations such as Singularities and Inflatons and Dark Energy, just use some observation, logic and a liberal dose of Occam's razor.
Okay.
[SPK]
This idea is not unlike Wheeler's participatory universe, which I think has some merit. With Wheeler's idea, however, both awareness and the universe feed on each other and affect each other. With your idea it sounds like you think awareness drives everything. How do you explain the physical laws (the fact that there are laws at all) if sense and awareness are all that are required?
You might not have noticed that Craig's thesis is symmetric with respect to "sense" and "thing". He calls them the Omni and the Acme, if I recall correctly.
Sounds like the pre-established harmony of Leibniz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-established_harmony
Which explains very little, besides "Well that's how God decided it should be"
/smile. I recall pointing that out to Craig in a phone chat I had some time ago, but you are completely missing Craig's thesis.
Perhaps it would help me and others on this list to understand it if you provided us with your understanding of his thesis.
[SPK][SPK]
>Our neurology.
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology is contingent on the universe. What I was asking is if we need to define everything in order that it exist, how can we explain our own existence? Obviously things can exist independently of our mathematical definitions or discoveries. Our universe being a case in point.
We are aware of only a tiny sliver of what exists.
I agree.
Naive realism is a form of hysterical blindness, IMHO.
Idealism, in contrast to realism, says what we are blind of does not exist.
This notion that somehow the existence of an entity is linked to its properties is worse than fallacious. It is dumb.
An object might have two mutually incompatible properties, which implies it cannot exist anywhere.
So if it cannot exist, because it is self-contradictory how can it haev any properties at all?
I should have said nothing exists having self contradictory properties.
Existence is prior to properties.
You're right.
When we decide to explore their world through simulation and then either abduct one of them into our world, or we inject ourselves into their universe. Greg egan explored this in "permutation city".
Jason
Onward!
Stephen
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ith these folks. When will the GoL creatures attempt communication with us?
Onward!
Stephen
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t?hl=en.
Stephen P. King
Sep 21, 2011, 11:40:21 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 11:00 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On 9/21/2011 9:24 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 3:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist.
Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it is not!
My point is that existence is independent of our implementing or discovering such properties. Mandelbrot didn't have to discover the definition of the Mandelbrot set for the set to have the properties it has. He only had to discover it for us to learn about some of its properties. If there is another Mathematical object, and one of its properties is that it contains self-reproducing patterns which behave intelligently and form civilizations, we need not find such objects nor simulate them for those intelligent agents to be.
And my point is that the *properties* cannot be said to be definite absent specification by equation, rule or equivalent. Existence is not contingent. Period.
I agree existence is not contingent. But I go further and say the properties of those extant things is not contingent either.
[SPK]
Could you please explain to us how that claim is consistent with the mutual non-commutativity of canonical conjugate variables (aka properties) in QM?
AFAIK, a wave function or state vector, absent the specification of a measurement basis must be considered to be in a state where all of its observable properties are in a state of linear superposition, this they are 'indefinite" and thus it follow that they are indeed contingent on the specification of a basis. Where am I going wrong?
Could you please explain to us how that claim is consistent with the mutual non-commutativity of canonical conjugate variables (aka properties) in QM?
AFAIK, a wave function or state vector, absent the specification of a measurement basis must be considered to be in a state where all of its observable properties are in a state of linear superposition, this they are 'indefinite" and thus it follow that they are indeed contingent on the specification of a basis. Where am I going wrong?
[SPK][SPK]
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
The properties are onknown to us, or to you. Doesn't mean it is unknown to everyone. We know that if we look at a spot we have never looked at before we will see something. Each time we conduct this "experiment" we affirm that it existed, even though we had no confirmation by previously looking at it. Why should we ever assume it's existence as a complete and coherent structure is unknown?
No, experiments reveal properties, not existence. Again, existence is not contingent on observation or measurement or anything at all.
This is what I have been saying!
[SPK]
My apologies for misunderstanding your claim.
My apologies for misunderstanding your claim.
Thus the entire question of "does it exist" is a red herring.
There are many people, even on this list, who would say most possible worlds do not exist. So there is a reason to affirm the existence of things we cannot see or define, for we cannot see nor define everything.
[SPK]
So, what difference does their belief make to whether something exists or not? This would be a nice example of a Bp&~p.
[SPK][SPK]
> If we have to define something for it to exist, then whatThe universe always has/is/results from awareness.
> was this universe before there were conscious beings in it?
Then you get into a bootstrap problem. How did the first aware creation come to be if there was not already some structure with a previous history during which that creature evolved? Your idea suggests the universe and its 5 billion history were created when the first life form opened its eyes.
A bootstrap problem can only occur if there is a boundary that cannot be overstepped or crossed by some means.
Yes, like evolving a conscious brain without having had an environment or history of evolution.
Obviously that cannot happen so why bring it up?
Craig brought it up. (see above) "this unuverse results from awareness"
[SPK]
OK.
OK.
[SPK]
Why is it assumed that there had to be a structure with no prior history that somehow just appears and all else proceeds from it? We chastise silly creationists for making the same claim!
Who is assuming this?
Existence is eternal,
Yes.
just because we observe a finite universe does not mean that the total universe is not infinite or that that finite observed universe is the totality of existence.
Yes.
It could be just the simple fact that a finite system (within an infinite Totality) with finite physical resources can only resolve a finite universe (which is just a finite subset of the Totality. Not too complicated at all.
Yes.
There is no need to concoct weird explanations such as Singularities and Inflatons and Dark Energy, just use some observation, logic and a liberal dose of Occam's razor.
Okay.
[SPK]
This idea is not unlike Wheeler's participatory universe, which I think has some merit. With Wheeler's idea, however, both awareness and the universe feed on each other and affect each other. With your idea it sounds like you think awareness drives everything. How do you explain the physical laws (the fact that there are laws at all) if sense and awareness are all that are required?
You might not have noticed that Craig's thesis is symmetric with respect to "sense" and "thing". He calls them the Omni and the Acme, if I recall correctly.
Sounds like the pre-established harmony of Leibniz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-established_harmony
Which explains very little, besides "Well that's how God decided it should be"
/smile. I recall pointing that out to Craig in a phone chat I had some time ago, but you are completely missing Craig's thesis.
Perhaps it would help me and others on this list to understand it if you provided us with your understanding of his thesis.
[SPK]
It is not muy job to explain Craig's thesis to you. That is his job. I got claims of my own to defend and correct if mistaken.
It is not muy job to explain Craig's thesis to you. That is his job. I got claims of my own to defend and correct if mistaken.
[SPK][SPK]
>Our neurology.
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology is contingent on the universe. What I was asking is if we need to define everything in order that it exist, how can we explain our own existence? Obviously things can exist independently of our mathematical definitions or discoveries. Our universe being a case in point.
We are aware of only a tiny sliver of what exists.
I agree.
Naive realism is a form of hysterical blindness, IMHO.
Idealism, in contrast to realism, says what we are blind of does not exist.
This notion that somehow the existence of an entity is linked to its properties is worse than fallacious. It is dumb.
An object might have two mutually incompatible properties, which implies it cannot exist anywhere.
So if it cannot exist, because it is self-contradictory how can it have any properties at all?
I should have said nothing exists having self contradictory properties.
[SPK]
OK.
OK.
Existence is prior to properties.
You're right.
[SPK]
I try hard...
I try hard...
[SPK]
I really enjoy Greg Egan's work. His novel Distress was particularly interesting as it has a character that advocated a thesis very similar to mine.
Enjoy:
pg.105- 111
"The concept of ATMs was simple enough to state: the universe was considered to posses, at the deepest level, a mixture of every possible topology.
Even in the oldest quantum theories of gravity, the 'vacuum' of empty space-time had been viewed as a seething mass of virtual wormholes, and other more exotic topological distortions, popping in and out of existence. The smooth appearance at macroscopic lengths and human timescales was just the visible average of a hidden riot of complexity.
In a way, it was like ordinary matter: a sheet of flexible plastic betrayed nothing to the naked eye of its microstructure - molecules, atoms, electrons, and quarks - but knowledge of those constituents allowed the bulk substance's physical properties to be computed: its modulus of elasticity, for example. Space-time wasn't made up of atoms, but its properties could be understood by viewing it as being 'built' from a hierarchy of ever more convoluted deviations from its apparent state of continuity and mild curvature. Quantum gravity had explained why observable space-time, underpinned by an infinite number of invisible knots and detours, behaved as it did in the presence of mass (or energy): curving in exactly the fashion required to produce the gravitational force.
ATM theorists were striving to generalize this result: to explain the (relatively) smooth ten-dimensional "total space" of the Standard Unified Field Theory - whose properties accounted for $all four forces$: strong, weak, gravitational, and electromagnetic - as the net result of an infinite number of elaborate geometrical structures.
Nine spatial dimensions (six rolled up tight), and one time, was only what total space appeared to be if it wasn't examined too closely. Whenever two subatomic particles interacted, there was always a chance that the total space they occupied would behave, instead, like part of a twelve-dimensional hyperspace, or a thirteen-dimensional doughnut, or a fourteen-dimensional figure eight, or just about anything else. In fact - just as a single photon could travel along two different paths at one - any number of these possibilities could take effect simultaneously, and 'interfere with each other' to produce the final outcome. Nine space, one time, was nothing but an average.
There were two main questions still in dispute among ATM theorists:
What, exactly, was meant by 'all' topologies? Just how bizarre could the possibilities contributing to the average total space become? Did they have to be, merely, those which could be formed with a twisted, knotted sheet of higher dimensional plastic - or could they include states more like a (possible infinite) handful of scattered grains of sand - where notions like 'number of dimensions' and 'space-time' curvature ceased to exist altogether?
And: how, exactly, should the average effect of all these different structures be computed? How should the sum over the infinite number of possibilities br $written down and added up$ when the time came to test the theory: to make a prediction, and calculate some tangible, physical quantity which an experiment could actually measure?
On one level, the obvious answer to both questions was: 'Use whatever gives the right answers' - but choices which did that were hard to find ... and some of them smacked of contrivance. Infinite sums were notorious for being either intractable, or too pliable by far.
...to illustrate the point:
Let S = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - ...
Then S = (1 -1) + (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) ...
= 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 ...
= 0
But S = 1 + (-1 +1) + (-1 +1) + (-1 + 1)...
= 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 ...
= 1
It was a mathematically naive 'paradox'; the correct answer was, simply, that this particular infinite sequence didn't add up to any definite sum at all. Mathematicians would always be perfectly happy with such a verdict, and would know all the rules for avoiding the pitfalls - and software could assess even the most difficult cases. When a physicist's hard-won theory started generating similarly ambiguous equations, though, and the choice can down to strict mathematical rigor and a theory with no predictive power at all ... or, a bit of pragmatic side-stepping of the rules, and a theory which churned out beautiful results in perfect agreement with every experiment ... it was no surprise that people were tempted. After all, most of what Newton had done to calculate planetary orbits had left contemporary mathematicians apoplectic with rage.
...
The ultimate test of a TOE was to answer questions like: 'What is the probability of a ten-gigaelectronvolt neutrino fired at a stationary proton scattering off a down quark and emerging at a certain angle?' ... or even just: 'What is the mass of an electron?'[ Essentially, Mosala prefixed all such questions with the condition: 'Given that we $know$ that space-time is roughly four-dimensional, and total space is roughly ten-dimensional, and the apparatus used to perform the experiment consists, approximately of the following...'
Her supporters said she was merely setting everything in context. No experiment happened in isolation; quantum mechanics had been hammering that point home for the last hundred and twenty years. Asking a Theory of Everything to predict the chance of observing some microscopic event - without adding the proviso that 'there is a universe, and it contains, among other things, equipment for detecting the event in question' - would be as nonsensical as asking: 'If you pick a marble out of a bag, what are the odds that it will be green?'
Her critics said that she used circular reasoning, assuming from the very beginning all the results she was trying to prove. The details she fed into her computations included $so much$ about the known physics of the experimental apparatus that - indirectly, but inevitably - they gave the whole game away.
I was hardly qualified to come down on either side ... but it seemed to me that Mosala's opponents were being hypocritical, because they were pulling the same trick under a different guise: the alternatives they offered all invoked a cosmological fix. They declared that 'before' the Big Bang and the creating of time (or 'adjoining' the event, to avoid the oxymoron), there had been nothing but a perfectly symmetrical 'pre-space', in which all topologies carried equal weight ... and the 'averaged result' of most familiar physical quantities would have to be infinite. Pre-space was sometimes called 'infinitely hot'; it could be thought of as the kind of perfectly balanced chaos which space-time would become if so much energy was poured into it that literally everything became equally possible. Everything and its opposite, the net effect was that nothing happened at all.
But some local fluctuation had disturbed the balance in such a way as to give rise to the Big Bang. From that tiny accident, our universe had burst into existence. Once that happened, the original 'infinitely hot', infinitely even handed mixture of topologies had been forced to become ever more biased, because 'temperature' and 'energy' how had a meaning - and in an expanding, cooling universe, most of the 'hot' old symmetries would have been as unstable as molten metal thrown into a lake. And when they'd cooled, the shapes into which they'd frozen had just happened to favor topologies close to a certain ten-dimensional total space - one which gave rise to particles like quarks and electrons, and forces like gravity and electromagnetism.
By this logic, the only correct way to sum over all the topologies was to incorporate the fact that our universe had -by chance- emerged from pre-space in a certain way. Details of the broken symmetry had to be fed into the equations 'by hand' - because there were no reason why they couldn't have been utterly different. And if the physics resulting from this accident seemed improbably conducive to the formation of stars, planets, and life ... then this universe was just one of a vast number which had frozen out of pre-space, each with a different set of particles and forces. If every possible set had been tried, it has hardly surprising that at least one of them turned out to be favorable to life.
It was the old anthropic principle, the fudge which had saved a thousand cosmologies. And I had no real argument with it even if all the other universes were destined to be forever hypothetical.
But Violet Mosala's methods seemed neither more nor less circular. Her opponents had to 'fine tune' a few parameters in their equations, to take into account of the particular universe 'our' Big Bang had created. Mosala and her supporters merely described real experiments in the real world so thoroughly that they 'showed the equations' the very same thing.
It seemed to me that both groups of physicists were confessing, however reluctantly, that they couldn't quite explain how the universe was built ... without mentioning the fact that they were there inside it, looking for the explanation."
Pg. 196
"The way I saw it, every theory and its logical consequences - every set of general laws, and the specific possibilities they dictated - formed an indivisible whole. Newton's universal laws of motion and gravity, Kepler's idealized elliptical orbits, and any number of particular (pre-Einsteinian) models of the solar system, were all part of the same fabric of ideas, the same tightly knit layer of reasoning. None of which had turned out to be entirely correct, so the whole layer of Newtonian cosmology had been peeled away (fingernails slipped under the unraveling corner where velocities approached the speed of light) in search of something deeper ... and the same thing had happened half a dozen times since. The trick was to know precisely what constituted each layer, to prise away each interlinked set of falsified ideas and failed predictions, no more and no less ... until a layer was reached which was seamless, self-consistent - and which fit every available observation of the real world."
Pg. 197-199
"Much of the lecture was simply beyond me. I covered every word, every graphic, scrupulously, but my thoughts wandered to the question of how I could paraphrase the message without the technicalities. With an interactive dialogue, maybe?
$Pick a number between ten and a thousand. Don't tell me what it is.
[thinks ... 575]
Add the digits together.
[17]
Add them again.
[8]
Add 3.
[11]
Subtract this from the original number.
[564]
Add the digits together.
[15]
Find the remainder left when you divide by nine.
[6]
Square it.
[36]
Add 6.
[42]
The number in your head is ... 42!
[Yes!]
Now try it once again...$
The end result, of course was guaranteed to be the same every time; all the elaborate steps of this cheap party trick were just a long-winded way of saying that X minus X would always equal zero.
Wu was suggesting that Mosala's whole approach to building a TOE amounted to much the same thing: all the mathematics simply cancelled itself out. On a grander scale, and in a far less obvious manner - but in the end, a tautology was still a tautology.
...
And $that$ was the extraordianry thing, for me: that such a rich and complex restatement of 'X minus X equals zero' was possible. It was as if an elaborately twisted length of rope, weaving in and out of its own detours a few hundred thousand times, had turned out not to be $knotted$ at all, but just a simple loop - ornately arragenged, but ultimately able to be completely untangled. Maybe that would make a better metaphor - and in the interactive, viewers with force gloves could reach in and prove for themselves that the 'knot' $was$ just a loop in disguise ...
You couldn't grab hold of a couple of Mosala's tensor equations and simply tug, though, to find out how they were joined. You had to unpick the false knot in your mind's eye (with the help from software - but it couldn't do everything). Subtle mistakes were always possible. The details were everything."
Pg.207 - 213
"Conroy continued, 'Wheeler was a great advocate of the idea of a participatory universe: a universe shaped by the inhabitants who observe and explain it. He had a favorite metaphor for this concept ... do you know the old game of twenty questions? One person thinks of an object, and the other keeps asking yes-or-no questions, to try to find out what it is.
'There's another way to play the game, though. You don't choose any object at all, to start with. You just answer the questions 'yes' or 'no', more or less at random - but constrained by the need to be consistent with what you've already said. If you've said that 'it' is blue all over, you can't change your mind latter and say that it's red ... even though you still have no precise idea what 'it' really is. But as more and more questions are asked, what 'it' might be becomes narrower and narrower.
'Wheeler suggested that $the universe itself$ behaved like that undefined object - only coming into being as something specific through a similar process of interrogation. We make observations, we carry out experiments - we ask questions about 'it.' We get back answers - some of them more or less random - but they're never absolute contradictions. And the more questions we ask ... the more precisely the universe takes shape.'
I said, 'You mean like ... making measurements on microscopic objects? Some properties of subatomic particles don't exist until they've been measured - and the measurement you get has a random component - but if you measure the same thing a second time, you get the same result. This was old, old ground, well-established and uncontroversial. 'Surely that's the kind of thing Wheeler would have meant?'
...
'Quantum measurement is about individual, microscopic events which do or don't happen - at random, but according to probabilities determined by a set of $pre-existing laws$. About ... individual heads and tails, not the shape of the coin, or the overall odds when it's thrown repeatedly. It's easy enough to see that a coin is neither 'heads' nor 'tails' while it's still up in the air, spinning - but what if it's not even $any particular coin?$ What if therereally are no pre-existing laws governing the system you're about to measure ... any more than there $are$ pre-existing answers to any of those measurements?'
...
Conroy smiled at my edginess - and continued in the language of science. 'What happened, historically, was that physics merged with $information theory$. Or at least, a lot of people explored the union, for a while. They tried to discover whether it made sense to talk about building, not just a space-time of individual microscopic events, but all of the underlying quantum mechanics, and all of the various - then, non-unified - field equations ... out of a stream of yes-and-no answers. Reality from information, from an accumulation of knowledge. As Wheeler put it, 'an it from bit.'
...
'Go back to the old Wheeler model of the universe. Laws of physics emerge from patterns - consistencies - in random data. But if an event doesn't take place unless it's observed ... then a law doesn't exist before it's understood. But that begs the question, doesn't it: $understood by whom?$ Who decides what 'consistent' means? Who decides what form a 'law' can take - or what constitutes an 'explanation'?
If the universe instantly succumbed to any human explanation whatsoever ... we'd be living in a world where Stone Age cosmology was literally true. Or .. it would be like the old satires of the afterlife - a separate heaven for every conflicting faith - even before we died. But the world just isn't like that. However much people disagree, we still find ourselves together, arguing about the nature of reality. We don't float off into individual universes where our own private explanations are ultimate truth.
...
I said, 'Doesn't that suggest to you that the universe might not be participatory, after all? That the laws might be fixed principles, independent of the people that understand them?'
'No.' Connroy smiled gently, as if this suggestion struck her as quaintly naïve. 'Everything in relativity and quantum mechanics cries out against any absolute backdrop: absolute time, absolute history .. absolute laws. But I think that it does suggest that the whole idea of $participation$ needs to be formulated rigorously in the mathematics of information theory, and different possibilities analyzed with great care.'
It was hard to argue with that. 'TO what end, though? If you're not competing for the discovery of a successful TOE ...?
'The point is to understand the means by which TOE science can give rise to an active TOE. How knowledge of the equations can fix the reality they describe firmly in place - so firmly that we can't even hope to see behind them, to glimpse the process which holds them there.'
I laughed, 'IF you admit that we can't hope to do that, you've crossed right over to metaphysics.'
Conroy was unfazed. 'Certainly. But we believe that it can still be done in the spirit pf science: applying logic, using the appropriate mathematical tools. ... the old information-theoretic approach, revived as something external to physics. It may not be needed to discover the TOE itself - but I believe it can make sense of the fact that there is a TOE at all.'
...
'$How, exactly?$ Which of these possibilities yoe've 'analyzed with great care' can give a theory any kind of power which wasn't already there in nature?'
Conroy said, 'Imagine this cosmology: Forget about starting the universe with just the right finely-tuned Big Bang needed to create stars, planets, intelligent life ... and a culture capable of making sense of it all. Instead, take as your 'starting point' the fact that there's a living human being who can explain an entire universe, in terms of a single theory. Turn everything around, and $take is as the only thing given$ that this one person exists.'
I said irritably, 'How can it be $the only thing?$ You can't have a living human being ... and nothing else. And if it's $given$ that this person can explain the universe, then there has to be a universe to $explain$.'
'Exactly.'
...
'For this person, the universe 'grows out' of the power to explain it: out in all directions, and forward and backwards in time. Instead of being blasted out of pre-space - instead of being 'caused' inexplicably at the beginning of time - it crystallizes quietly around a single human being.
That's why the universe obeys $a single law$ - a Theory of Everything. It's all explained by a single person. We can this person the Keystone [Philosopher's Stone!] Everyone, and everything, exists because the Keystone exists. The Big Bang model of cosmology can lead to anything at all: a universe of cold dust, a universe of black holes, a universe of dead planets. But the Keystone needs everything which the universe actually contains - stars, planets, life - in order to explain vis own existence. And not only needs them: the Keystone can $account for$ all of them, make sense of all of them, with out gaps, without flaws, without contradictions.
That's why it's possible for billions of people to be $wrong$. That's why we're not living with Stone Age cosmology or Newtonian physics. Most explanations just aren't powerful, rich or coherent enough to bring a whole universe into being - and to explain a mind capable of holding such an explanation.'
...
She continued. 'We can't watch the universe emerge, we're part of it, we're trapped inside the space-time created by the act of explanation. All we can hope to witness, in the progression of time, is one person become the first to hold the TOE in vis mind, and grasp its consequences, and - invisibly, imperceptibly - $understands us all into being.$'
She laughed suddenly, breaking the spell. 'It's only a theory. The mathematics behind it make perfect sense - but the reality is untestable, by its very nature. So of course, we could be wrong.'"
Pg. 215
"...it seemed a sufficiently tall order to have to grow your own universe to wrap yourself in: your own ancestors (needed to explain your existence), your own billions of human cousins (an unavoidable logical consequence - as would be more distant relatives, animals and plant), your own world to stand on, sun to orbit - and other planets, suns, and galaxies, not obviously essential for survival .. but possibly allowing a relatively simple TOE (which could fit in one mind) to be traded for a trickier version that was more economical with cosmic real estate. Explaining all that into existence would be hard enough; you wouldn't want to be obliged to $create the power to create it$, as well - to have to explain into being ...[the notion] which allowed you to explain things into being.
A wise separation of powers. Leave the metaphysics to someone else."
Pg. 226 - 231
"...'I'm not looking for a way to make 'our' Big Bang seem less of a 'coincidence'. [Others] ... take the view that an infinite number of universes must have arisen out of pre-space - freezing out of that perfect symmetry with different sets of physical laws. And they ... aim to re-evaluate the probability of a universe 'more-or-less like our own' being included in that infinite set. It's relatively easy to find a TOE in which our universe is possible, but freakishly unlikely. [Others] ... define a successful TOE as one that guarantees that there are so many universes similar to our own that we're not unlikely after all - that we're not some kind of miraculous, perfect bull's-eye on a meta-cosmic dartboard, but just one unexceptional point on a much larger target.'
I said, 'A bit like proving - from basic astrophysical principles - that thousands of planets in the galaxy should have carbon-and-water-based life, and not just Earth.'
'Yes and no. Because ... yes, the probability of other Earth-like planets can be computed from theory, alone - but it can also be validated by observation. We can $observe$ billions of stars, we've already deduced the existence of a few thousand extrasolar planets - and eventually, we'll visit some of them, and $find$ other carbon-and-water-based life. But although there are no end of elegant frameworks for assigning probabilities to hypothetical $other universes$ ... there is no prospect pf observing or visiting them. So I don't believe we $should$ choose a TOE on that basis.
The whole point of moving beyond the Standard Unified Field Theory is that, one, it's an ugly mess, and two, you have to feed ten completely arbitrary parameters into the equations to make them work. Melting total space into pre-space - moving to an All-Topologies-Model - gets rid of the ugliness and the arbitrary nature of the SUFT. But following that step by tinkering with the way you integrate across all the toplogies of pre-space - excluding certain topologies for no good reason, throwing out one measure and adopting a new one whenever you don't like the answers you're getting - seems like a retrograde step to me. And instead of 'seting the dials' of the SUFT machine to ten arbitrary parameters, you now have a sleek black box with no visible controls, apparently self-contained - but in reality, you're just opening it up and tearing out every internal component which offends you, to much the same effect.'
'Okay, So how do you get around that?'
Mosala said, 'I believe we have to take a difficult stand and declare: the probabilities just don't matter. Forget the hypothetical ensemble of other universes. Forget the need to fine-tune the Big Bang. This universe does exist. The probability of our being here is $one hundred percent$. WE have to take that as given, instead of bending over backward trying to contrive assumptions which do their best to conceal the fact of that certainty.'
...
I said, 'So you take the universe for granted. You're against twisting the mathematics to conform to a perceived need to prove that what we see around us is 'likely.' But you don't exactly go back to setting the dials of the SUFT machine, either.'
'No. I feed in complete descriptions of experiments, instead.'
'You choose the most general All-Topologies Model possible - but you break the perfect symmetry by giving a one hundred percent probability to the existence of various experimental apparatus?'
'Yes, ... here's one example. It's a simple accelerator experiment: a beam of protons and antiprotons collide at a certain energy, and a detector is used to pick up any positrons emitted from the point of collision at a certain angle, with a certain range of energies. ...'
'Now, I don't even try to model this entire setup - a piece of apparatus ten kilometers wide - on a subatomic level, atom by atom, as if I needed to start with a kind of blank, 'naïve' TOE which would somehow succeed in telling me that all the superconducting magnets would produce certain fields with certain measurable effects, and the walls of the tunnel would deform in certain ways due top the stresses imposed on them, and the protons and antiprotons would circle in opposite directions. I $already know$ all these things. SO I assign them a probability of one hundred percent. I take these established facts as a kind of $anchor$ ... and then reach down to the TOE, down to the level of infinite sums over all topologies. I calculate what the consequences of my assumptions are ... and then follow them all the way back up again to the macroscopic level, to predict the ultimate results of the experiment: how many times a second will the positron detector register an event.'
...
I said tentatively, 'So instead of thinking of pre-space as something from which the whole universe can derived in one stroke ... you see it more as a link between the kind of events we can observe with our raw senses. Something which ... glues together the particular set of macroscopic things we find in the world. A star full of fusing hydrogen, and a human eye full of cold protein molecules, are bridged across distances and energies ... are able to co-exist, and affect each other ... because at the deepest level, they both break the symmetry of pre-space in the same way.
Mosala seemed please with this description. 'A link, a bridge. Exactly.'
...
She said, 'Without pre-space to mediate between us - without an infinite mixture of topologies able to represent us all with a single flicker of asymmetry - nobody could even $touch$."
Pg. 233 - 235
"Ask yourself: If [others] ... can come up with a TOE in which the whole universe is more or less implicit in a detailed description of the Big Bang - details implicit in a deduced, $right here and now$, from observations of helium abundance, galactic clustering, the cosmic background radiation, and so on - no one accuses $them$ oof circular logic. Feeding in the results of any number of 'telescope experiments' is fine, apparently. So why is it any more 'circular' to have a TOE in which the universe is implicit in the details of ten contemporary particle physics experiments?'
I said, 'Okay. But isn't Helen Wu saying that your equations have no $physical content$ at all? I mean, no amount of pure mathematics could ever produce Newton's law of gravity - because there's no purely mathematical reason why the inverse square law couldn't be replaced by something different. The whole basis for it lies in the way the universe happens to work. Isn't Wu trying to show that your TOE doesn't rely on $anything$ out there in the world - that it collapses into a lot of statements about numbers, which simply have to be true?'
Mosala replied, frustrated, 'Yes! But even if she's right ... when those 'statements that have to be true' are coupled with real, tangible experiments - which are $very much$ 'out there in the world' - the theory ceases to be pure mathematics ... in the same way that the pure symmetry of pre-space ceases top be symmetrical.
'Newton came up with the inverse square law by analyzing existing $astronomical observations.$ By treating the solar system in the way I treat a particle accelerator: saying, 'This much we know for a fact.' Later, the law was used to make predictions and those predictions turned out to be correct. Okay ... but where exactly does the $physical content$ reside, in that whole process? With the inverse-square law itself ... or with the observed motions of the planets, from which that equations were deduced in the first place? Because is you stop treating Newton's law as something given, standing outside the whole show as an eternal truth, and look at ... $the link, the bridge$ ... between all the different planets orbiting different stars, coexisting in the same universe, having to be consistent with each other ... what you're doing starts to become much more like pure mathematics.'
I thought I had an inkling of what she was suggesting. 'It's a bit like saying that ... the general principle that 'people from net clans with other people with whom they have something in common' has nothing to do with $what$ those common interests happen to be. Exactly the same process brings together ... fans of Jane Austen, or students of the genetics of wasps, or whatever.'
' Right. Jane Austen 'belongs' to all the people who read her - not to the sociological principle which suggests that they'll get together to discuss her books. And the law of gravity 'belongs' to all the systems which obey it - not to a TOE which predicts that they'll get together to form a universe.
'And maybe the Theory of Everything $should$ collapse into nothing but 'statements about numbers which have to be true.' Maybe pre-space itself has to melt into nothing but simple arithmetic, simple logic - leaving us with no choices to make about its structure at all.'"
Onward,
Stephen
I really enjoy Greg Egan's work. His novel Distress was particularly interesting as it has a character that advocated a thesis very similar to mine.
Enjoy:
pg.105- 111
"The concept of ATMs was simple enough to state: the universe was considered to posses, at the deepest level, a mixture of every possible topology.
Even in the oldest quantum theories of gravity, the 'vacuum' of empty space-time had been viewed as a seething mass of virtual wormholes, and other more exotic topological distortions, popping in and out of existence. The smooth appearance at macroscopic lengths and human timescales was just the visible average of a hidden riot of complexity.
In a way, it was like ordinary matter: a sheet of flexible plastic betrayed nothing to the naked eye of its microstructure - molecules, atoms, electrons, and quarks - but knowledge of those constituents allowed the bulk substance's physical properties to be computed: its modulus of elasticity, for example. Space-time wasn't made up of atoms, but its properties could be understood by viewing it as being 'built' from a hierarchy of ever more convoluted deviations from its apparent state of continuity and mild curvature. Quantum gravity had explained why observable space-time, underpinned by an infinite number of invisible knots and detours, behaved as it did in the presence of mass (or energy): curving in exactly the fashion required to produce the gravitational force.
ATM theorists were striving to generalize this result: to explain the (relatively) smooth ten-dimensional "total space" of the Standard Unified Field Theory - whose properties accounted for $all four forces$: strong, weak, gravitational, and electromagnetic - as the net result of an infinite number of elaborate geometrical structures.
Nine spatial dimensions (six rolled up tight), and one time, was only what total space appeared to be if it wasn't examined too closely. Whenever two subatomic particles interacted, there was always a chance that the total space they occupied would behave, instead, like part of a twelve-dimensional hyperspace, or a thirteen-dimensional doughnut, or a fourteen-dimensional figure eight, or just about anything else. In fact - just as a single photon could travel along two different paths at one - any number of these possibilities could take effect simultaneously, and 'interfere with each other' to produce the final outcome. Nine space, one time, was nothing but an average.
There were two main questions still in dispute among ATM theorists:
What, exactly, was meant by 'all' topologies? Just how bizarre could the possibilities contributing to the average total space become? Did they have to be, merely, those which could be formed with a twisted, knotted sheet of higher dimensional plastic - or could they include states more like a (possible infinite) handful of scattered grains of sand - where notions like 'number of dimensions' and 'space-time' curvature ceased to exist altogether?
And: how, exactly, should the average effect of all these different structures be computed? How should the sum over the infinite number of possibilities br $written down and added up$ when the time came to test the theory: to make a prediction, and calculate some tangible, physical quantity which an experiment could actually measure?
On one level, the obvious answer to both questions was: 'Use whatever gives the right answers' - but choices which did that were hard to find ... and some of them smacked of contrivance. Infinite sums were notorious for being either intractable, or too pliable by far.
...to illustrate the point:
Let S = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - ...
Then S = (1 -1) + (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) ...
= 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 ...
= 0
But S = 1 + (-1 +1) + (-1 +1) + (-1 + 1)...
= 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 ...
= 1
It was a mathematically naive 'paradox'; the correct answer was, simply, that this particular infinite sequence didn't add up to any definite sum at all. Mathematicians would always be perfectly happy with such a verdict, and would know all the rules for avoiding the pitfalls - and software could assess even the most difficult cases. When a physicist's hard-won theory started generating similarly ambiguous equations, though, and the choice can down to strict mathematical rigor and a theory with no predictive power at all ... or, a bit of pragmatic side-stepping of the rules, and a theory which churned out beautiful results in perfect agreement with every experiment ... it was no surprise that people were tempted. After all, most of what Newton had done to calculate planetary orbits had left contemporary mathematicians apoplectic with rage.
...
The ultimate test of a TOE was to answer questions like: 'What is the probability of a ten-gigaelectronvolt neutrino fired at a stationary proton scattering off a down quark and emerging at a certain angle?' ... or even just: 'What is the mass of an electron?'[ Essentially, Mosala prefixed all such questions with the condition: 'Given that we $know$ that space-time is roughly four-dimensional, and total space is roughly ten-dimensional, and the apparatus used to perform the experiment consists, approximately of the following...'
Her supporters said she was merely setting everything in context. No experiment happened in isolation; quantum mechanics had been hammering that point home for the last hundred and twenty years. Asking a Theory of Everything to predict the chance of observing some microscopic event - without adding the proviso that 'there is a universe, and it contains, among other things, equipment for detecting the event in question' - would be as nonsensical as asking: 'If you pick a marble out of a bag, what are the odds that it will be green?'
Her critics said that she used circular reasoning, assuming from the very beginning all the results she was trying to prove. The details she fed into her computations included $so much$ about the known physics of the experimental apparatus that - indirectly, but inevitably - they gave the whole game away.
I was hardly qualified to come down on either side ... but it seemed to me that Mosala's opponents were being hypocritical, because they were pulling the same trick under a different guise: the alternatives they offered all invoked a cosmological fix. They declared that 'before' the Big Bang and the creating of time (or 'adjoining' the event, to avoid the oxymoron), there had been nothing but a perfectly symmetrical 'pre-space', in which all topologies carried equal weight ... and the 'averaged result' of most familiar physical quantities would have to be infinite. Pre-space was sometimes called 'infinitely hot'; it could be thought of as the kind of perfectly balanced chaos which space-time would become if so much energy was poured into it that literally everything became equally possible. Everything and its opposite, the net effect was that nothing happened at all.
But some local fluctuation had disturbed the balance in such a way as to give rise to the Big Bang. From that tiny accident, our universe had burst into existence. Once that happened, the original 'infinitely hot', infinitely even handed mixture of topologies had been forced to become ever more biased, because 'temperature' and 'energy' how had a meaning - and in an expanding, cooling universe, most of the 'hot' old symmetries would have been as unstable as molten metal thrown into a lake. And when they'd cooled, the shapes into which they'd frozen had just happened to favor topologies close to a certain ten-dimensional total space - one which gave rise to particles like quarks and electrons, and forces like gravity and electromagnetism.
By this logic, the only correct way to sum over all the topologies was to incorporate the fact that our universe had -by chance- emerged from pre-space in a certain way. Details of the broken symmetry had to be fed into the equations 'by hand' - because there were no reason why they couldn't have been utterly different. And if the physics resulting from this accident seemed improbably conducive to the formation of stars, planets, and life ... then this universe was just one of a vast number which had frozen out of pre-space, each with a different set of particles and forces. If every possible set had been tried, it has hardly surprising that at least one of them turned out to be favorable to life.
It was the old anthropic principle, the fudge which had saved a thousand cosmologies. And I had no real argument with it even if all the other universes were destined to be forever hypothetical.
But Violet Mosala's methods seemed neither more nor less circular. Her opponents had to 'fine tune' a few parameters in their equations, to take into account of the particular universe 'our' Big Bang had created. Mosala and her supporters merely described real experiments in the real world so thoroughly that they 'showed the equations' the very same thing.
It seemed to me that both groups of physicists were confessing, however reluctantly, that they couldn't quite explain how the universe was built ... without mentioning the fact that they were there inside it, looking for the explanation."
Pg. 196
"The way I saw it, every theory and its logical consequences - every set of general laws, and the specific possibilities they dictated - formed an indivisible whole. Newton's universal laws of motion and gravity, Kepler's idealized elliptical orbits, and any number of particular (pre-Einsteinian) models of the solar system, were all part of the same fabric of ideas, the same tightly knit layer of reasoning. None of which had turned out to be entirely correct, so the whole layer of Newtonian cosmology had been peeled away (fingernails slipped under the unraveling corner where velocities approached the speed of light) in search of something deeper ... and the same thing had happened half a dozen times since. The trick was to know precisely what constituted each layer, to prise away each interlinked set of falsified ideas and failed predictions, no more and no less ... until a layer was reached which was seamless, self-consistent - and which fit every available observation of the real world."
Pg. 197-199
"Much of the lecture was simply beyond me. I covered every word, every graphic, scrupulously, but my thoughts wandered to the question of how I could paraphrase the message without the technicalities. With an interactive dialogue, maybe?
$Pick a number between ten and a thousand. Don't tell me what it is.
[thinks ... 575]
Add the digits together.
[17]
Add them again.
[8]
Add 3.
[11]
Subtract this from the original number.
[564]
Add the digits together.
[15]
Find the remainder left when you divide by nine.
[6]
Square it.
[36]
Add 6.
[42]
The number in your head is ... 42!
[Yes!]
Now try it once again...$
The end result, of course was guaranteed to be the same every time; all the elaborate steps of this cheap party trick were just a long-winded way of saying that X minus X would always equal zero.
Wu was suggesting that Mosala's whole approach to building a TOE amounted to much the same thing: all the mathematics simply cancelled itself out. On a grander scale, and in a far less obvious manner - but in the end, a tautology was still a tautology.
...
And $that$ was the extraordianry thing, for me: that such a rich and complex restatement of 'X minus X equals zero' was possible. It was as if an elaborately twisted length of rope, weaving in and out of its own detours a few hundred thousand times, had turned out not to be $knotted$ at all, but just a simple loop - ornately arragenged, but ultimately able to be completely untangled. Maybe that would make a better metaphor - and in the interactive, viewers with force gloves could reach in and prove for themselves that the 'knot' $was$ just a loop in disguise ...
You couldn't grab hold of a couple of Mosala's tensor equations and simply tug, though, to find out how they were joined. You had to unpick the false knot in your mind's eye (with the help from software - but it couldn't do everything). Subtle mistakes were always possible. The details were everything."
Pg.207 - 213
"Conroy continued, 'Wheeler was a great advocate of the idea of a participatory universe: a universe shaped by the inhabitants who observe and explain it. He had a favorite metaphor for this concept ... do you know the old game of twenty questions? One person thinks of an object, and the other keeps asking yes-or-no questions, to try to find out what it is.
'There's another way to play the game, though. You don't choose any object at all, to start with. You just answer the questions 'yes' or 'no', more or less at random - but constrained by the need to be consistent with what you've already said. If you've said that 'it' is blue all over, you can't change your mind latter and say that it's red ... even though you still have no precise idea what 'it' really is. But as more and more questions are asked, what 'it' might be becomes narrower and narrower.
'Wheeler suggested that $the universe itself$ behaved like that undefined object - only coming into being as something specific through a similar process of interrogation. We make observations, we carry out experiments - we ask questions about 'it.' We get back answers - some of them more or less random - but they're never absolute contradictions. And the more questions we ask ... the more precisely the universe takes shape.'
I said, 'You mean like ... making measurements on microscopic objects? Some properties of subatomic particles don't exist until they've been measured - and the measurement you get has a random component - but if you measure the same thing a second time, you get the same result. This was old, old ground, well-established and uncontroversial. 'Surely that's the kind of thing Wheeler would have meant?'
...
'Quantum measurement is about individual, microscopic events which do or don't happen - at random, but according to probabilities determined by a set of $pre-existing laws$. About ... individual heads and tails, not the shape of the coin, or the overall odds when it's thrown repeatedly. It's easy enough to see that a coin is neither 'heads' nor 'tails' while it's still up in the air, spinning - but what if it's not even $any particular coin?$ What if therereally are no pre-existing laws governing the system you're about to measure ... any more than there $are$ pre-existing answers to any of those measurements?'
...
Conroy smiled at my edginess - and continued in the language of science. 'What happened, historically, was that physics merged with $information theory$. Or at least, a lot of people explored the union, for a while. They tried to discover whether it made sense to talk about building, not just a space-time of individual microscopic events, but all of the underlying quantum mechanics, and all of the various - then, non-unified - field equations ... out of a stream of yes-and-no answers. Reality from information, from an accumulation of knowledge. As Wheeler put it, 'an it from bit.'
...
'Go back to the old Wheeler model of the universe. Laws of physics emerge from patterns - consistencies - in random data. But if an event doesn't take place unless it's observed ... then a law doesn't exist before it's understood. But that begs the question, doesn't it: $understood by whom?$ Who decides what 'consistent' means? Who decides what form a 'law' can take - or what constitutes an 'explanation'?
If the universe instantly succumbed to any human explanation whatsoever ... we'd be living in a world where Stone Age cosmology was literally true. Or .. it would be like the old satires of the afterlife - a separate heaven for every conflicting faith - even before we died. But the world just isn't like that. However much people disagree, we still find ourselves together, arguing about the nature of reality. We don't float off into individual universes where our own private explanations are ultimate truth.
...
I said, 'Doesn't that suggest to you that the universe might not be participatory, after all? That the laws might be fixed principles, independent of the people that understand them?'
'No.' Connroy smiled gently, as if this suggestion struck her as quaintly naïve. 'Everything in relativity and quantum mechanics cries out against any absolute backdrop: absolute time, absolute history .. absolute laws. But I think that it does suggest that the whole idea of $participation$ needs to be formulated rigorously in the mathematics of information theory, and different possibilities analyzed with great care.'
It was hard to argue with that. 'TO what end, though? If you're not competing for the discovery of a successful TOE ...?
'The point is to understand the means by which TOE science can give rise to an active TOE. How knowledge of the equations can fix the reality they describe firmly in place - so firmly that we can't even hope to see behind them, to glimpse the process which holds them there.'
I laughed, 'IF you admit that we can't hope to do that, you've crossed right over to metaphysics.'
Conroy was unfazed. 'Certainly. But we believe that it can still be done in the spirit pf science: applying logic, using the appropriate mathematical tools. ... the old information-theoretic approach, revived as something external to physics. It may not be needed to discover the TOE itself - but I believe it can make sense of the fact that there is a TOE at all.'
...
'$How, exactly?$ Which of these possibilities yoe've 'analyzed with great care' can give a theory any kind of power which wasn't already there in nature?'
Conroy said, 'Imagine this cosmology: Forget about starting the universe with just the right finely-tuned Big Bang needed to create stars, planets, intelligent life ... and a culture capable of making sense of it all. Instead, take as your 'starting point' the fact that there's a living human being who can explain an entire universe, in terms of a single theory. Turn everything around, and $take is as the only thing given$ that this one person exists.'
I said irritably, 'How can it be $the only thing?$ You can't have a living human being ... and nothing else. And if it's $given$ that this person can explain the universe, then there has to be a universe to $explain$.'
'Exactly.'
...
'For this person, the universe 'grows out' of the power to explain it: out in all directions, and forward and backwards in time. Instead of being blasted out of pre-space - instead of being 'caused' inexplicably at the beginning of time - it crystallizes quietly around a single human being.
That's why the universe obeys $a single law$ - a Theory of Everything. It's all explained by a single person. We can this person the Keystone [Philosopher's Stone!] Everyone, and everything, exists because the Keystone exists. The Big Bang model of cosmology can lead to anything at all: a universe of cold dust, a universe of black holes, a universe of dead planets. But the Keystone needs everything which the universe actually contains - stars, planets, life - in order to explain vis own existence. And not only needs them: the Keystone can $account for$ all of them, make sense of all of them, with out gaps, without flaws, without contradictions.
That's why it's possible for billions of people to be $wrong$. That's why we're not living with Stone Age cosmology or Newtonian physics. Most explanations just aren't powerful, rich or coherent enough to bring a whole universe into being - and to explain a mind capable of holding such an explanation.'
...
She continued. 'We can't watch the universe emerge, we're part of it, we're trapped inside the space-time created by the act of explanation. All we can hope to witness, in the progression of time, is one person become the first to hold the TOE in vis mind, and grasp its consequences, and - invisibly, imperceptibly - $understands us all into being.$'
She laughed suddenly, breaking the spell. 'It's only a theory. The mathematics behind it make perfect sense - but the reality is untestable, by its very nature. So of course, we could be wrong.'"
Pg. 215
"...it seemed a sufficiently tall order to have to grow your own universe to wrap yourself in: your own ancestors (needed to explain your existence), your own billions of human cousins (an unavoidable logical consequence - as would be more distant relatives, animals and plant), your own world to stand on, sun to orbit - and other planets, suns, and galaxies, not obviously essential for survival .. but possibly allowing a relatively simple TOE (which could fit in one mind) to be traded for a trickier version that was more economical with cosmic real estate. Explaining all that into existence would be hard enough; you wouldn't want to be obliged to $create the power to create it$, as well - to have to explain into being ...[the notion] which allowed you to explain things into being.
A wise separation of powers. Leave the metaphysics to someone else."
Pg. 226 - 231
"...'I'm not looking for a way to make 'our' Big Bang seem less of a 'coincidence'. [Others] ... take the view that an infinite number of universes must have arisen out of pre-space - freezing out of that perfect symmetry with different sets of physical laws. And they ... aim to re-evaluate the probability of a universe 'more-or-less like our own' being included in that infinite set. It's relatively easy to find a TOE in which our universe is possible, but freakishly unlikely. [Others] ... define a successful TOE as one that guarantees that there are so many universes similar to our own that we're not unlikely after all - that we're not some kind of miraculous, perfect bull's-eye on a meta-cosmic dartboard, but just one unexceptional point on a much larger target.'
I said, 'A bit like proving - from basic astrophysical principles - that thousands of planets in the galaxy should have carbon-and-water-based life, and not just Earth.'
'Yes and no. Because ... yes, the probability of other Earth-like planets can be computed from theory, alone - but it can also be validated by observation. We can $observe$ billions of stars, we've already deduced the existence of a few thousand extrasolar planets - and eventually, we'll visit some of them, and $find$ other carbon-and-water-based life. But although there are no end of elegant frameworks for assigning probabilities to hypothetical $other universes$ ... there is no prospect pf observing or visiting them. So I don't believe we $should$ choose a TOE on that basis.
The whole point of moving beyond the Standard Unified Field Theory is that, one, it's an ugly mess, and two, you have to feed ten completely arbitrary parameters into the equations to make them work. Melting total space into pre-space - moving to an All-Topologies-Model - gets rid of the ugliness and the arbitrary nature of the SUFT. But following that step by tinkering with the way you integrate across all the toplogies of pre-space - excluding certain topologies for no good reason, throwing out one measure and adopting a new one whenever you don't like the answers you're getting - seems like a retrograde step to me. And instead of 'seting the dials' of the SUFT machine to ten arbitrary parameters, you now have a sleek black box with no visible controls, apparently self-contained - but in reality, you're just opening it up and tearing out every internal component which offends you, to much the same effect.'
'Okay, So how do you get around that?'
Mosala said, 'I believe we have to take a difficult stand and declare: the probabilities just don't matter. Forget the hypothetical ensemble of other universes. Forget the need to fine-tune the Big Bang. This universe does exist. The probability of our being here is $one hundred percent$. WE have to take that as given, instead of bending over backward trying to contrive assumptions which do their best to conceal the fact of that certainty.'
...
I said, 'So you take the universe for granted. You're against twisting the mathematics to conform to a perceived need to prove that what we see around us is 'likely.' But you don't exactly go back to setting the dials of the SUFT machine, either.'
'No. I feed in complete descriptions of experiments, instead.'
'You choose the most general All-Topologies Model possible - but you break the perfect symmetry by giving a one hundred percent probability to the existence of various experimental apparatus?'
'Yes, ... here's one example. It's a simple accelerator experiment: a beam of protons and antiprotons collide at a certain energy, and a detector is used to pick up any positrons emitted from the point of collision at a certain angle, with a certain range of energies. ...'
'Now, I don't even try to model this entire setup - a piece of apparatus ten kilometers wide - on a subatomic level, atom by atom, as if I needed to start with a kind of blank, 'naïve' TOE which would somehow succeed in telling me that all the superconducting magnets would produce certain fields with certain measurable effects, and the walls of the tunnel would deform in certain ways due top the stresses imposed on them, and the protons and antiprotons would circle in opposite directions. I $already know$ all these things. SO I assign them a probability of one hundred percent. I take these established facts as a kind of $anchor$ ... and then reach down to the TOE, down to the level of infinite sums over all topologies. I calculate what the consequences of my assumptions are ... and then follow them all the way back up again to the macroscopic level, to predict the ultimate results of the experiment: how many times a second will the positron detector register an event.'
...
I said tentatively, 'So instead of thinking of pre-space as something from which the whole universe can derived in one stroke ... you see it more as a link between the kind of events we can observe with our raw senses. Something which ... glues together the particular set of macroscopic things we find in the world. A star full of fusing hydrogen, and a human eye full of cold protein molecules, are bridged across distances and energies ... are able to co-exist, and affect each other ... because at the deepest level, they both break the symmetry of pre-space in the same way.
Mosala seemed please with this description. 'A link, a bridge. Exactly.'
...
She said, 'Without pre-space to mediate between us - without an infinite mixture of topologies able to represent us all with a single flicker of asymmetry - nobody could even $touch$."
Pg. 233 - 235
"Ask yourself: If [others] ... can come up with a TOE in which the whole universe is more or less implicit in a detailed description of the Big Bang - details implicit in a deduced, $right here and now$, from observations of helium abundance, galactic clustering, the cosmic background radiation, and so on - no one accuses $them$ oof circular logic. Feeding in the results of any number of 'telescope experiments' is fine, apparently. So why is it any more 'circular' to have a TOE in which the universe is implicit in the details of ten contemporary particle physics experiments?'
I said, 'Okay. But isn't Helen Wu saying that your equations have no $physical content$ at all? I mean, no amount of pure mathematics could ever produce Newton's law of gravity - because there's no purely mathematical reason why the inverse square law couldn't be replaced by something different. The whole basis for it lies in the way the universe happens to work. Isn't Wu trying to show that your TOE doesn't rely on $anything$ out there in the world - that it collapses into a lot of statements about numbers, which simply have to be true?'
Mosala replied, frustrated, 'Yes! But even if she's right ... when those 'statements that have to be true' are coupled with real, tangible experiments - which are $very much$ 'out there in the world' - the theory ceases to be pure mathematics ... in the same way that the pure symmetry of pre-space ceases top be symmetrical.
'Newton came up with the inverse square law by analyzing existing $astronomical observations.$ By treating the solar system in the way I treat a particle accelerator: saying, 'This much we know for a fact.' Later, the law was used to make predictions and those predictions turned out to be correct. Okay ... but where exactly does the $physical content$ reside, in that whole process? With the inverse-square law itself ... or with the observed motions of the planets, from which that equations were deduced in the first place? Because is you stop treating Newton's law as something given, standing outside the whole show as an eternal truth, and look at ... $the link, the bridge$ ... between all the different planets orbiting different stars, coexisting in the same universe, having to be consistent with each other ... what you're doing starts to become much more like pure mathematics.'
I thought I had an inkling of what she was suggesting. 'It's a bit like saying that ... the general principle that 'people from net clans with other people with whom they have something in common' has nothing to do with $what$ those common interests happen to be. Exactly the same process brings together ... fans of Jane Austen, or students of the genetics of wasps, or whatever.'
' Right. Jane Austen 'belongs' to all the people who read her - not to the sociological principle which suggests that they'll get together to discuss her books. And the law of gravity 'belongs' to all the systems which obey it - not to a TOE which predicts that they'll get together to form a universe.
'And maybe the Theory of Everything $should$ collapse into nothing but 'statements about numbers which have to be true.' Maybe pre-space itself has to melt into nothing but simple arithmetic, simple logic - leaving us with no choices to make about its structure at all.'"
Onward,
Stephen
meekerdb
Sep 21, 2011, 11:59:44 PM9/21/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
> When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone,
> because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in
> all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it
> into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to.
> When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone,
> because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in
> all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it
> into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to.
Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that
the brain is a classical system. Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought
and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain
already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history -
excepting those instances where some quantum event was amplified sufficiently to create a
superposition in your experience.
Brent
meekerdb
Sep 22, 2011, 12:41:57 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 8:40 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
> AFAIK, a wave function or state vector, absent the specification of a measurement
> basis must be considered to be in a state where all of its observable properties are in
> a state of linear superposition, this they are 'indefinite" and thus it follow that they
> are indeed contingent on the specification of a basis. Where am I going wrong?
> AFAIK, a wave function or state vector, absent the specification of a measurement
> basis must be considered to be in a state where all of its observable properties are in
> a state of linear superposition, this they are 'indefinite" and thus it follow that they
> are indeed contingent on the specification of a basis. Where am I going wrong?
No, it is in an eigenstate of some set of operators. It is only in a superposition if you
choose some other operator. Didn't you look at the "fewer worlds" paper I cited:
Certainty and Uncertainty in Quantum Information Processing
Eleanor G. Rieffel
(Submitted on 13 Feb 2007)
This survey, aimed at information processing researchers, highlights intriguing but
lesser known results, corrects misconceptions, and suggests research areas. Themes
include: certainty in quantum algorithms; the "fewer worlds" theory of quantum mechanics;
quantum learning; probability theory versus quantum mechanics.
Comments: Invited paper accompanying invited talk to AAAI Spring Symposium 2007.
Comments, corrections, and suggestions would be most welcome
Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Report number: FXPAL-TR-06-017
Cite as: arXiv:quant-ph/0702121v1
Brent
Jason Resch
Sep 22, 2011, 12:58:44 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote:Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that the brain is a classical system.
When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to.
The Brain is classical, I agree.
Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history
Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc.
- excepting those instances where some quantum event was amplified sufficiently to create a superposition in your experience.
I am not sure if this qualifies as a super position, or just comp indeterminacy.
Jason
Roger Granet
Sep 22, 2011, 1:18:16 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Everyone,
Hi. My comments on all of today's comments 
on this thread are below:
on this thread are below:o In regard to Jon's below comment:
>Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)>properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive>which needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this>explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why>anything exists?
I'm not real sure what you're trying to get at? I'm okay with not needing an explanation of why so called "nothing" is a starting point, but I think we need an explanation for why this so called "nothing" is actually "something" (aka, the empty set). That's what I was trying to do in my paper. I thought that trying to figure out why anything exists was our whole point? But, I'm probably misunderstanding something here?
o In regard to Jon's point that:
>Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets
>supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is what has been previously called "absolute non->existence" has the unique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys are saying the same thing >just in different words.
I would totally agree. My only concern with people saying that the process of getting the integers from nested empty sets can be used as a way for our universe to come into existence is that these people usually don't say what the mechanism is that's doing the nesting. One thing I like about my model is that it provides a mechanism for doing this nesting that's inherent in the property of the existent state that used to be called "nothing". This mechanism being that if this first existent state is there, then there's the
"complete lack-of-all" next to it. This "complete lack-of-all" next to it also completely defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent state. This process continues ad infinitum to create more and more existent states (aka, nested empty sets) that constitute the existence around us.
o In regard to the idea that so called "nothing" contains all possibilities, I don't think this is right because:
- Let's say you have some initial spherical state X and that nothing exists other than that state. There are no locations/positions other than that state X. Now, let's say that this state can create more identical, existent, spherical states all around it. We might think that there's an infinite number of possible locations/positions for these new states to be formed in around initial state X. But, this is incorrect because there are no
locations/positions around the first state until after these new states are created. Only once these new states are created are the new locations/positions created and only then can we say, after the fact and incorrectly, that these new states could have been created in any different position. So, I think the idea of saying that nothing has an infinite number of possibilities in it is incorrect because it's really our minds that our putting these possibilities into this so called nothing, after the fact.
- It's very important in this whole area to distinguish between our mind's conception of "nothing", in which it seems like there are infinite possibilities, and "nothing" itself, in which neither our minds nor infinite possibilities are there. "Nothing" itself is what we need to focus on, I think.
o Whatever people decide for themselves about these issues, I think
in the end that there has to be some initial existent state that has some inherent properties that allow it to reproduce itself, create energy and create the larger existence (ie, our universe) we live in. This initial state, its properties and the model for creating existence out of them has to be internally consistent, consistent with what's currently known and eventually be able to make some testable predictions. This is how philosophy can transition into science, IMHO. The people in the digital philosophy/cellular automata area are trying to do this, and this is what I've tried to do in my paper and what I'm still working on. Obviously, we all still have a long way to go, but I think it's important that we don't get too distracted and that we "keep our eyes on the prize".
Thank you!
Roger
Jason Resch
Sep 22, 2011, 1:19:11 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 11:00 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]On 9/21/2011 9:24 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 3:06 PM, Jason Resch wrote:[SPK]
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 12:47 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:20 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sorry to jump in here..
In this kind of context, I think it is useful to make the distinction
>
> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore it's
> properties.
that the Mandlebrot 'set' IS a definition.
Then the important question is whether humans had to write it down for it to exist.
Why is the question of whether some set of properties occur given some set of rules and the implementation of those rules by some process tied to the existence or non-existence of an object? Since when was it even a meaningful question? Is existence a property? No, it is not!
My point is that existence is independent of our implementing or discovering such properties. Mandelbrot didn't have to discover the definition of the Mandelbrot set for the set to have the properties it has. He only had to discover it for us to learn about some of its properties. If there is another Mathematical object, and one of its properties is that it contains self-reproducing patterns which behave intelligently and form civilizations, we need not find such objects nor simulate them for those intelligent agents to be.
And my point is that the *properties* cannot be said to be definite absent specification by equation, rule or equivalent. Existence is not contingent. Period.
I agree existence is not contingent. But I go further and say the properties of those extant things is not contingent either.
Could you please explain to us how that claim is consistent with the mutual non-commutativity of canonical conjugate variables (aka properties) in QM?
AFAIK, a wave function or state vector, absent the specification of a measurement basis must be considered to be in a state where all of its observable properties are in a state of linear superposition, this they are 'indefinite" and thus it follow that they are indeed contingent on the specification of a basis. Where am I going wrong?
This uncertainty of properties is an artifact of observation, more specifically Quantum Mechanics is a consequence of the observer's inability to self locate within an infinite structure. See:
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0001020
and
http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1066
The objects in the individual branches have properties, it is only we observers who are uncertain of them. (We don't know which branch, or which one of us, we are in or are)
[SPK]
[SPK][SPK]
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
The properties are onknown to us, or to you. Doesn't mean it is unknown to everyone. We know that if we look at a spot we have never looked at before we will see something. Each time we conduct this "experiment" we affirm that it existed, even though we had no confirmation by previously looking at it. Why should we ever assume it's existence as a complete and coherent structure is unknown?
No, experiments reveal properties, not existence. Again, existence is not contingent on observation or measurement or anything at all.
This is what I have been saying!
My apologies for misunderstanding your claim.
Thus the entire question of "does it exist" is a red herring.
There are many people, even on this list, who would say most possible worlds do not exist. So there is a reason to affirm the existence of things we cannot see or define, for we cannot see nor define everything.
[SPK]
So, what difference does their belief make to whether something exists or not? This would be a nice example of a Bp&~p.
None, but we are trying to explain our positions to others, so it is not meaningless or pointless to suggest things like "everything exists".
Okay. I only brought it up because you pointed out I was completely missing Craig's thesis. I thought you might have some insight as to how or why that you could share.
[SPK]
So if it cannot exist, because it is self-contradictory how can it have any properties at all?
[SPK][SPK]
>Our neurology.
> > The question of whether or not some number has some properties
> > is dependent only on the structure that defines it, not the
> > 'discoverer' there of.
>
> What created the definition of the universe we are in?
Our neurology is contingent on the universe. What I was asking is if we need to define everything in order that it exist, how can we explain our own existence? Obviously things can exist independently of our mathematical definitions or discoveries. Our universe being a case in point.
We are aware of only a tiny sliver of what exists.
I agree.
Naive realism is a form of hysterical blindness, IMHO.
Idealism, in contrast to realism, says what we are blind of does not exist.
This notion that somehow the existence of an entity is linked to its properties is worse than fallacious. It is dumb.
An object might have two mutually incompatible properties, which implies it cannot exist anywhere.
I should have said nothing exists having self contradictory properties.
OK.[SPK]
Existence is prior to properties.
You're right.
I try hard...
:-)
Thanks.
Jason
Jason Resch
Sep 22, 2011, 1:29:43 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Roger Granet <roge...@yahoo.com> wrote:
o In regard to the idea that so called "nothing" contains all possibilities, I don't think this is right because:- Let's say you have some initial spherical state X and that nothing exists other than that state. There are no locations/positions other than that state X. Now, let's say that this state can create more identical, existent, spherical states all around it. We might think that there's an infinite number of possible locations/positions for these new states to be formed in around initial state X. But, this is incorrect because there are no locations/positions around the first state until after these new states are created. Only once these new states are created are the new locations/positions created and only then can we say, after the fact and incorrectly, that these new states could have been created in any different position. So, I think the idea of saying that nothing has an infinite number of possibilities in it is incorrect because it's really our minds that our putting these possibilities into this so called nothing, after the fact.
It is not that all possibilities come out of nothing, but that zero information implies everything. Here is a simple example:
Step 1:
Imagine that this one branch of the universe is all that exists. It would then take about 10^90 bits to describe the trajectory and position of every particle, along with perhaps a couple of pages to describe all the physical laws which define how those particles interact. This is a massive amount of information.
Step 2:
We realize that all solutions to the equations of quantum mechanics exist. Thus we don't need to describe the exact positions of every particle in this particular branch of the universe. We can throw away the massive amount of information (10^90 bits) and simply describe the physical laws which govern every possible physical configuration under those laws. All solutions to the equations (all branches in QM) exist. We are now down to a couple of pages of information.
Step 3:
We realize that other equations (not just those of quantum mechanics) might exist also. Now we can also throw away the few pages of information which say what the laws of physics are. Just as leaving out a description of the particles opened up the reality for all possible solutions to the equations, throwing out the description of the equations opens up the reality for all possible equations. Since we are not limiting ourselves to any one equation or any one solution, then all solutions to all equations are the result. This takes no information to describe.
Jason
meekerdb
Sep 22, 2011, 1:36:45 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 9:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote:Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that the brain is a classical system.
When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to.
The Brain is classical, I agree.
Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history
Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc.
But that assumes a dualism so that in the universe where my tooth
brush is yellow (and that is encoded in my brain in that universe),
my mind is not associated with that brain - it is some uncertain
state. But then when the yellowness or redness of my toothbrush
enters my consciousness my mind splits into different universes (the
many-minds interpretation of QM?). In that case there are many
classical beings who call themselves Brent and have some memories in
common. Why not distinguish them by their bodies/brains? Why think
if the mind(s) as being indeterminate and flitting about just
because they are not instantiating awareness of all that is in the
brain?
- excepting those instances where some quantum event was amplified sufficiently to create a superposition in your experience.
I am not sure if this qualifies as a super position, or just comp indeterminacy.
You're right - decoherence or similar would have to collapse the
superposition.
Brent
Brent
Jason
--
Jason Resch
Sep 22, 2011, 2:01:57 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:36 AM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 9:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:But that assumes a dualism so that in the universe where my tooth brush is yellow (and that is encoded in my brain in that universe), my mind is not associated with that brain - it is some uncertain state.
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote:Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that the brain is a classical system.
When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to.
The Brain is classical, I agree.
Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history
Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc.
As I see it, it is no different than duplicating someone to both Washington and Moscow and then when they step outside of the teleporter box the sight of the capital building, or red square determines their position.
Now assume you are duplicated in universe X and universe Y, in both of which which you have an identical mental state. However, in universe X you have a red car, and in universe Y you have a blue car. When this memory surfaces, you identify which universe you are in. Before the memory of the color of your car surfaced, your mental state was identical and it could be said that your consciousness supervened on both of them.
But then when the yellowness or redness of my toothbrush enters my consciousness my mind splits into different universes (the many-minds interpretation of QM?). In that case there are many classical beings who call themselves Brent and have some memories in common. Why not distinguish them by their bodies/brains? Why think if the mind(s) as being indeterminate and flitting about just because they are not instantiating awareness of all that is in the brain?
It follows from the ability to be able to resurrect a person at any time or any location by making an identical copy.
1. Nothing happens to you between now and the next minute (your consciousness continues through that time)
2. 30 seconds from now, you will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots will repair you perfectly such that you don't even notice (your consciousness continues)
3. You will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots repair you perfectly (only this time using different matter) you don't notice and your consciousness continues.
4. You will be blow to pieces but then recreated at another location in the exact configuration that you were before you were blown up (From your perspective your surroundings suddenly and inexplicably changed)
5. You are blown up and then two copies of you are created, one in your present location and another in a second location. You now cannot be sure which one you will be. For some short period of time you can be said to be both of them (until different sensory data is processed and the minds diverge).
6. You are not blown up, but a second duplicate of you is created elsewhere (as before, your mind can be said to inhabit both of them, until the mental state diverges)
These are just the same basic examples from Bruno's UDA. Was there a particular step in the UDA that you disagreed with?
Jason
meekerdb
Sep 22, 2011, 2:32:53 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/21/2011 11:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 12:36 AM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 9:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:But that assumes a dualism so that in the universe where my tooth brush is yellow (and that is encoded in my brain in that universe), my mind is not associated with that brain - it is some uncertain state.
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote:Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants to admit that the brain is a classical system.
When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could look like anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is consistent with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different person. When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects the universes you belong to.
The Brain is classical, I agree.
Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are independent of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already corresponded to who your mother is and to most of the rest of your history
Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc.
As I see it, it is no different than duplicating someone to both Washington and Moscow and then when they step outside of the teleporter box the sight of the capital building, or red square determines their position.
Now assume you are duplicated in universe X and universe Y, in both of which which you have an identical mental state. However, in universe X you have a red car, and in universe Y you have a blue car. When this memory surfaces, you identify which universe you are in. Before the memory of the color of your car surfaced, your mental state was identical and it could be said that your consciousness supervened on both of them.
But then when the yellowness or redness of my toothbrush enters my consciousness my mind splits into different universes (the many-minds interpretation of QM?). In that case there are many classical beings who call themselves Brent and have some memories in common. Why not distinguish them by their bodies/brains? Why think if the mind(s) as being indeterminate and flitting about just because they are not instantiating awareness of all that is in the brain?
It follows from the ability to be able to resurrect a person at any time or any location by making an identical copy.
1. Nothing happens to you between now and the next minute (your consciousness continues through that time)
2. 30 seconds from now, you will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots will repair you perfectly such that you don't even notice (your consciousness continues)
3. You will be blown to pieces, but then nanobots repair you perfectly (only this time using different matter) you don't notice and your consciousness continues.
4. You will be blow to pieces but then recreated at another location in the exact configuration that you were before you were blown up (From your perspective your surroundings suddenly and inexplicably changed)
5. You are blown up and then two copies of you are created, one in your present location and another in a second location. You now cannot be sure which one you will be.
This is the kind of statement I'm questioning. Who is "you"?
There's an implicit assumption that "you" are conscious thoughts or
observer moments, which are disembodied and so the question becomes
which brain to they supervene on. But why should be reify "you" as
these transient thoughts. Doesn't it make more sense to reify the
body/brain. Sure it can be duplicated, but we know where the
duplicates are and what's in them.
For some short period of time you can be said to be both of them (until different sensory data is processed and the minds diverge).
6. You are not blown up, but a second duplicate of you is created elsewhere (as before, your mind can be said to inhabit both of them, until the mental state diverges)
These are just the same basic examples from Bruno's UDA. Was there a particular step in the UDA that you disagreed with?
I think what Bruno calls the 323 principle is questionable. It
doesn't comport with QM. Bruno gets around this by noting that
computationally a classical computer can emulate a quantum system.
But I think that assumes an *isolated* quantum system. All real
quantum systems big enough to be quasi-classical systems are
impossible to isolate. So I'm afraid this pushes the substitution
level all the way down. If it's all the way down, then as Craig
notes, there's really no difference between emulation and
duplication.
Brent
Brent
Jason
Stephen P. King
Sep 22, 2011, 8:31:29 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/22/2011 1:18 AM, Roger Granet wrote:
Everyone,
Hi. My comments on all of today's comments
o In regard to Jon's below comment:>Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)>properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive>which needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this>explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why>anything exists?I'm not real sure what you're trying to get at? I'm okay with not needing an explanation of why so called "nothing" is a starting point, but I think we need an explanation for why this so called "nothing" is actually "something" (aka, the empty set). That's what I was trying to do in my paper. I thought that trying to figure out why anything exists was our whole point? But, I'm probably misunderstanding something here?
o In regard to Jon's point that:>Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is constituted (somehow) by empty sets nested in other empty sets>supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is what has been previously called "absolute non->existence" has the unique property of being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys are saying the same thing >just in different words.I would totally agree. My only concern with people saying that the process of getting the integers from nested empty sets can be used as a way for our universe to come into existence is that these people usually don't say what the mechanism is that's doing the nesting. One thing I like about my model is that it provides a mechanism for doing this nesting that's inherent in the property of the existent state that used to be called "nothing". This mechanism being that if this first existent state is there, then there's the "complete lack-of-all" next to it. This "complete lack-of-all" next to it also completely defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent state. This process continues ad infinitum to create more and more existent states (aka, nested empty sets) that constitute the existence around us.
[SPK]
Hi Roger,
First let me thank you for joining us in these discussions. new ideas are always a good thing as they provoke thought.
I think that the idea of a plurality of possible positions, given some X, and a sequence of places where X could be next, given some initial location, are interchangeable, but it seems to me that any mechanism that would induce one nesting could be seen as generating the potential of many, and thus a plurality of possibilities, if the generator of the nestings is not seperate from the impulsive or dynamic aspect that is implicit in the transitions from some initial state into some successive state. Basically, if their is a reason to not remain eternally in one state then all possible sequences can be induced from this 'potential' to not remain fixed. (I am using the word "induce" as it is used in electronics, where some change induces some other.)
Hi Roger,
First let me thank you for joining us in these discussions. new ideas are always a good thing as they provoke thought.
I think that the idea of a plurality of possible positions, given some X, and a sequence of places where X could be next, given some initial location, are interchangeable, but it seems to me that any mechanism that would induce one nesting could be seen as generating the potential of many, and thus a plurality of possibilities, if the generator of the nestings is not seperate from the impulsive or dynamic aspect that is implicit in the transitions from some initial state into some successive state. Basically, if their is a reason to not remain eternally in one state then all possible sequences can be induced from this 'potential' to not remain fixed. (I am using the word "induce" as it is used in electronics, where some change induces some other.)
o In regard to the idea that so called "nothing" contains all possibilities, I don't think this is right because:
- Let's say you have some initial spherical state X and that nothing exists other than that state. There are no locations/positions other than that state X. Now, let's say that this state can create more identical, existent, spherical states all around it. We might think that there's an infinite number of possible locations/positions for these new states to be formed in around initial state X. But, this is incorrect because there are no locations/positions around the first state until after these new states are created. Only once these new states are created are the new locations/positions created and only then can we say, after the fact and incorrectly, that these new states could have been created in any different position. So, I think the idea of saying that nothing has an infinite number of possibilities in it is incorrect because it's really our minds that our putting these possibilities into this so called nothing, after the fact.
Since it is stipulated that the initial state is spherical and
there is some notion that there exists reasons or mechanism that
this initial state is not fixed and permanent, does this alone not
at least suggest that there is a possibility or potential for "new
locations"? I think that I basically agree with your point but my
argument would run something like: Since there is nothing, nothing
follows. The idea that Nothingness has an infinite or even an
indefinite number of possibilities seems to to argued by inverting
an already given monotonically increasing sequence and "running it
back" to the initial state given the ordering implicit in the
sequence. This is a bit of a cheat since it starts out with
Something and subtracts back to a Nothing. It seems similar to a Post
hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
- It's very important in this whole area to distinguish between our mind's conception of "nothing", in which it seems like there are infinite possibilities, and "nothing" itself, in which neither our minds nor infinite possibilities are there. "Nothing" itself is what we need to focus on, I think.
[SPK]
I agree, it seems that a lot of people take the Nothing as if it where the Zero of a number line and assume that the ordering of the number line is implicit in the zero. Not to say that this is not a valid concept, but if we are going to use this idea then I think it is necessary to show the necessity of that assumption.
I agree, it seems that a lot of people take the Nothing as if it where the Zero of a number line and assume that the ordering of the number line is implicit in the zero. Not to say that this is not a valid concept, but if we are going to use this idea then I think it is necessary to show the necessity of that assumption.
o Whatever people decide for themselves about these issues, I think in the end that there has to be some initial existent state that has some inherent properties that allow it to reproduce itself, create energy and create the larger existence (ie, our universe) we live in. This initial state, its properties and the model for creating existence out of them has to be internally consistent, consistent with what's currently known and eventually be able to make some testable predictions. This is how philosophy can transition into science, IMHO. The people in the digital philosophy/cellular automata area are trying to do this, and this is what I've tried to do in my paper and what I'm still working on. Obviously, we all still have a long way to go, but I think it's important that we don't get too distracted and that we "keep our eyes on the prize".
[SPK]
Question: Does not the concept of "initial state" itself not imply a "next state", otherwise what makes it "initial" in the first place? Semantics are a big problem in this... What about eternal process where there is no "beginning" or "initial" state at all, but rather there is a successor given *any* selected state. My concern is that we seem to ignore the fact that postulating by fiat an "initial" state makes that state "special" and that "special" aspect requires strong reasons to be taken as coherent in an explanatory model or cosmogony.
Onward!
Stephen
Question: Does not the concept of "initial state" itself not imply a "next state", otherwise what makes it "initial" in the first place? Semantics are a big problem in this... What about eternal process where there is no "beginning" or "initial" state at all, but rather there is a successor given *any* selected state. My concern is that we seem to ignore the fact that postulating by fiat an "initial" state makes that state "special" and that "special" aspect requires strong reasons to be taken as coherent in an explanatory model or cosmogony.
Onward!
Stephen
Stephen P. King
Sep 22, 2011, 8:55:02 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
[SPK]
I never quite understood how the non-commutativity of certain observables with respect to each other and the Pontryagin duality (manifesting as a Fourier transform for example) between discrete and compact spaces (inducing basis vectors) follows just from the inability to self locate. It seems to me that it is the introduction of the Hilbert space and its linear algebraic structure that induces the uncertainty. The inability to self-locate seems to just be consistent with the 'no preferred basis" aspect.
I would like to read Russell's comment on this.
I never quite understood how the non-commutativity of certain observables with respect to each other and the Pontryagin duality (manifesting as a Fourier transform for example) between discrete and compact spaces (inducing basis vectors) follows just from the inability to self locate. It seems to me that it is the introduction of the Hilbert space and its linear algebraic structure that induces the uncertainty. The inability to self-locate seems to just be consistent with the 'no preferred basis" aspect.
I would like to read Russell's comment on this.
and
http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1066
The objects in the individual branches have properties, it is only we observers who are uncertain of them. (We don't know which branch, or which one of us, we are in or are)
[SPK]
I did not notice anything new in this paper, by Aguirre et al, that Russell didn't cover in his paper.
I did not notice anything new in this paper, by Aguirre et al, that Russell didn't cover in his paper.
[SPK]
[SPK][SPK]
I would say that it is still non-existent. What exists would be a
Would you say the set was non-existent before Mandelbrot
> found it?
graphic representation, for instance, of the results of thousands of
individual function calls which require our visual sense to be grouped
into a set. Our recognition of pattern against the set of generic
iterations of the equation plotted visually is what gives it
explorable properties: The concrete event of the plotting on a screen
or pencil and paper.
Yet we have only seen an infinitesimally small part of it. What ontological status shall we ascribe to the unseen parts?
Currently unknown. "...what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. " or admit that we are only speculating.
The properties are onknown to us, or to you. Doesn't mean it is unknown to everyone. We know that if we look at a spot we have never looked at before we will see something. Each time we conduct this "experiment" we affirm that it existed, even though we had no confirmation by previously looking at it. Why should we ever assume it's existence as a complete and coherent structure is unknown?
No, experiments reveal properties, not existence. Again, existence is not contingent on observation or measurement or anything at all.
This is what I have been saying!
My apologies for misunderstanding your claim.
Thus the entire question of "does it exist" is a red herring.
There are many people, even on this list, who would say most possible worlds do not exist. So there is a reason to affirm the existence of things we cannot see or define, for we cannot see nor define everything.
[SPK]
So, what difference does their belief make to whether something exists or not? This would be a nice example of a Bp&~p.
None, but we are trying to explain our positions to others, so it is not meaningless or pointless to suggest things like "everything exists".
[SPK]
I make a big deal about statements of existence because a lot of people think of the term as if it is denoting a property, like redness or velocity. Properties go to the content of experience and must not be considered as seperate from at least the potential of observation. Existence, per se, has no such contingencies.
I make a big deal about statements of existence because a lot of people think of the term as if it is denoting a property, like redness or velocity. Properties go to the content of experience and must not be considered as seperate from at least the potential of observation. Existence, per se, has no such contingencies.
[SPK]
Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.
snip
Onward!
Stephen
Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.
snip
Onward!
Stephen
Jason Resch
Sep 22, 2011, 11:22:41 AM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies. Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
Bruno Marchal
Sep 22, 2011, 1:02:23 PM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Roger,
Your theory is still physicalism in disguise. You can't explain
consciousness from that.
I will ask you what is your theory of consciousness, before giving
more detail on this.
Your notion of 'nothing' is vague.
You might dig a little bit on mathematical logic: it has been proved
that if you don't postulate the natural numbers, then you cannot
derive the existence of them. So, unless you defend a form of physical
ultrafinitism, your theory cannot account for the existence of 1, 2,
3, ... (and thus of digital machine and their belief). Actually I
don't think your theory can derive the number 1.
A bit more below.
> Jon,
>
> Hi. Thanks for the feedback. The empty set as the building block
> of existence is exactly the point I as making in my original posting
> that started this thread. What you're referring to as the empty set,
> I was referring to as how what has previously been called absolute
> "non-existence" or "nothing" completely describes, or defines, the
> entirety of what is present and is thus an existent state, or
> something. This existent state of mine is what others would call the
> empty set. The reason this is worth thinking about is because just
> saying that the empty set is the basis of existence doesn't explain
> why that empty set is there in the first place. This is what I was
> trying to get at. Additionally, there has to be some mechanism
> inherent in this existent state previously referred to as absolute
> "non-existence" (ie, the empty set) that allows it to replicate itself
> and produce the universe, energy, etc. This is needed because it
> appears that there's more to the universe than just a single empty
> existent state and that things are moving around. What I suggested in
> the paper at my website was that:
>
> 1. Assume what has previously been called "absolute non-existence".
This is already unclear by itself. Words like "absolute", "non" and
"existence" assume a lot.
>
> 2. This "absolute non-existence" itself, and not our mind's conception
> of "non-existence", completely describes, or defines, the entirety of
> what is there and is thus actually an existent state, or "something".
Why? You need some observer of that "absolute non-existence" to get a
definition of what is there. You are using implicitly the reflection
axiom of set theory (at this stage you have already a theory
equivalent with (N, +).
> This complete definition is equivalent to an edge or boundary defining
> what is present and thus giving "substance" or existence to the the
> thing.
In your mind only. You go from nothing to the empty set (which is not
nothing). At the meta level you go from { } to { { } }. So you are
using again the reflection principle (which is a very strong axiom).
Without using some explicit axioms, the passage from { } to { { } }
needs some brain or universal machine at the meta-level.
> This complete definition, edge, or boundary is like the curly
> braces around the empty set.
Yes, but the ability to put a boundary around what we comprehend is a
non trivial mind mechanism. Brains (people) and Turing machine (the 1-
person linked to it) can do that, but not an empty set by itself. You
are using a rich metalevel to justify a less rich level, but your
theory needs both the level and the metalevel.
>
> 3. Now, by the assumption in step 1, there is also "absolute non-
> existence" all around the edge of the existent state formed in step
> 2. This "absolute non-existence" also completely describes, or
> defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent
> state. That is, the first existent state has reproduced itself. I
> think that the existenet state that is what has been previously called
> "absolute non-existence" has the unique property of being able to
> reproduce itself.
It needs some mind or machine, to do the reflection.
>
> 4. This process continues ad infinitum
Where does that infinitum comes suddenly from? You are assuming the
natural numbers, like you assume the finite sets above (or
equivalently the reflection principle).
> in kind of a cellular automaton-
> like process to form in a big bang-like expansion a larger set of
> existent states - our universe.
>
> This is described in more detail in the paper at my website at:
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-exist-something-nothing
>
> There's also some more detail on how the above process can lead to the
> presence of energy in the universe.
You reinvent naïve set theory. It would help you to formalize your
idea so that you can compare it with others.
>
> Tegmark's assumption of a mathematical construct as the basis of
> our existence doesn't explain where this construct comes from or how
> it reproduces to form the universe.
Without assuming the natural numbers, you just cannot get them.
> Wheeler's idea that the
> distinction between the observer and the observed could be the
> mechanism of giving existence to non-existence could be fit into my
> idea, I think, by saying that the observed is what has previously been
> called "absolute non-existence", and the observer is the fact that
> this "absolute non-existence" completely defines the entirety of what
> is present
It can't.
Also, Wheeler's idea can be phenomenologically retrieved in the
Everett many-worlds view of the quantum, which itself can be extracted
from arithmetic if you assume that the brain works like a natural
machine. Wheeler seems to have come back to that multiverse idea.
You might take benefits by using what people already agree on in this
list. Look at my answer to jon (nihil).
Bruno
> and is like the edge or boundary defining what is there.
> Speculating even further, one could say that this edge or boundary is
> the same as the strings/membranes that physicists think make up the
> universe.
>
> Anyways, thanks again for restarting this thread!
>
> Roger
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 19, 2:27 am, nihil0 <jonathan.wol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
>> I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
>> you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
>> Everything threads.
>>
>> Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In"
>> on
>> May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
>>
>> "I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an
>> opinion
>> about the validity of an article athttp://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
>> . . ."
>>
>> I would like to continue that discussion here on this thread, because
>> I believe the article Norman cites provides a satisfying answer the
>> question "Why does anything exist?," which is very closely related to
>> the question "Why is there something rather than nothing." The author
>> is David Pearce, who is an active British philosopher.
>>
>> Here are some highlights of Pearce's answer: "In the Universe as a
>> whole, the conserved constants (electric charge, angular momentum,
>> mass-energy) add up to/cancel out to exactly zero. . . Yet why not,
>> say, 42, rather than 0? Well, if everything -- impossibly, I'm
>> guessing -- added up/cancelled out instead to 42, then 42 would have
>> to be accounted for. But if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net)
>> properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive
>> which needs explaining. . . The whole of mathematics can, in
>> principle, be derived from the properties of the empty set, Ø" I
>> think
>> this last sentence, if true, would support Tegmark's Mathematical
>> Universe Hypothesis, because if math is derivable from nothing (as
>> Pearce thinks) and physics is derivable from math (as Tegmark thinks)
>> and, then physics is derivable from nothing, and presto we have a
>> theory of everything/nothing.
>>
>> I think Pearce's conclusion is the following: everything that exists
>> is a property of (or function of) the number zero (i.e., the empty
>> set, nothing). Let's call this idea Ontological Nihilism.
>>
>> Russell Standish seems to endorse this idea in his book "Theory of
>> Nothing", which I'm reading. He formulates an equation for the amount
>> of complexity a system has, and says that "The complexity [i.e.,
>> information content] of the Everything is zero, just as it is of the
>> Nothing. The simplest set is the set of all possibilities, which is
>> the dual of the empty set." (pg. 40) He also suggests that Feynman
>> acknowledged something like Ontological Nihilism. In vol. 2 of his
>> lectures, Feynmann argued that the grand unified theory of physics
>> could be expressed as a function of the number zero; just rearrange
>> all physics equations so they equal zero, then add them all up. After
>> all, equations have to be balanced on both sides, right?
>>
>> Personally, I find Ontological Nihilism a remarkably elegant,
>> scientific and satisfying answer to the question "Why is there
>> something instead of nothing" because it effectively dissolves the
>> question. What do you think?
>>
>> Thanks in advance for your comments,
>>
>> Jon
>>
>> On Aug 8, 2:40 am, Roger <roger...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Hi. I used to post to this list but haven't in a long time.
>>> I'm
>>> a biochemist but like to think about the question of "Why isthere
>>> something rather than nothing?" as a hobby. If you're interested,
>>> some of my ideas on this question and on "Why do things exist?",
>>> infinite sets and on the relationships of all this to mathematics
>>> and
>>> physics are at:
>>
>>> https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/
>>
>>> An abstract of the "Why do things exist and Why istheresomething
>>> rather than nothing?" paper is below.
>>
>>> Thank you in advance for any feedback you may have.
>>
>>> Sincerely
>>> ,
>>
>>> Roger
>>> Granet
>>> (roger
>>> ...@yahoo.com)
>>
>>> Abstract:
>>
>>> In this paper, I propose solutions to the questions "Why do
>>> things
>>> exist?" and "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?" In regard
>>> to the first question, "Why do things exist?", it is argued that a
>>> thing exists if the contents of, or what is meant by, that thing are
>>> completely defined. A complete definition is equivalent to an
>>> edge or
>>> boundary defining what is contained within and giving “substance”
>>> and
>>> existence to the thing. In regard to the second question, "Why
>>> istheresomething rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-
>>> existence, is
>>> first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
>>> thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
>>> about this lack-of-all. It is then shown that this non-existence
>>> itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence, is the complete
>>> description, or definition, of what is present. That is, no energy,
>>> no matter, no volume, no space, no time, no thoughts, etc., in
>>> and of
>>> itself, describes, defines, or tells you, exactly what is present.
>>> Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, "nothing",
>>> or
>>> non-existence, is actually an existent state. So, what has
>>> traditionally been thought of as "nothing", or non-existence, is,
>>> when
>>> seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".
>>> Said yet another way, non-existence can appear as either "nothing"
>>> or
>>> "something" depending on the perspective of the observer. Another
>>> argument is also presented that reaches this same conclusion.
>>> Finally, this reasoning is used to form a primitive model of the
>>> universe via what I refer to as "philosophical engineering".
>
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Bruno Marchal
Sep 22, 2011, 1:02:34 PM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 21 Sep 2011, at 20:51, meekerdb wrote:
> On 9/21/2011 9:20 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>> The Mandelbrot set has a definition which we can use to explore
>> it's properties. Would you say the set was non-existent before
>> Mandelbrot found it? If we have to define something for it to
>> exist, then what was this universe before there were conscious
>> beings in it?
>
> "To exist" just means to occur in the ontology of some model. We
> have a model of enumeration, which we call "the integers" and a
> model of combining them, which we call "arithmetic". In this model
> prime numbers "exist" because they satisfy the rules for the
> ontology. But this kind of "exist" is quite different from the way
> my chair "exists" and the way dinosaurs "existed".
Yes. Now assuming mechanism, we can understand that in fine we have to
explain the appearance of the existence of chair and dinosaurs from
the existence of the numbers.
> Whenever one is tempted to write "exist" he should first count to
> ten.
Ten? I think eight is enough :)
With mechanism the question is rather simple. You have the primitive
existence. It is the usual existence of the numbers, or combinatores,
java program etc. This does not need to be conceived in any material
way, and should not be confused with any of their physical, or human
minded instantiation. Then all other existence are epistemological. So
you have
1) the existence of the number. Symbolically Ex(x = <that number>)
like Ex(x = 0), Ex(x = s(0)), Ex(x = s(s(s0))), etc.
2) the seven+ notion of existences with the forms: BExB(x = <that
number with such or such property), and B being defined by Bp, Bp & p,
etc. Each hypostase defines its own notion of existence, completely
defined in arithmetic or at the meta-level of arithmetic.
For example, chairs exist in the sense: BDEx(BD(x = <that number with
such or such property). The "BD", and its arithmetical property
account of the appearance of the physical aspect (including the
quantum, and the quale) of the chairs, up to now.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
Sep 22, 2011, 1:02:46 PM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Can I deduce from this that UDA1-7 is understood. This shows already that either the universe is "little" or physics is (already) a branch of computer science (even if there is a physical universe).
It doesn't comport with QM. Bruno gets around this by noting that computationally a classical computer can emulate a quantum system. But I think that assumes an *isolated* quantum system.
Why?
All real quantum systems big enough to be quasi-classical systems are impossible to isolate.
But then you have to assume that your brain is some infinite quantum system (but then comp is false).
So I'm afraid this pushes the substitution level all the way down.
Yes, I'm afraid that will be the case.
If it's all the way down, then as Craig notes, there's really no difference between emulation and duplication.
But then you are, like Craig, assuming that mechanism is false. This is my point, if we want primitive matter, comp is false. (or comp implies no primitive matter, or the falsity of physicalism).
meekerdb
Sep 22, 2011, 2:01:20 PM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/22/2011 10:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I think what Bruno calls the 323 principle is questionable.
Can I deduce from this that UDA1-7 is understood. This shows already that either the universe is "little" or physics is (already) a branch of computer science (even if there is a physical universe).
It doesn't comport with QM. Bruno gets around this by noting that computationally a classical computer can emulate a quantum system. But I think that assumes an *isolated* quantum system.
Why?
Because the quantum entanglement is in principle unbounded and so it
would take an infinite classical computer to emulate exactly. In
practice we are always satisfied with good approximations. The
Hilbert space has N dimensions representing the configurations we
calculate. We don't include an N+1st dimension to include
"something else happens"; but it is implicitly there.
All real quantum systems big enough to be quasi-classical systems are impossible to isolate.
But then you have to assume that your brain is some infinite quantum system (but then comp is false).
Maybe not infinite but arbitrarily entangled with part of the
universe which is finite but expanding.
So I'm afraid this pushes the substitution level all the way down.
Yes, I'm afraid that will be the case.
I tend to look at that as a reductio; but I'm not sure where the
error is. I think it is in not allowing that one need only
*approximate* the function of the brain module the doctor replaces.
But the idea of digital approximation is fuzzy. The digital
computation itself has no fuzz.
Brent
Brent
Stephen P. King
Sep 22, 2011, 3:12:00 PM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.[SPK]
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation... Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Hi Jason!
Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation... Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian
theater.
The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
--[SPK]
About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se, as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity, it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p.
One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions – bits of strings – that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Recall how Observer moments are finite? Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite. Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication! (Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or, by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself, albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Onward!
Stephen
Jason Resch
Sep 22, 2011, 9:04:00 PM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.[SPK]
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in common. To me there is a big difference between saying first person experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am not sure which).
Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as: only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel, think, understand, etc.
Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality.
What is real though? In what level or context? Craig ignores the concept of different levels in his arguments and in our replies. When he says only carbon and oxygen can combust and produce *real* heat, and we tell him sim carbon and sim oxygen can produce *real* heat to the sim observer he expects that heat to appear also in the higher level universe conducting the simulation.
What function of the brain cannot be determined with anything other than a carbon atom? If we can use the behavior of other systems to predict what a carbon would do then the carbon atom is dispensible to the functions and behavior of the brain. You can then argue that this results in a mindless automaton, but then you run into all the funny and absurd issues with philisophical zombies.
While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence. And contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say will convince him he is wrong. Only interviewing someone who has received a partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
Do you agree that computers can be conscious?
My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
Okay.
The reason I say it is an epiphenomenon is that if there is no reason to evolve it, then human behavior would be unaltered with its absence. Thus its presence makes no difference one way or the other according to his theory.
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se,
Could there not be universes devoid of conscious observers internal to them? We can come to know about some of these universes through math at least, even if they contain no self-aware patterns.
as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
Why does it have to take place in zero time?
The problem for best of all worlds as I see it, is to evaluate a universe, God has to see what happens in it, and this requires implementing the conscious beings within it. Therefore all possible worlds would be realized and experienced by its inhabitants during the search for the best of all possible worlds.
The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-complete doesn't mean it takes forever to complete, just possibly exponential amount of time.
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p.
One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions – bits of strings – that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Recall how Observer moments are finite? Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite. Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication!
There are universes just like this one whose initial condition was this universes as it existed 1 second ago. I think these are much rarer however than universes with more uniform initial conditions. (There are many times more combinations than our present highly ordered (evolved) state).
(Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
I think there is potential for more variation. What do the beings who live under Europa's ice sheets see? Or what about those beings who are blind and only hear (or universes in which there is no such thing as light)?
Our universe is not middle aged compared to how long it might last. (Then again, we may be in a simulation so we can't really know how old the universe is really).
This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or, by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself, albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Onward!
Stephen
--
Stephen P. King
Sep 22, 2011, 11:18:29 PM9/22/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/22/2011 9:04 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
[SPK]���� Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.[SPK]
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality.� Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material.� The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. � While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry.� Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.�
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
�� Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in common.� To me there is a big difference between saying first person experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am not sure which).
��� That is your opinion and I accept it as such.
Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as: only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel, think, understand, etc.
[SPK]�
��� Umm, "does not reject the physical laws as curently understood", really? Where is there any sign of compliance with thermodynamic laws? Nevermind, math need not comply with physical law, especially if it is used to deny the reality of physical law... Nice dodge! But that would be a bone-headed and crude assessment of Bruno's result. My critisism of Bruno's result is the same as the critisism that I have for all forms of ideal monism. It reduces matter to an epiphenomena and thereby negating any causal or even meaningful role. What difference does our existence as carbon based organisms if we are merely "the dreams of numbers", why do numbers even bother having dreams? They exist, and according to Bruno, Arithmetic is all that is necessary to exist.
��� We are irrelevant phantoms. Our lives are meaningless; to quote the Bard: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Balderdash!
��� Am I to accept that as an explanation for my existence? Not without a fight!
Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality.
[SPK]
What is real though?� In what level or context?� Craig ignores the concept of different levels in his arguments and in our replies.� When he says only carbon and oxygen can combust and produce *real* heat, and we tell him sim carbon and sim oxygen can produce *real* heat to the sim observer he expects that heat to appear also in the higher level universe conducting the simulation.
What function of the brain cannot be determined with anything other than a carbon atom?� If we can use the behavior of other systems to predict what a carbon would do then the carbon atom is dispensible to the functions and behavior of the brain.� You can then argue that this results in a mindless automaton, but then you run into all the funny and absurd issues with philisophical zombies.
�
��� I have read worse attempts to weave meaningfulness through the morass of chaos that is our lives. I would like to see your alternative? DO you have an attempted original thought of an explanatory model or some mussings in such a direction?
While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
[SPK]
Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence.� And contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say will convince him he is wrong.� Only interviewing someone who has received a partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
��� OK, then don't read his post nor comment on them.
�
��� My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
Do you agree that computers can be conscious?
[SPK]
��� Not computers as they are considered by most, but yes, I do.
���� My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
��� Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
���
��� This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
[SPK]���� I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
Okay.
The reason I say it is an epiphenomenon is that if there is no reason to evolve it, then human behavior would be unaltered with its absence.� Thus its presence makes no difference one way or the other according to his theory.
��� I did not see the post that implied that so I cannot comment.
[SPK]
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences.� Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics.� Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world.� It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual.� Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum.� Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics.� This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
��� About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
��� Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se,
Could there not be universes devoid of conscious observers internal to them?� We can come to know about some of these universes through math at least, even if they contain no self-aware patterns.
��� DId you notice that I distinguish consciousness from self-awareness? Consciousness can be purely passive. A thermometer is conscious. Self-awareness requires some form of self-modeling to be included in consciousness.
�
as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
��� It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
Why does it have to take place in zero time?
[SPK]
��� Becasue the computation of the infinite NP-Complete problem had to finish BEFORE the Harmony could be created. One cannot travel the shortest route between N cities if one does not know which road to take first. One does not begin to built a house before the construction plans are finished, no? Leibniz's Harmony was a "orchestration" that required all possible universes to be compared to each other to find (at least!) the universe where soemething like us existed. We ahev this neat thing in physics called the Principle of least action. The actual path of a trajectory is the one that follows the least action of the Lagrangian, if I may use that crude portrayal of classical physics. How is it possible for this universe where all trajectories automatically follow the least action path and has no White Rabbits (that we ahve seen so far) and has universal laws of physics be considered as an orchestration without doing the computation of the precise initial conditions and boundaries that would induce it to the point that Leibniz could write out his thoughts in a form that we can tread, think and write about here and now?
��� I am critiquing Leibniz's idea here, not advocating it per se, but offering an alternative, a rehibilitation if you like. My point is that the notion of a pre-established harmony has a meaning and this meaning has implications.� The word Leibniz used was "pre-established harmony" (at least the English version of it); "pre" as in before, established as in creating the universe. These implications are rather simple to understand. How is the "harmony" found among the ensemble of possible harmonies? How is the discovery of such possible such that it can be known, by God, *before* he established the initial conditions of the universe. How does one know how to create X before X can be known? Did he just "will it into existence"? This is a logical contradiction. Could it be that you cannot see this because you conflate existence of X with the definiteness of the properties of X?
��� Is God able to contradict logical necessity? I rejected fundamentalist Christianity for less when I realized that the belief system that I was raised in as a child was full of logical contradictions! Am I to allow myself to believe similar nonsense, even if packaged in a "secular" wrapper? NO!
The problem for best of all worlds as I see it, is to evaluate a universe, God has to see what happens in it, and this requires implementing the conscious beings within it.� Therefore all possible worlds would be realized and experienced by its inhabitants during the search for the best of all possible worlds.
�
��� The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-complete doesn't mean it takes forever to complete, just possibly exponential amount of time.
[SPK]
��� The number of possible universes in Leibniz' ensemble of "best possible worlds" was at least countably infinite, thus the number of variables of the NP-Complete problem was at least aleph-null.� How many steps does a computation of an NP-Complete problem require? At least one, even given an infinite parallel computer with an infinite quantity of resources.� We can think of resources as memory states and can bypass other resource and thermodynamic requirements by considering the computer as perfectly reversible, but wait...� where are those memory states going to exist prior to the creation of the universe? How exactly does a memory state exist if there are no universes of matter that allow for some form of invariance under transitivity such that a read/write operation can be uniquely related to a particular digit in the algorithm string?
��� 1 does not equal 0.
��� Now I could see that you might discount this by appealing to an ideal Turing machine, it does not need resources to perform a computation of arbitrary length. Heck, it can "write on the walls of Platonia" if it needs too. It has no limitations at all! Really?
�it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or� "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p. ��
��� One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions � bits of strings � that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
��� ��� Recall how Observer moments are finite? Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite.� Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication!
There are universes just like this one whose initial condition was this universes as it existed 1 second ago.� I think these are much rarer however than universes with more uniform initial conditions.� (There are many times more combinations than our present highly ordered (evolved) state).
[SPK]
��� OK, so? How does the term "rarer" have a meaning in an infinite ensemble? What form of the axiom of choice does God pick so that he can know the difference between rare and not so rare? Do you understand the measure problem? It has been mentioned before on this list...
�
(Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
[SPK]
I think there is potential for more variation.� What do the beings who live under Europa's ice sheets see?� Or what about those beings who are blind and only hear (or universes in which there is no such thing as light)?
��� More, less... what is the difference?
[SPK]
Our universe is not middle aged compared to how long it might last.� (Then again, we may be in a simulation so we can't really know how old the universe is really).
�
��� And you know this, how?
[SPK]--
��� This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or,� by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself, albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Onward!
Stephen
Y
--
��� This is not a contest of "Who is the most clever" for me.
Onward!
Stephen
Roger Granet
Sep 23, 2011, 1:37:59 AM9/23/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
Bruno,
Hi. Yes, I am pretty much a materialist/physicalist. When people say that there are these mathematical truths, platonic ideals, etc. that exist somewhere, I always say: Show me where they are. Point them out now. So, while nobody can disprove the existence of these things, we can't really do much with them either it seems to me. There just more of the things people claim to exist but can provide no evidence for. However, I admit that I can also never directly prove my ideas about what used to be called "non-existence" because no person or minds would be present there. All we can do is use our unprovable, but hopefully logical, hypotheses to build internally consistent models that are consistent with known
facts and that eventually can make testable predictions. This is where I want to work towards because otherwise, it's all just talk.
In regards to consciousness, I feel pretty much the same. Consciousness is just the output of all the neurons, neural circuits, ion gradients, etc. in your brain. Again, if it's something else, I'd say: Show me where this consciousness/mind is that's not in the brain. My views may be colored by my job as a biochemist, though. But, I'm guessing that most people in science may feel this way.
For trying to think of why there is something rather than nothing, I don't think there can be any postulated conscious observer other than some physical property intrinsic to whatever existent state we're considering. Otherwise, that doesn't explain where the observer comes
from.
Thanks.
Roger
From: Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Yes, but the ability to put a boundary around what we comprehend is a non trivial mind mechanism. Brains (people) and Turing machine (the 1-person linked to it) can do that, but not an empty set by itself. You are using a rich metalevel to justify a less rich level, but your theory needs both the level and the metalevel.
>>> existence to the thing. In regard to the second question, "Why istheresomething rather than nothing?", "nothing", or non-existence, is
>>> first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time,
>>> thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think
>>> about this lack-of-all. It is then shown that this non-existence
>>> itself, not our mind's conception of non-existence, is the complete
>>> description, or definition, of what is present. That is, no energy,
>>> no matter, no volume, no space, no time, no thoughts, etc., in and of
>>> itself, describes, defines, or tells you, exactly what is present.
>>> Therefore, as a complete definition of what is present, "nothing", or
>>> non-existence, is actually an existent state. So, what has
>>> traditionally been thought of as "nothing", or non-existence, is, when
>>> seen from a different perspective, an existent state or "something".
>>> Said yet another way, non-existence can appear as either "nothing" or
>>> "something" depending on the perspective of the observer. Another
>>> argument is also presented that reaches this same conclusion.
>>> Finally, this reasoning is used to form a primitive model of the
>>> universe via what I refer to as "philosophical engineering".
>
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Bruno Marchal
Sep 23, 2011, 10:24:44 AM9/23/11
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On 22 Sep 2011, at 20:01, meekerdb wrote:
On 9/22/2011 10:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:I think what Bruno calls the 323 principle is questionable.
Can I deduce from this that UDA1-7 is understood. This shows already that either the universe is "little" or physics is (already) a branch of computer science (even if there is a physical universe).
It doesn't comport with QM. Bruno gets around this by noting that computationally a classical computer can emulate a quantum system. But I think that assumes an *isolated* quantum system.
Why?
Because the quantum entanglement is in principle unbounded and so it would take an infinite classical computer to emulate exactly.
That would only make the comp level *very* low, unless the physical universe is infinite from the start, and "I" (my 3-I, my body) is that "universe". A tiny classical universal machine, in a steady growing universe can emulate a quantum big-bang+expansion, as the UD does infinitely often.
In practice we are always satisfied with good approximations. The Hilbert space has N dimensions representing the configurations we calculate. We don't include an N+1st dimension to include "something else happens"; but it is implicitly there.
All real quantum systems big enough to be quasi-classical systems are impossible to isolate.
But then you have to assume that your brain is some infinite quantum system (but then comp is false).
Maybe not infinite but arbitrarily entangled with part of the universe which is finite but expanding.
See above.
So I'm afraid this pushes the substitution level all the way down.
Yes, I'm afraid that will be the case.
I tend to look at that as a reductio; but I'm not sure where the error is. I think it is in not allowing that one need only *approximate* the function of the brain module the doctor replaces.
But this plead for comp.
But the idea of digital approximation is fuzzy. The digital computation itself has no fuzz.
I am not sure I understand. Comp implies always a choice for some truncation. Once done, it has indeed no fuzz, and that is enough to chose a classical level of description of "my body", for which the 323-principle will be applicable. It seems to me.
Bruno
Brent
Bruno
If it's all the way down, then as Craig notes, there's really no difference between emulation and duplication.
But then you are, like Craig, assuming that mechanism is false. This is my point, if we want primitive matter, comp is false. (or comp implies no primitive matter, or the falsity of physicalism).
Bruno Marchal
Sep 23, 2011, 10:53:46 AM9/23/11
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On 23 Sep 2011, at 05:18, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/22/2011 9:04 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
[SPK]
Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
[SPK]
Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in common. To me there is a big difference between saying first person experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am not sure which).
That is your opinion and I accept it as such.
Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as: only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel, think, understand, etc.
[SPK]
Umm, "does not reject the physical laws as curently understood", really? Where is there any sign of compliance with thermodynamic laws? Nevermind, math need not comply with physical law, especially if it is used to deny the reality of physical law... Nice dodge! But that would be a bone-headed and crude assessment of Bruno's result. My critisism of Bruno's result is the same as the critisism that I have for all forms of ideal monism. It reduces matter to an epiphenomena and thereby negating any causal or even meaningful role. What difference does our existence as carbon based organisms if we are merely "the dreams of numbers", why do numbers even bother having dreams? They exist, and according to Bruno, Arithmetic is all that is necessary to exist.
Thanks for using the word "result", which is the accurate one. But then again, if you doubt about the *result*, you have to find the flaw. You can't use your philosophical worries to refute a proof.
Now, your philosophical worries are not founded. The result makes matter the object of a phenomenology or epistemology (that is different from epiphenomenon!).
It makes substancial Matter (primitive matter) just disappear (useless in both *physics* and psychology: a good thing given that primitive matter is a metaphysical concept of Aristotle theology, and that there has never been evidence that it exists, nor has been ever used by any physician (except perhaps the week-end, out of papers).
We are irrelevant phantoms. Our lives are meaningless; to quote the Bard: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
On the contrary. Comp provides a rather transparent interpretation of Plotinus theology. We have free will, and life has meaning. God becomes a soul attractor, etc.
Balderdash!
Am I to accept that as an explanation for my existence? Not without a fight!
Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality.
[SPK]
What is real though? In what level or context? Craig ignores the concept of different levels in his arguments and in our replies. When he says only carbon and oxygen can combust and produce *real* heat, and we tell him sim carbon and sim oxygen can produce *real* heat to the sim observer he expects that heat to appear also in the higher level universe conducting the simulation.
What function of the brain cannot be determined with anything other than a carbon atom? If we can use the behavior of other systems to predict what a carbon would do then the carbon atom is dispensible to the functions and behavior of the brain. You can then argue that this results in a mindless automaton, but then you run into all the funny and absurd issues with philisophical zombies.
I have read worse attempts to weave meaningfulness through the morass of chaos that is our lives. I would like to see your alternative? DO you have an attempted original thought of an explanatory model or some mussings in such a direction?
While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence. And contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say will convince him he is wrong. Only interviewing someone who has received a partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
You (jason) are optimist. I am afraid Craig made clear that even someone (cf. my "sun in law") with a brain prosthesis will not confirm it. I think he admit having "bad faith".
I have met someone who is so much against comp, that he told me that if ever he got an aritificial brain and survive, he will consider that he is dead, and might attend its own funeral!
So even if Craig himself survived with an artificial brain, he will construct sentences like "I am dead, I am a zombie".
Craig just does not argue.
[SPK]
OK, then don't read his post nor comment on them.
My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
Do you agree that computers can be conscious?
[SPK]
Not computers as they are considered by most, but yes, I do.
So, the consequences follows. Matter does not exist primitively, and physics is not the fundamental science. The theology of Aristotle is refuted. And Plato? Not yet.
My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
[SPK]
Okay.
The reason I say it is an epiphenomenon is that if there is no reason to evolve it, then human behavior would be unaltered with its absence. Thus its presence makes no difference one way or the other according to his theory.
I did not see the post that implied that so I cannot comment.
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se,
[SPK]
Could there not be universes devoid of conscious observers internal to them? We can come to know about some of these universes through math at least, even if they contain no self-aware patterns.
DId you notice that I distinguish consciousness from self-awareness? Consciousness can be purely passive. A thermometer is conscious. Self-awareness requires some form of self-modeling to be included in consciousness.
as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
Why does it have to take place in zero time?
[SPK]
Becasue the computation of the infinite NP-Complete problem had to finish BEFORE the Harmony could be created. One cannot travel the shortest route between N cities if one does not know which road to take first. One does not begin to built a house before the construction plans are finished, no? Leibniz's Harmony was a "orchestration" that required all possible universes to be compared to each other to find (at least!) the universe where soemething like us existed. We ahev this neat thing in physics called the Principle of least action. The actual path of a trajectory is the one that follows the least action of the Lagrangian, if I may use that crude portrayal of classical physics. How is it possible for this universe where all trajectories automatically follow the least action path and has no White Rabbits (that we ahve seen so far) and has universal laws of physics be considered as an orchestration without doing the computation of the precise initial conditions and boundaries that would induce it to the point that Leibniz could write out his thoughts in a form that we can tread, think and write about here and now?
I am critiquing Leibniz's idea here, not advocating it per se, but offering an alternative, a rehibilitation if you like. My point is that the notion of a pre-established harmony has a meaning and this meaning has implications. The word Leibniz used was "pre-established harmony" (at least the English version of it); "pre" as in before, established as in creating the universe. These implications are rather simple to understand. How is the "harmony" found among the ensemble of possible harmonies? How is the discovery of such possible such that it can be known, by God, *before* he established the initial conditions of the universe. How does one know how to create X before X can be known? Did he just "will it into existence"? This is a logical contradiction. Could it be that you cannot see this because you conflate existence of X with the definiteness of the properties of X?
Is God able to contradict logical necessity? I rejected fundamentalist Christianity for less when I realized that the belief system that I was raised in as a child was full of logical contradictions! Am I to allow myself to believe similar nonsense, even if packaged in a "secular" wrapper? NO!
The problem for best of all worlds as I see it, is to evaluate a universe, God has to see what happens in it, and this requires implementing the conscious beings within it. Therefore all possible worlds would be realized and experienced by its inhabitants during the search for the best of all possible worlds.
The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-complete doesn't mean it takes forever to complete, just possibly exponential amount of time.
[SPK]
The number of possible universes in Leibniz' ensemble of "best possible worlds" was at least countably infinite, thus the number of variables of the NP-Complete problem was at least aleph-null. How many steps does a computation of an NP-Complete problem require? At least one, even given an infinite parallel computer with an infinite quantity of resources. We can think of resources as memory states and can bypass other resource and thermodynamic requirements by considering the computer as perfectly reversible, but wait... where are those memory states going to exist prior to the creation of the universe? How exactly does a memory state exist if there are no universes of matter that allow for some form of invariance under transitivity such that a read/write operation can be uniquely related to a particular digit in the algorithm string?
1 does not equal 0.
Now I could see that you might discount this by appealing to an ideal Turing machine, it does not need resources to perform a computation of arbitrary length. Heck, it can "write on the walls of Platonia" if it needs too. It has no limitations at all! Really?
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p.
One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions – bits of strings – that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Recall how Observer moments are finite? Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite. Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication!
There are universes just like this one whose initial condition was this universes as it existed 1 second ago. I think these are much rarer however than universes with more uniform initial conditions. (There are many times more combinations than our present highly ordered (evolved) state).
[SPK]
OK, so? How does the term "rarer" have a meaning in an infinite ensemble? What form of the axiom of choice does God pick so that he can know the difference between rare and not so rare? Do you understand the measure problem? It has been mentioned before on this list...
[SPK](Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
I think there is potential for more variation. What do the beings who live under Europa's ice sheets see? Or what about those beings who are blind and only hear (or universes in which there is no such thing as light)?
More, less... what is the difference?
Our universe is not middle aged compared to how long it might last. (Then again, we may be in a simulation so we can't really know how old the universe is really).
To Jason (and Stephen): I am still not sure, but I do think that comp entails that the physical universe might be infinitely old. The intuition comes from the fact that matter and time emerges from *all* the computations. Somehow, self-observation enlarge the past. I am not sure because some "arithmetical conspiracy" cannot be excluded, so it is just a reasonable feeling.
This would not mean that there is no big bang, but the big bang might be the result of something else. A student of me told me that in plasma physics they have models where the big bang is a product of a a huge gravitational collapse, and that they can explain the cohesion of galaxies without using dark matter, in an infinitely old cosmos, but I am not an expert in Plasma.
Bruno
[SPK]
And you know this, how?
[SPK]--
This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or, by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself, albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Onward!
Stephen
Y
--
This is not a contest of "Who is the most clever" for me.
Onward!
Stephen
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Bruno Marchal
Sep 23, 2011, 10:24:49 AM9/23/11
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On 22 Sep 2011, at 21:12, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.[SPK]
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic.
I am not sure what you are saying. I just give a deductive argument that if my (generalized) brain can be emulated by a material digital device, then physics is a branch of number's psychology, itself a branch of number theory (or combinator theory, etc.).
Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
My argument does not depend on interpretation. That is why it is a proof.
Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things,
It is. Or you have to find the flaw. I am, as always, open to search it with you, step by step.
it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality.
We have no choice. Of course, we can, like Craig, just assume that comp is false.
What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics)
I think you have good intuition here, but you need to develop them. Note that there are semantic of G and S4Grz in term of totally disconnected Hausdorff spaces, or the Cantor scattered space which ground that intuition, and the Stone duality, in the frame of self-reference, as I think I have already told you (work of Blok and Esakia).
both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics.
The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Jason said that Craig's theory entails consciousness is an epiphenomenon. I wait Craig's reply, given that he gives a role to the subjectivity. It "insists", Craig told us. No idea what *that* means, but I think he introduce that idea for escaping the accusation of making consciousness an epiphenomenon. To be sure Stathis has convincingly show that Craig is not coherent on this (and so can say anything).
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se, as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-completeness concerns polynomial tractability. I have never understood why you refer to it.
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p.
One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions – bits of strings – that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Consciousness exists, so there is something. It can't be an illusion, given that an illusion requires consciousness. But Russell is right in the sense that the "everything" philosophy minimize the TOE information needed.
Recall how Observer moments are finite?
Not Bostrom 1-OM, which are infinite in the mechanist theories.
3-OM are just (relative) computational states.
Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite. Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication! (Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or, by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself,
A computation does not necessarily simulate itself, although universal machine can simulate their own computations.
albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Kleene's theorem is the tool for cutting the infinite regression in computer science. AUDA's self-reference, and intensional variants of it, is 100% based on this theorem, even if it is hidden in the arithmetical soundness and completeness theorem of Solovay.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
Sep 23, 2011, 11:41:39 AM9/23/11
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Hi Roger,
On 23 Sep 2011, at 07:37, Roger Granet wrote:
Bruno,Hi. Yes, I am pretty much a materialist/physicalist.
So, you cannot defend the idea that the brain (or whatever responsible for our consciousness) is Turing emulable. OK?
When people say that there are these mathematical truths, platonic ideals, etc. that exist somewhere, I always say: Show me where they are. Point them out now.
Mathematical truth is in the mind of persons. And assuming we are machine, mathematical truth is in the mind of numbers relatively to numbers.
Of course we have to assume all elementary arithmetical truth, like "17 is prime". Do you doubt them?
To ask that a number should be somewhere is a category error. Numbers are not space-time object. It means also that you assume space and time, which is a more complex notion than numbers.
I might ask you where is the physical universe, or where is time, where is space. Those are very useful local notion, but to reify them appears to be a gross extrapolation from our sensations. And besides, if the brain works like a machine (at some level), then I can explain why space and time emerges in the mind of some special relative numbers.
So, while nobody can disprove the existence of these things, we can't really do much with them either it seems to me. There just more of the things people claim to exist but can provide no evidence for. However, I admit that I can also never directly prove my ideas about what used to be called "non-existence" because no person or minds would be present there. All we can do is use our unprovable, but hopefully logical, hypotheses to build internally consistent models that are consistent with known facts and that eventually can make testable predictions. This is where I want to work towards because otherwise, it's all just talk.
OK. But then you have to build a sufficiently precise theory, so that we can criticize it. The problem with nothingness is that it is, a priori, just a word, indeed, and to make it precise requires some theory. For example, the quantum vacuum needs the quantum theory. The empty set needs set theory, 0 needs number theory, etc.
In regards to consciousness, I feel pretty much the same. Consciousness is just the output of all the neurons, neural circuits, ion gradients, etc. in your brain.
This is extremely ambiguous. But from the UDP (the universal dovetailer proof), or UDA UD Argument, either the neurons, neural circuits, ion gradients, etc. in your brain, are Turing emulable, and in this case physicalism is refuted, or there are not, in which case you are developing a non mechanist theory (which is something I respect, although I expect such theories to be very complex one, and quite different from everything we know from observation and logic).
Again, if it's something else, I'd say: Show me where this consciousness/mind is that's not in the brain.
It belongs, assuming mechanism, to the infinite number relations that you can derive from addition and multiplication alone.
My views may be colored by my job as a biochemist, though. But, I'm guessing that most people in science may feel this way.
Most people in science, both atheists and christians, take Aristotle theology for granted, or are just influenced bu it, without really knowing. The only progress for Platonist theologians is that instead of being burned alive or bannished, they are just ignored. I'm not even sure that it is a progress, actually. To be sure I am not talking about my own work, which has been verified by courageous scientists, ---I have been lucky, but on the whole history since the closure of Plato Academy in Athena (about 500 after JC).
What does not help today is the abyssal gap between the logicians and the physicists.
For trying to think of why there is something rather than nothing, I don't think there can be any postulated conscious observer other than some physical property intrinsic to whatever existent state we're considering. Otherwise, that doesn't explain where the observer comes from.
I am afraid you are begging the question by assuming something physical. Where does *that* come from. What is it.
Mechanism can explain were both matter/space/time, and subjectivity arise come from. They are derived from the addition and
multiplication laws of natural numbers. The origin is not direct, nor physical in any sense, but is made possible by the self-referential ability that some numbers display. The details of that explanation needs some amount of theoretical computer science. But the argument showing the incompatibility of mechanism and weak materialism (the doctrine saying that primitive matter exists) is accessible to anyone with enough patience + a passive understanding of Church thesis.
You might try to understand the 8 steps proof given here:
Thanks.
You are welcome,
Bruno
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Pzomby
Sep 23, 2011, 1:13:22 PM9/23/11
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On Sep 23, 8:41 am, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> Hi Roger,
>
> On 23 Sep 2011, at 07:37, Roger Granet wrote:
>
> > Bruno,
>
> > Hi. Yes, I am pretty much a materialist/physicalist.
>
> So, you cannot defend the idea that the brain (or whatever responsible
> for our consciousness) is Turing emulable. OK?
>
When you state “that the brain (or whatever responsible for our
consciousness) is Turing emulable”…in using the term Turing “emulable”
do you mean that the brain is being imitated, is represented, is an
instantiation, or something stronger such as the Turing machine
actually having inducted number properties of “encoded” information.
Could you clarify why the term Turing “emulable” is used and not
Turing “represented” or Turing “instantiated” or even Turing
“encoded”?
Thanks
Craig Weinberg
Sep 23, 2011, 1:25:47 PM9/23/11
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On Sep 22, 9:04 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
and arithmetic are metaphysical abstractions. The sense capability not
only extends to all substance (anything that you can detect in public
also has an undetectable private interiority) but it is sense which
defines substance in the first place.
Reality is made of feelings of reality in addition to the arithmetic
correspondences of those feelings, as opposed to feeling being an
abstraction which inexplicably and redundantly arises from computation
alone. The feeling has it's own experiential ontology.
>
> Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws
> as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as:
> only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel,
> think, understand, etc.
We know for a fact that color blindness occurs as a result of material
differences in people's retina. We also know that you cannot see red
on a black and white TV set. I don't understand that the assertion
that only certain materials can experience red is controversial. Do
you have a counterfactual?
That no computer program can feel is not possible to verify without
directly connecting your brain to a computer, but it's not much of a
stretch to see that it is of course true. I've illustrated many
reductio ad absurdum examples of attributing feeling to programmatic
logic:
- the DVD player would have to watch movies with us,
- the ventriloquist dummy would have to learn it's own act
eventually,
- the trash can with the words THANK YOU stamped on the lid would have
to sincerely mean it,
- you would be tempted to feel remorse if you hurt your computer's
feelings or turned it off before it was ready.
It goes on and on and on. The only counterfactuals that have been
suggested are speculative fiction and promissory materialism.
Conversion disorders and illegibility illustrate that pattern
recognition is not automatically or inevitability provided with
pattern to any particular perceiving subject.
>
> > Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of
> > carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality.
It's not that the properties of carbon are objectively special, it's
that they are special *to us* because the sense that we make is an
elaboration of the sense that organic chemistry makes, and not
inorganic chemistry. Mammals are special to us because we share a
common sense with all mammals (that we don't share with reptiles),
etc.
>
> What is real though? In what level or context? Craig ignores the concept
> of different levels in his arguments and in our replies.
*headdesk* My entire hypothesis is about levels and contexts.
> When he says only
> carbon and oxygen can combust and produce *real* heat,
I don't say that carbon is required for combustion. I just said that
fire requires oxygen by definition, because fire is a way of
describing our perception of oxidation.
> and we tell him sim
> carbon and sim oxygen can produce *real* heat to the sim observer he expects
> that heat to appear also in the higher level universe conducting the
> simulation.
No, I point to that expectation as an absurd consequence of devout
comp. Sim fire cannot produce any kind of heat to a sim observer
unless that observer has sim thermal receptors which are also made of
sim animal flesh, made of sim cells, made of sim organic molecules.
'Heat' does not just appear from a picture of fire - even a really
nicely rendered 3D picture.
>
> What function of the brain cannot be determined with anything other than a
> carbon atom? If we can use the behavior of other systems to predict what a
> carbon would do then the carbon atom is dispensible to the functions and
> behavior of the brain.
So all you have to do is predict what a brick of gold would do and
then the gold itself is dispensable? I can just go to a bank and
explain that I could make simulate gold arithmetically and expect that
to count as a deposit.
You can then argue that this results in a mindless
> automaton, but then you run into all the funny and absurd issues with
> philisophical zombies.
The idea of p-zombies arise out of the a priori assumption of
functionalism. There are no funny or absurd issues with conversion
disorders or HADD.
>
> > While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out
> > of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not
> > about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such
> > "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular
> > properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the
> > details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational
> > universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
>
> Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence. And contrary
> to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
I am the evidence, and so are you. I don't posit anything infinite as
far as I know. You could say that a unique event is infinitely like
itself if you want but it's a rather oblique way of thinking about it.
As I have said before, if you think that anything that I have said is
contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc, then I
know for a fact that you do not understand what I'm saying.
>
> Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses
> ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say
> will convince him he is wrong. Only interviewing someone who has received a
> partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
>
>
If you are able to consider the possibility that I'm not wrong, then
my behavior will make sense. I have not, to my knowledge, ignored
anything that any of you have said, and I try to address each point
directly.
No, human consciousness is a phenomenon which has evolved from hominid
awareness, mammal perception, amphibian feeling...etc all the way down
to cellular sensation and molecular detection. The common thread of
sense is primitive, not an epiphenomenon, and so is substance - it's
equally primitive opposite.
>
> > I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian
> > theater.
>
> Okay.
The problem with the Cartesian theater is that it tries to make
experience into a substance. Like phlogiston, aether, soul, etc. It's
understandable - we want to conceive of ourselves as objects, but my
hypothesis explains that this approach is critically flawed. We are
not a substance, because substance is nothing but our perception of
that which is not us. The duality is total, meaning that matter across
space on one side does not translate into some other kind of
theatrical matter/space on the other side, but rather translates as
the opposite of matter/space: experience/time.
It's a monumental shift in interpretation to realize that energy is in
fact an experience of matter, but it is the truth, and I think any
kind of thought experiment grounded in reality will bear that out.
>
> The reason I say it is an epiphenomenon is that if there is no reason to
> evolve it, then human behavior would be unaltered with its absence. Thus
> its presence makes no difference one way or the other according to his
> theory.
No, there is just no biological reason to evolve it. The presence of
consciousness of course makes all the difference - to us, but it makes
no difference to what we think of as our biology. Human behavior would
be altered by the absence of consciousness because human behavior is
not determined entirely by biological imperatives. It has semantic
imperatives, psychological, mythological, sociopolitical, artistic,
scientific, philosophical agendas.
Craig
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King <stephe...@charter.net>wrote:
>
> > From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between
> > first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of
> > the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what
> > its like to be the material. The first person experience of is
> > indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and
> > can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any
> > third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we
> > are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special
> > properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the
> > basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible,
> > or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
>
> > [SPK]
> > Hi Jason!
>
> > Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different
> > from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the
> > 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very
> > different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
>
> Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are
> what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in
> common. To me there is a big difference between saying first person
> experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense
> capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am
> not sure which).
To me, the difference is that substance physically exists but dreams
>
> > From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between
> > first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of
> > the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what
> > its like to be the material. The first person experience of is
> > indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and
> > can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any
> > third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we
> > are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special
> > properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the
> > basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible,
> > or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
>
> > [SPK]
> > Hi Jason!
>
> > Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different
> > from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the
> > 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very
> > different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
>
> Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are
> what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in
> common. To me there is a big difference between saying first person
> experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense
> capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am
> not sure which).
and arithmetic are metaphysical abstractions. The sense capability not
only extends to all substance (anything that you can detect in public
also has an undetectable private interiority) but it is sense which
defines substance in the first place.
Reality is made of feelings of reality in addition to the arithmetic
correspondences of those feelings, as opposed to feeling being an
abstraction which inexplicably and redundantly arises from computation
alone. The feeling has it's own experiential ontology.
>
> Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws
> as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as:
> only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel,
> think, understand, etc.
differences in people's retina. We also know that you cannot see red
on a black and white TV set. I don't understand that the assertion
that only certain materials can experience red is controversial. Do
you have a counterfactual?
That no computer program can feel is not possible to verify without
directly connecting your brain to a computer, but it's not much of a
stretch to see that it is of course true. I've illustrated many
reductio ad absurdum examples of attributing feeling to programmatic
logic:
- the DVD player would have to watch movies with us,
- the ventriloquist dummy would have to learn it's own act
eventually,
- the trash can with the words THANK YOU stamped on the lid would have
to sincerely mean it,
- you would be tempted to feel remorse if you hurt your computer's
feelings or turned it off before it was ready.
It goes on and on and on. The only counterfactuals that have been
suggested are speculative fiction and promissory materialism.
Conversion disorders and illegibility illustrate that pattern
recognition is not automatically or inevitability provided with
pattern to any particular perceiving subject.
>
> > Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of
> > carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality.
that they are special *to us* because the sense that we make is an
elaboration of the sense that organic chemistry makes, and not
inorganic chemistry. Mammals are special to us because we share a
common sense with all mammals (that we don't share with reptiles),
etc.
>
> What is real though? In what level or context? Craig ignores the concept
> of different levels in his arguments and in our replies.
> When he says only
> carbon and oxygen can combust and produce *real* heat,
fire requires oxygen by definition, because fire is a way of
describing our perception of oxidation.
> and we tell him sim
> carbon and sim oxygen can produce *real* heat to the sim observer he expects
> that heat to appear also in the higher level universe conducting the
> simulation.
comp. Sim fire cannot produce any kind of heat to a sim observer
unless that observer has sim thermal receptors which are also made of
sim animal flesh, made of sim cells, made of sim organic molecules.
'Heat' does not just appear from a picture of fire - even a really
nicely rendered 3D picture.
>
> What function of the brain cannot be determined with anything other than a
> carbon atom? If we can use the behavior of other systems to predict what a
> carbon would do then the carbon atom is dispensible to the functions and
> behavior of the brain.
then the gold itself is dispensable? I can just go to a bank and
explain that I could make simulate gold arithmetically and expect that
to count as a deposit.
You can then argue that this results in a mindless
> automaton, but then you run into all the funny and absurd issues with
> philisophical zombies.
functionalism. There are no funny or absurd issues with conversion
disorders or HADD.
>
> > While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out
> > of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not
> > about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such
> > "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular
> > properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the
> > details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational
> > universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
>
> Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence. And contrary
> to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
far as I know. You could say that a unique event is infinitely like
itself if you want but it's a rather oblique way of thinking about it.
As I have said before, if you think that anything that I have said is
contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc, then I
know for a fact that you do not understand what I'm saying.
>
> Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses
> ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say
> will convince him he is wrong. Only interviewing someone who has received a
> partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
>
>
my behavior will make sense. I have not, to my knowledge, ignored
anything that any of you have said, and I try to address each point
directly.
awareness, mammal perception, amphibian feeling...etc all the way down
to cellular sensation and molecular detection. The common thread of
sense is primitive, not an epiphenomenon, and so is substance - it's
equally primitive opposite.
>
> > I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian
> > theater.
>
> Okay.
experience into a substance. Like phlogiston, aether, soul, etc. It's
understandable - we want to conceive of ourselves as objects, but my
hypothesis explains that this approach is critically flawed. We are
not a substance, because substance is nothing but our perception of
that which is not us. The duality is total, meaning that matter across
space on one side does not translate into some other kind of
theatrical matter/space on the other side, but rather translates as
the opposite of matter/space: experience/time.
It's a monumental shift in interpretation to realize that energy is in
fact an experience of matter, but it is the truth, and I think any
kind of thought experiment grounded in reality will bear that out.
>
> The reason I say it is an epiphenomenon is that if there is no reason to
> evolve it, then human behavior would be unaltered with its absence. Thus
> its presence makes no difference one way or the other according to his
> theory.
consciousness of course makes all the difference - to us, but it makes
no difference to what we think of as our biology. Human behavior would
be altered by the absence of consciousness because human behavior is
not determined entirely by biological imperatives. It has semantic
imperatives, psychological, mythological, sociopolitical, artistic,
scientific, philosophical agendas.
Craig
Stephen P. King
Sep 23, 2011, 10:22:00 PM9/23/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/23/2011 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 22 Sep 2011, at 21:12, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
���� Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.[SPK]
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality.� Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material.� The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. � While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry.� Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.�
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
�� Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic.
I am not sure what you are saying. I just give a deductive argument that if my (generalized) brain can be emulated by a material digital device, then physics is a branch of number's psychology, itself a branch of number theory (or combinator theory, etc.).
Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
My argument does not depend on interpretation. That is why it is a proof.
Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things,
It is. Or you have to find the flaw. I am, as always, open to search it with you, step by step.
it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality.
We have no choice. Of course, we can, like Craig, just assume that comp is false.
What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
��� My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
��� My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics)
I think you have good intuition here, but you need to develop them. Note that there are semantic of G and S4Grz in term of totally disconnected Hausdorff spaces, or the Cantor scattered space which ground that intuition, and the Stone duality, in the frame of self-reference, as I think I have already told you (work of Blok and Esakia).
both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics.
The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
��� Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
���
��� This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Jason said that Craig's theory entails consciousness is an epiphenomenon. I wait Craig's reply, given that he gives a role to the subjectivity. It "insists", Craig told us. No idea what *that* means, but I think he introduce that idea for escaping the accusation of making consciousness an epiphenomenon. To be sure Stathis has convincingly show that Craig is not coherent on this (and so can say anything).
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
���� I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences.� Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics.� Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world.� It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual.� Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum.� Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics.� This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
��� About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
��� Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se, as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
��� It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
��� The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-completeness concerns polynomial tractability. I have never understood why you refer to it.
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or� "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p. ��
��� One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions � bits of strings � that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Consciousness exists, so there is something. It can't be an illusion, given that an illusion requires consciousness. But Russell is right in the sense that the "everything" philosophy minimize the TOE information needed.�
��� ��� Recall how Observer moments are finite?
Not Bostrom 1-OM, which are infinite in the mechanist theories.�
3-OM are just (relative) computational states.
Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite.� Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication! (Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
��� This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or,� by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself,
A computation does not necessarily simulate itself, although universal machine can simulate their own computations.�
albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Kleene's theorem is the tool for cutting the infinite regression in computer science. AUDA's self-reference, and intensional variants of it, is 100% based on this theorem, even if it is hidden in the arithmetical soundness and completeness theorem of Solovay.
Bruno
--
Hi Bruno,
��� I will give you a proper response tomorrow. Meanwhile could you check out this http://standish.stanford.edu/bin/object;jsessionid=7DAFF97794C811E9D29104D51BAF744B?00000071
Onward!
Stephen
Jason Resch
Sep 23, 2011, 11:23:59 PM9/23/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Sep 23, 2011, at 12:25 PM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Sep 22, 9:04 pm, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
Both of these are a result of no information representing a difference
(in the colors) making it to the brain.
> I don't understand that the assertion
> that only certain materials can experience red is controversial. Do
> you have a counterfactual?
Red light isn't needed to experience red.
>
>
> That no computer program can feel is not possible to verify without
> directly connecting your brain to a computer, but it's not much of a
> stretch to see that it is of course true. I've illustrated many
> reductio ad absurdum examples of attributing feeling to programmatic
> logic:
You've given absurd examples, not reductio ad absurdam proofs.
>
>
> - the DVD player would have to watch movies with us,
> - the ventriloquist dummy would have to learn it's own act
> eventually,
> - the trash can with the words THANK YOU stamped on the lid would have
> to sincerely mean it,
> - you would be tempted to feel remorse if you hurt your computer's
> feelings or turned it off before it was ready.
These don't follow at all.
Okay so you agree that if we simulated an observer and their tissues,
cells, atoms, etc. then it would be heat to the sim obsever?
>
> 'Heat' does not just appear from a picture of fire - even a really
> nicely rendered 3D picture.
Sure, I agree.
>
>
>>
>> What function of the brain cannot be determined with anything other
>> than a
>> carbon atom? If we can use the behavior of other systems to
>> predict what a
>> carbon would do then the carbon atom is dispensible to the
>> functions and
>> behavior of the brain.
>
> So all you have to do is predict what a brick of gold would do and
> then the gold itself is dispensable? I can just go to a bank and
> explain that I could make simulate gold arithmetically and expect that
> to count as a deposit.
You can't take the stuff in your dreams with you when you wake up. We
can access a universe full of gold through simulation, but the only
thing we can take from it is information.
>
>
> You can then argue that this results in a mindless
>> automaton, but then you run into all the funny and absurd issues with
>> philisophical zombies.
>
> The idea of p-zombies arise out of the a priori assumption of
> functionalism. There are no funny or absurd issues with conversion
> disorders or HADD.
>
>>
>>> While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine
>>> equivalents out
>>> of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical
>>> world is not
>>> about computations that do not require resources or can run
>>> forever or such
>>> "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular
>>> properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all
>>> of the
>>> details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational
>>> universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
>>
>> Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence. And
>> contrary
>> to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
>
> I am the evidence, and so are you. I don't posit anything infinite as
> far as I know.
If there are no infinities then a Turing machine can reproduce
function. If functional behavior can be replicated and and there is
no consciousness then the result is a p-zombie.
> You could say that a unique event is infinitely like
> itself if you want but it's a rather oblique way of thinking about it.
> As I have said before, if you think that anything that I have said is
> contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc, then I
> know for a fact that you do not understand what I'm saying.
>
>>
>> Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his
>> responses
>> ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing
>> we say
>> will convince him he is wrong. Only interviewing someone who has
>> received a
>> partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
>>
>>
> If you are able to consider the possibility that I'm not wrong, then
> my behavior will make sense. I have not, to my knowledge, ignored
> anything that any of you have said, and I try to address each point
> directly.
You respond to the things I say, but without taking into consideration
the consequences that are implied and what it means for your theory.
Jason
Stephen P. King
Sep 24, 2011, 12:45:23 AM9/24/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/23/2011 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 22 Sep 2011, at 21:12, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
���� Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.[SPK]
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality.� Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material.� The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. � While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry.� Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.�
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
�� Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic.
I am not sure what you are saying. I just give a deductive argument that if my (generalized) brain can be emulated by a material digital device, then physics is a branch of number's psychology, itself a branch of number theory (or combinator theory, etc.).
[SPK]
��� I understand and follow that argument. My problem is that I cannot get my mental picture to work for this argument in the case of multiple entities. This is why I have claimed that your argument is correct but solipsistic. To my shame I do not know how to translate my mental pictures into writen symbolic representations yet. I am still learning the proper mathematical language. I may have mentioned before that my thought are like proprioceptive sensations and visual images and my memory dyslexia makes learning symbolic languages very difficult.
��� Just today I found some of my old notes and references. I didn't understand these at the time but I knew that they where important. Now I do understand them a a bit more and I believe that I might be able to show the problem that I am thinking of for you, but it is not easy.
Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
My argument does not depend on interpretation. That is why it is a proof.
[SPK]
��� I understand that, but logically consistent results can follow from false premises. My problem is in the assumptions that you are making in your initial premises, that numbers (or equivalent) and arithmetic can exist as ontological primitives and that computations do not require some form of physical implementation. What I see is that neither numbers nor matter is primitive, both are emergent in a way from a neutral primitive that is neither. My reasoning follows lines similar to those that Bertrand Russell used in his idea of neutral monism.
��� I understand that, but logically consistent results can follow from false premises. My problem is in the assumptions that you are making in your initial premises, that numbers (or equivalent) and arithmetic can exist as ontological primitives and that computations do not require some form of physical implementation. What I see is that neither numbers nor matter is primitive, both are emergent in a way from a neutral primitive that is neither. My reasoning follows lines similar to those that Bertrand Russell used in his idea of neutral monism.
Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things,
It is. Or you have to find the flaw. I am, as always, open to search it with you, step by step.
[SPK]
��� OK, I accept your challenge. It will help me learn to write the mathematical symbols to do this. I must overcome my disabilities.
��� OK, I accept your challenge. It will help me learn to write the mathematical symbols to do this. I must overcome my disabilities.
it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality.
We have no choice. Of course, we can, like Craig, just assume that comp is false.
[SPK]
��� But I do not thing think that comp is 'false", I think it to be incomplete. My evidence is that comp must assume situations that are in gross conflict with physical reality, such the ability to be implemented without requiring the consumption of resources. Even a perfect reversible computer must have memory available in some fashion.
��� But I do not thing think that comp is 'false", I think it to be incomplete. My evidence is that comp must assume situations that are in gross conflict with physical reality, such the ability to be implemented without requiring the consumption of resources. Even a perfect reversible computer must have memory available in some fashion.
What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
��� My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
��� My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics)
I think you have good intuition here, but you need to develop them. Note that there are semantic of G and S4Grz in term of totally disconnected Hausdorff spaces, or the Cantor scattered space which ground that intuition, and the Stone duality, in the frame of self-reference, as I think I have already told you (work of Blok and Esakia).
[SPK]
��� Thank you, I am studying hard but find that the books are not written in a pedagogical way, they are more like "look-up tables" that one is supposed to memorize. Such memorization has always been impossible for me. :-( With regards to the Blok-Esakia Theorem and isomorphism. Could you recommend a good book? I have found several in Google books. I am also studying the Hennesy-Milner Property, as it is almost exactly what I have in mind with my crude bisimulation algebra.
both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics.
The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
��� Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
���
��� This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Jason said that Craig's theory entails consciousness is an epiphenomenon. I wait Craig's reply, given that he gives a role to the subjectivity. It "insists", Craig told us. No idea what *that* means, but I think he introduce that idea for escaping the accusation of making consciousness an epiphenomenon. To be sure Stathis has convincingly show that Craig is not coherent on this (and so can say anything).
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
���� I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences.� Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics.� Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world.� It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual.� Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum.� Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics.� This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
��� About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
��� Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se, as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
��� It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
��� The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-completeness concerns polynomial tractability. I have never understood why you refer to it.
[SPK]
��� Can you see how the idea of a "harmony" or "orchestration", as Leibniz discussed, is a solution to a Np-complete problem? The fact that it is an optimization problem over N variables where each and every combination of the variables must be compared with every other. I use the ideas found on this wiki page, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem
��� For a computation of the type that Leibniz envisioned, it seems obvious that one must some an NP-complete problem that has an infinite number of variables. It not only has to simulate all possible worlds but it also has to compare all of them to each other so that one can be found that the world is such that there are no observable violations of physical law in it, aka Harry-Potterims or White Rabbits. The Boolean version of this is SAT.
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or� "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p. ��
��� One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions � bits of strings � that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Consciousness exists, so there is something. It can't be an illusion, given that an illusion requires consciousness. But Russell is right in the sense that the "everything" philosophy minimize the TOE information needed.
[SPK]
��� I agree that that is one of the necessary compoments of the process of consciousness, but it alone is insufficient. One's model of consciousness must allow for interactions between multiple minds and recursive self-modeling and maybe more. Compactness of the topological dual spaces also seems necessary.
��� ��� Recall how Observer moments are finite?
Not Bostrom 1-OM, which are infinite in the mechanist theories.�
3-OM are just (relative) computational states.
[SPK]
��� Umm, I forgot about that. I need to understand what motivated Bostom's definition of OMs. I do not understand the concept of 3-OMs. How can the content of experience be public? Your explanation in terms of the diary seems to ignore the fact that without the invariance of structure with respect to transitivity (that matter generates) it is not possible to have a diary or record of any kind, so how can OMs be public in the situation of "(relative) computational states"? How, exactly, are the individual computational states related with each other. I know that you discuss the Goedel's numbering scheme and how it can code relations, but how does this work without the invariance with respect to transitivity to act as a separable mapping between the numbers themselves and the Goedelian Bew(p)? Similarly, how is a computation "implemented" without any notion of transitivity at all?
��� This is what I do not understand of UDA and is why I believe it is incomplete. I see repeated uses of words, in your papers, that imply transitivity but the definitions of computation and arithmetic that you use do not allow it to exist. I am confused! Either Change exists or it does not!
Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite.� Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication! (Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
��� This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or,� by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself,
A computation does not necessarily simulate itself, although universal machine can simulate their own computations.
[SPK]
��� I agree, I am pointing to the universal machines in this claim about the Cartesian theater. This is the reason why I claim that self-awareness and consciousness are this identical. Self-awareness requires universality whereas basic consciousness does not. So this implies that there are 1-OM that do not involve self-awareness at all. It is this idea that I see replicated in Graig's idea of "sense".
albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Kleene's theorem is the tool for cutting the infinite regression in computer science. AUDA's self-reference, and intensional variants of it, is 100% based on this theorem, even if it is hidden in the arithmetical soundness and completeness theorem of Solovay.
[SPK]
��� Ah yes, the beautiful Kleene recursion theorems. But it seems that they only work for well-founded set theories. This is the source of the measurement problem that you face, it is demonstrated well by the Banach-Tarsky paradox. Bisimulation requires non-well founded logics and sets generally, so this method of preventing regress is not available. There are alternatives but they are not so easy to state.
Onward!
Stephen
��� Ah yes, the beautiful Kleene recursion theorems. But it seems that they only work for well-founded set theories. This is the source of the measurement problem that you face, it is demonstrated well by the Banach-Tarsky paradox. Bisimulation requires non-well founded logics and sets generally, so this method of preventing regress is not available. There are alternatives but they are not so easy to state.
Onward!
Stephen
Bruno
Stephen P. King
Sep 24, 2011, 1:00:42 AM9/24/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/23/2011 10:53 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 23 Sep 2011, at 05:18, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/22/2011 9:04 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
���� Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.[SPK]
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality.� Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material.� The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. � While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry.� Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.�
[SPK]
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
�� Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in common.� To me there is a big difference between saying first person experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am not sure which).
��� That is your opinion and I accept it as such.
Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as: only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel, think, understand, etc.
[SPK]�
��� Umm, "does not reject the physical laws as curently understood", really? Where is there any sign of compliance with thermodynamic laws? Nevermind, math need not comply with physical law, especially if it is used to deny the reality of physical law... Nice dodge! But that would be a bone-headed and crude assessment of Bruno's result. My critisism of Bruno's result is the same as the critisism that I have for all forms of ideal monism. It reduces matter to an epiphenomena and thereby negating any causal or even meaningful role. What difference does our existence as carbon based organisms if we are merely "the dreams of numbers", why do numbers even bother having dreams? They exist, and according to Bruno, Arithmetic is all that is necessary to exist.
Thanks for using the word "result", which is the accurate one. But then again, if you doubt about the *result*, you have to find the flaw. You can't use your philosophical worries to refute a proof.
Now, your philosophical worries are not founded. The result makes matter the object of a phenomenology or epistemology (that is different from epiphenomenon!).�
It makes substancial Matter (primitive matter) just disappear (useless in both *physics* and psychology: a good thing given that primitive matter is a metaphysical concept of Aristotle theology, and that there has never been evidence that it exists, nor has been ever used by any physician (except perhaps the week-end, out of papers).
[SPK]
��� Why do you continue to write as if I believe that matter is primitive? My claim is that neither matter nor abstract structures, such as arithmetic, are primitive! You seem to assume that arithmetic is primitive, as did Plato, so I understand your alliance with him.
��� I reject both Aristotle and Plato except as good teachers on the path to better ideas. We must crawl before we can walk before we can fly. ;-) I do like Plato's discussion of the idea of souls and their reincarnation. I have always wanted to ask Plato why he thought that souls needed to be incarnated at all. Why bother with the mortal coil of flesh when the soul is already eternal? Maybe the soul requires incarnation in order to evolve and have meaningful experiences! But this latter idea would conflict with Plato's claim that matter and the flesh are crass and wasteful.
��� We are irrelevant phantoms. Our lives are meaningless; to quote the Bard: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
On the contrary. Comp provides a rather transparent interpretation of Plotinus theology. We have free will, and life has meaning. God becomes a soul attractor, etc.
[SPK]
��� I have no problem with those concepts. In fact I think that your attempts at rehabilitating theology is a good thing that needs to be pursued further. Science and Belief need not conflict.
snip
While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence.� And contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say will convince him he is wrong.� Only interviewing someone who has received a partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
You (jason) are optimist. I am afraid Craig made clear that even someone (cf. my "sun in law") with a brain prosthesis will not confirm it. I think he admit having "bad faith".I have met someone who is so much against comp, that he told me that if ever he got an aritificial brain and survive, he will consider that he is dead, and might attend its own funeral!
So even if Craig himself survived with an artificial brain, he will construct sentences like "I am dead, I am a zombie".�
Craig just does not argue.
[SPK]
��� OK, then don't read his post nor comment on them.
�
��� My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
Do you agree that computers can be conscious?
[SPK]
��� Not computers as they are considered by most, but yes, I do.
So, the consequences follows. Matter does not exist primitively, and physics is not the fundamental science. The theology of Aristotle is refuted. And Plato? Not yet.
[SPK]
��� I think that both where correct but only partly. Plato and Aristotle considered different aspects of Existence as important.
���� My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
��� Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
���
��� This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
[SPK]���� I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
Okay.
The reason I say it is an epiphenomenon is that if there is no reason to evolve it, then human behavior would be unaltered with its absence.� Thus its presence makes no difference one way or the other according to his theory.
��� I did not see the post that implied that so I cannot comment.
[SPK]
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences.� Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics.� Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world.� It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual.� Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum.� Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics.� This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
��� About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
��� Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se,
Could there not be universes devoid of conscious observers internal to them?� We can come to know about some of these universes through math at least, even if they contain no self-aware patterns.
��� DId you notice that I distinguish consciousness from self-awareness? Consciousness can be purely passive. A thermometer is conscious. Self-awareness requires some form of self-modeling to be included in consciousness.
�
as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
��� It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
Why does it have to take place in zero time?
[SPK]
��� Becasue the computation of the infinite NP-Complete problem had to finish BEFORE the Harmony could be created. One cannot travel the shortest route between N cities if one does not know which road to take first. One does not begin to built a house before the construction plans are finished, no? Leibniz's Harmony was a "orchestration" that required all possible universes to be compared to each other to find (at least!) the universe where soemething like us existed. We ahev this neat thing in physics called the Principle of least action. The actual path of a trajectory is the one that follows the least action of the Lagrangian, if I may use that crude portrayal of classical physics. How is it possible for this universe where all trajectories automatically follow the least action path and has no White Rabbits (that we ahve seen so far) and has universal laws of physics be considered as an orchestration without doing the computation of the precise initial conditions and boundaries that would induce it to the point that Leibniz could write out his thoughts in a form that we can tread, think and write about here and now?
��� I am critiquing Leibniz's idea here, not advocating it per se, but offering an alternative, a rehibilitation if you like. My point is that the notion of a pre-established harmony has a meaning and this meaning has implications.� The word Leibniz used was "pre-established harmony" (at least the English version of it); "pre" as in before, established as in creating the universe. These implications are rather simple to understand. How is the "harmony" found among the ensemble of possible harmonies? How is the discovery of such possible such that it can be known, by God, *before* he established the initial conditions of the universe. How does one know how to create X before X can be known? Did he just "will it into existence"? This is a logical contradiction. Could it be that you cannot see this because you conflate existence of X with the definiteness of the properties of X?
��� Is God able to contradict logical necessity? I rejected fundamentalist Christianity for less when I realized that the belief system that I was raised in as a child was full of logical contradictions! Am I to allow myself to believe similar nonsense, even if packaged in a "secular" wrapper? NO!
The problem for best of all worlds as I see it, is to evaluate a universe, God has to see what happens in it, and this requires implementing the conscious beings within it.� Therefore all possible worlds would be realized and experienced by its inhabitants during the search for the best of all possible worlds.
�
��� The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-complete doesn't mean it takes forever to complete, just possibly exponential amount of time.
[SPK]
��� The number of possible universes in Leibniz' ensemble of "best possible worlds" was at least countably infinite, thus the number of variables of the NP-Complete problem was at least aleph-null.� How many steps does a computation of an NP-Complete problem require? At least one, even given an infinite parallel computer with an infinite quantity of resources.� We can think of resources as memory states and can bypass other resource and thermodynamic requirements by considering the computer as perfectly reversible, but wait...� where are those memory states going to exist prior to the creation of the universe? How exactly does a memory state exist if there are no universes of matter that allow for some form of invariance under transitivity such that a read/write operation can be uniquely related to a particular digit in the algorithm string?
��� 1 does not equal 0.
��� Now I could see that you might discount this by appealing to an ideal Turing machine, it does not need resources to perform a computation of arbitrary length. Heck, it can "write on the walls of Platonia" if it needs too. It has no limitations at all! Really?
�
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or� "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p. ��
��� One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions � bits of strings � that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
��� ��� Recall how Observer moments are finite? Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite.� Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication!
There are universes just like this one whose initial condition was this universes as it existed 1 second ago.� I think these are much rarer however than universes with more uniform initial conditions.� (There are many times more combinations than our present highly ordered (evolved) state).
[SPK]
��� OK, so? How does the term "rarer" have a meaning in an infinite ensemble? What form of the axiom of choice does God pick so that he can know the difference between rare and not so rare? Do you understand the measure problem? It has been mentioned before on this list...
�
(Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
[SPK]
I think there is potential for more variation.� What do the beings who live under Europa's ice sheets see?� Or what about those beings who are blind and only hear (or universes in which there is no such thing as light)?
��� More, less... what is the difference?
Our universe is not middle aged compared to how long it might last.� (Then again, we may be in a simulation so we can't really know how old the universe is really).
To Jason (and Stephen): I am still not sure, but I do think that comp entails that the physical universe might be infinitely old. The intuition comes from the fact that matter and time emerges from *all* the computations. Somehow, self-observation enlarge the past. I am not sure because some "arithmetical conspiracy" cannot be excluded, so it is just a reasonable feeling.This would not mean that there is no big bang, but the big bang might be the result of something else. A student of me told me that in plasma physics they have models where the big bang is a product of a a huge gravitational collapse, and that they can explain the cohesion of galaxies without using dark matter, in an infinitely old cosmos, but I am not an expert in Plasma.
Bruno
[SPK]
��� Existence, considered as a primitive cannot have an origin, thus it must be eternal. I have studied the plasma global cosmology models and found them a bit too crude and contradicted by observations while the plasma physics model of solar systems, galaxies, and other structures within our cosmos are very nice indeed.
Onward!
Stephen
Roger Granet
Sep 24, 2011, 2:12:49 AM9/24/11
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Bruno,
Hi. My responses are:
>Mathematical truth is in the mind of persons. And assuming we are machine, mathematical truth is in the mind >of numbers relatively to numbers. Of course we have to assume all elementary arithmetical truth, like "17 is ><prime". Do you
doubt them?
Roger: When you say "Mathematical truth is in the mind of persons", this was the very point I was making. I don't think there can exist mathematical truths in some platonic realm somewhere. They're in the mind, which is a physical thing, and humans created them as a way of describing physical things. But, as you know, many physicists and others think that mathematical and physical laws exist independent of all else. When they can show us where they exist, I'll be willing to accept their argument. I'm not sure where you're getting that I don't accept truths like "17 is prime". I didn't say that. All I'm saying is that these truths don't have independent existence outside of everything else that exists.
If the truths exist, they're just one part of the overall set of existent things that is what we're all trying to figure out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>To ask that a number should be somewhere is a category error. Numbers are not space-time object. It means >also that you assume space and time, which is a more complex notion than numbers.
Roger: See above.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>So, while nobody can disprove the existence of these things, we can't really do much with them either it seems >to me. There just more of the things people claim to exist but can provide no evidence for. However, I admit >that I can also never directly prove my ideas about what used to be called "non-existence" because no person >or minds would be present there. All we can do is use our unprovable, but hopefully logical, hypotheses to >build internally consistent models that are consistent with known facts
and that eventually can make testable >predictions. This is where I want to work towards because otherwise, it's all just talk.
>OK. But then you have to build a sufficiently precise theory, so that we can criticize it. The problem with >nothingness is that it is, a priori, just a word, indeed, and to make it precise requires some theory. For example, >the quantum vacuum needs the quantum theory. The empty set needs set theory, 0 needs number theory, etc.
Roger: This is what I just said in the comment you were responding to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>In regards to consciousness, I feel pretty much the same. Consciousness is just the output of all the neurons, >neural circuits, ion gradients, etc. in your brain.
>This is extremely ambiguous. But from the UDP (the universal dovetailer proof), or UDA UD Argument, >either the neurons, neural circuits, ion
gradients, etc. in your brain, are Turing emulable, and in this case >physicalism is refuted, or there are not, in which case you are developing a non mechanist theory (which is >something I respect, although I expect such theories to be very complex one, and quite different from >everything we know from observation and logic).
Roger: How is this ambiguous? No one yet knows exactly the biochemical mechanisms that produce consciousness, but it's clear to most biochemists, at least, that consciousness is a product of the physical stuff inside the head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Again, if it's something else, I'd say: Show me where this consciousness/mind is that's not in the brain.
>It belongs, assuming mechanism, to the infinite number relations that you can derive from addition and >multiplication alone.
Roger: Hmm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>For trying to think of why there is something rather than nothing, I don't think there can be any postulated >conscious observer other than some physical property intrinsic to whatever existent state we're considering. > >Otherwise, that doesn't explain where the observer comes from.
>I am afraid you are begging the question by assuming something physical. Where does *that* come from. >What is it. Mechanism can explain were both matter/space/time, and subjectivity arise come from. They are >derived from the addition and multiplication laws of natural numbers. The origin is not direct, nor physical in >any sense, but is made possible by the self-referential ability that some numbers display. The details of that >explanation needs some amount of theoretical computer science. But
the argument showing the incompatibility >of mechanism and weak materialism (the doctrine saying that primitive matter exists) is accessible to anyone >with enough patience + a passive understanding of Church thesis.
>You might try to understand the 8 steps proof given >here http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html
Roger: I don't
have time to read your whole paper, but from near the beginning, it looks like it's based on the comp idea which assumes arithmetical realism:
"This is the assumption that arithmetical proposition, like ‘‘1+1=2,’’ or Goldbach conjecture, or the inexistence of a bigger prime, or the statement that some digital machine will stop, or any Boolean formula bearing on numbers, are true independently of me, you, humanity, the physical universe (if that exists), etc."
As above, I'd say this is possible, but show me where these arithmetical propositions are that are independent of everything else. As you say, it's just another assumption.
Overall, I don't think it really matters if it's physical stuff or mind, machine psychology, or arithmetical propositions that are the basis of our existence. Whatever it is that's the basis, it exists, and the whole point of this thread was about trying to figure out why it exists instead of not existing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Thanks.
>You are welcome,
Roger: Real nice there, dude.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason Resch
Sep 24, 2011, 3:07:41 AM9/24/11
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Bruno,Hi. My responses are:>Mathematical truth is in the mind of persons. And assuming we are machine, mathematical truth is in the mind >of numbers relatively to numbers. Of course we have to assume all elementary arithmetical truth, like "17 is ><prime". Do you doubt them?Roger: When you say "Mathematical truth is in the mind of persons", this was the very point I was making. I don't think there can exist mathematical truths in some platonic realm somewhere. They're in the mind, which is a physical thing, and humans created them as a way of describing physical things. But, as you know, many physicists and others think that mathematical and physical laws exist independent of all else. When they can show us where they exist, I'll be willing to accept their argument.
In the same way an idea of a chair is not the same thing as a chair. The number 17 is not the same thing as any human's conception of it. Regarding this object we call 17 I ask you at what point it became prime?
Do you believe there exist an infinite number of integers? If so I ask you why should these very large numbers exist if they require a physical basis? There are numbers we cannot physically coceive of by virtue of their size and the finite size of the observable universe. If these large numbers exist, they have no mental or physical existence here.
A final consideration: do you believe Pi has such a value that when Euler's number is raised to the power of (2*Pi*i) the result is 1? Pi has a value which no human has determined, as determinig it requires infinite time and memory. If only those mathematical things known to humans exist, then Pi's true value does not exist.
You ask us to point out the hidden cavern containing scribblings by god for all mathematical truth before you can accept its human-independent existence. But as a scientist do you believe the past exists? How about the space beyond the cosmologicsl horizon? Other branches of the wave function? Other universes implied by string theory? If so, why do you believe in them when it is provably impossible for anyone to point them out for your eyes to see?
You asked why it is that whatever serves as the basis of reality exisys rather than nothing. Arithmatic truth such as the pimality of 17, or the oddness of 9 cannot be any other way. These perfectly clear statements about the numbers must be either true or false, the status of the truth cannot be undefined or non-existent. Or do you disagree?
Thanks,
Jason
Bruno Marchal
Sep 24, 2011, 10:27:55 AM9/24/11
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That's an important but not so easy question to answer, especially
without digging a bit in the computer science (and it is hard for me
to guess what you already know about computer), but I will try to do
my best.
Emulation means "exact simulation". That concept makes sense in the
digital world, for digital processes (although many have attempted to
extend it on a variety of analog devices).
People like Post and Turing have discovered a universal machine or
universal program. Such a program is able to emulate the work of any
other program. So we can say that a (general purpose) computer is also
a universal emulator (leaving open if such a machine can even emulate
just one physical process: in fact comp entails that a computer cannot
emulate *any* physical processes, despite it can simulate them quite
well, at least for short period).
The brain functioning, or a physical computer functioning is a
physical process, and *as such* is not emulable by computers.
But a computer computes, and *that* function is emulable by any other
computer.
Let me give an example. If you write a program computing the
factorial, when you execute it on a computer, the computer will go
through a discrete sequence of step, ending up with the result of some
factorial in some register. Now, any other computer, including humans,
can emulate that digital process, that is do exactly the same
computation, going through the same equivalent step (with a very
narrow notion of equivalence). A human can emulate this with pencil
and papers, for example. This does not mean that a human can emulate
the physical working of a physical von Neumann computer: not only he
will not have the time to emulate the quantum wave responsible for the
stability of the atoms of the von Neuman physical machine, but he
cannot probably emulate the infinity of worlds that such a wave really
describe. So when we say that a computer emulate some machine, it is
always with respect to what such a machine is supposed to be doing.
This is the reason why, with comp, we have to make explicit that an
artificial brain emulate a real brain, at the level here we suppose
the real brain acting like a computer. Comp assumes that such a level
exist. Once such a level is chosen, by the notion of universality, we
can choose any computer for doing that task, with silicon, or with
water, air, pebbles, whatever.
The term "emulable" is used, to remind us, that it means simulable in
some exact way, which makes sense for the digital process.
"Instantiate" is not bad, but is a more general term. If a Toby is
ferocious, he can instantiate a ferocious dog, but you would not say
that he can simulate a ferocious dog exactly. But "instanciate" is OK.
In some context, representation can be used too, but the term can also
have less precise, and more precise, meaning according to the context.
It is usually more statical, less dynamical, than simulation and
emulation. Encoded, is a bit too much precise, and is also rather
statical. You can encoded data in a computer, but if you cannot encode
a computation, unless you do meta-programming, and handle a program
which manipulate a representation of some computation.
For a (crucial) example, Arithmetical truth does both. It emulates
computations (meaning that the "natural" true relation between numbers
does exact simulation of the dynamical evolution of computers, with
digital time emulated by the successor function, but it encoded also
the (finite) pieces of computations (which become statical, like *one*
number). Consciousness supervenes on the computations, but not on the
encoding of computations, which are merely description of computation,
a bit like a movie can describe some happening, but is different from
the happening itself.
For those who knows the phi_i, this can be made more clear. let phi_0,
phi_1, phi_2, ... be an enumeration of the computable functions. Let
phi_i(j)^s be the sth step of the computation of phi_i on argument j.
A computation can be described by the sequence phi_i(j)^0, phi_i(j)^1,
phi_i(j)^2, phi_i(j)^3, phi_i(j)^4, phi_i(j)^5, .... Note that such a
sequence describes a computation, but is not the computation. The
computation is what do the universal machine for relating all those
steps. It is necessarily more abstract than the description. A number
or machine u is universal if phi_u(<x, y>) = phi_x(y). Here we can say
that u, when programmed with x, and when y is given as data, emulates
x. Unless x is itself a universal number, usually x cannot emulate u.
I hope this helps a bit. Don't hesitate to ask if something is still
unclear. It is not so easy to grasp, for some people, the difference
between a computation, and a description of a computation. The modal
logic can be used to explain ... why this is difficult!
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
Sep 24, 2011, 11:12:01 AM9/24/11
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On 24 Sep 2011, at 08:12, Roger Granet wrote:
Bruno,Hi. My responses are:>Mathematical truth is in the mind of persons. And assuming we are machine, mathematical truth is in the mind >of numbers relatively to numbers. Of course we have to assume all elementary arithmetical truth, like "17 is ><prime". Do you doubt them?Roger: When you say "Mathematical truth is in the mind of persons", this was the very point I was making. I don't think there can exist mathematical truths in some platonic realm somewhere. They're in the mind, which is a physical thing,
This is something you assume. It is not obvious, and provably false if we assume that brains are Turing emulable at some level such that we would survived through such an emulation. (this is not entirely obvious, and I explain this from times to times on the list, but you can also take a look on the papers in my url).
and humans created them as a way of describing physical things. But, as you know, many physicists and others think that mathematical and physical laws exist independent of all else. When they can show us where they exist, I'll be willing to accept their argument.
But why do you want that if something exists implies it exists somewhere? This is assuming physicalism, which has been shown incompatible with mechanism.
I'm not sure where you're getting that I don't accept truths like "17 is prime".
Where did I say that. On the contrary I was just asking you the question.
I didn't say that.
I didn't say that you did it.
All I'm saying is that these truths don't have independent existence outside of everything else that exists.
I agree with that statement also, but I guess for a diametrical reason. Mechanism makes not just physicalism false, it makes this in a constructive way: it explains where the appearance of the physical reality comes from. So by assuming things easy things like the laws of addition and multiplication of the natural numbers, we can explain where both the quanta and the qualia arise. To explain the numbers from physics does not work, if only because all physical theory has to assume the numbers (which of course is almost never made explicit by the physicists).
If the truths exist, they're just one part of the overall set of existent things that is what we're all trying to figure out.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>To ask that a number should be somewhere is a category error. Numbers are not space-time object. It means >also that you assume space and time, which is a more complex notion than numbers.Roger: See above.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't see how you answered this above. I do see that you assume a physical reality. But I don't see how you explain the numbers from that, still less the mind.
>So, while nobody can disprove the existence of these things, we can't really do much with them either it seems >to me. There just more of the things people claim to exist but can provide no evidence for. However, I admit >that I can also never directly prove my ideas about what used to be called "non-existence" because no person >or minds would be present there. All we can do is use our unprovable, but hopefully logical, hypotheses to >build internally consistent models that are consistent with known facts and that eventually can make testable >predictions. This is where I want to work towards because otherwise, it's all just talk.>OK. But then you have to build a sufficiently precise theory, so that we can criticize it. The problem with >nothingness is that it is, a priori, just a word, indeed, and to make it precise requires some theory. For example, >the quantum vacuum needs the quantum theory. The empty set needs set theory, 0 needs number theory, etc.Roger: This is what I just said in the comment you were responding to.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know. We agree on that. But then you seem to derive from this that a physical reality exist *primitively*, and that we have to assume time and space, etc. Then what I say, is that for such a physicalism/materialism to be true, you need to make brain and mind both substantial and infinite.
>In regards to consciousness, I feel pretty much the same. Consciousness is just the output of all the neurons, >neural circuits, ion gradients, etc. in your brain.>This is extremely ambiguous. But from the UDP (the universal dovetailer proof), or UDA UD Argument, >either the neurons, neural circuits, ion gradients, etc. in your brain, are Turing emulable, and in this case >physicalism is refuted, or there are not, in which case you are developing a non mechanist theory (which is >something I respect, although I expect such theories to be very complex one, and quite different from >everything we know from observation and logic).Roger: How is this ambiguous? No one yet knows exactly the biochemical mechanisms that produce consciousness, but it's clear to most biochemists, at least, that consciousness is a product of the physical stuff inside the head.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But biochemical activity is explained by quantum mechanics, which is Turing emulable, and so this, by the UDA result, makes phsyicalism wrong.
In fact QM can be (and, assuming we are machine, has to be) explained by addition and multiplication. That has been partially done.
Contrariwise, nobody has been able to explain how consciousness can be the product of anything described by third person notions.
> Again, if it's something else, I'd say: Show me where this consciousness/mind is that's not in the brain.
It leaves on the border of the arithmetical truth, or on the frontier between the computable and the non computable.
The notion of "where" is an indexical based on the notion of "here", which is also an indexical.
>It belongs, assuming mechanism, to the infinite number relations that you can derive from addition and >multiplication alone.Roger: Hmm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a logical consequence of the assumption that "my" brain can be approximated at a digital level, so that I would not feel any difference if a digital device is substituted fro my brain at that level. To assume this false, you have to make the brain infinite, or to assume consciousness in the components of the brain.
>For trying to think of why there is something rather than nothing, I don't think there can be any postulated >conscious observer other than some physical property intrinsic to whatever existent state we're considering. > >Otherwise, that doesn't explain where the observer comes from.>I am afraid you are begging the question by assuming something physical. Where does *that* come from. >What is it. Mechanism can explain were both matter/space/time, and subjectivity arise come from. They are >derived from the addition and multiplication laws of natural numbers. The origin is not direct, nor physical in >any sense, but is made possible by the self-referential ability that some numbers display. The details of that >explanation needs some amount of theoretical computer science. But the argument showing the incompatibility >of mechanism and weak materialism (the doctrine saying that primitive matter exists) is accessible to anyone >with enough patience + a passive understanding of Church thesis.>You might try to understand the 8 steps proof given >here http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.htmlRoger: I don't have time to read your whole paper, but from near the beginning, it looks like it's based on the comp idea which assumes arithmetical realism:"This is the assumption that arithmetical proposition, like ‘‘1+1=2,’’ or Goldbach conjecture, or the inexistence of a bigger prime, or the statement that some digital machine will stop, or any Boolean formula bearing on numbers, are true independently of me, you, humanity, the physical universe (if that exists), etc."As above, I'd say this is possible, but show me where these arithmetical propositions are that are independent of everything else. As you say, it's just another assumption.
But that assumption is used commonly in physics. If "1+1=2" can be derived from physics, without assuming it, then please show this to me. You might begin to give me a physical definition of what is 1, without assuming the usual arithmetical meaning of 1.
Overall, I don't think it really matters if it's physical stuff or mind, machine psychology, or arithmetical propositions that are the basis of our existence. Whatever it is that's the basis, it exists, and the whole point of this thread was about trying to figure out why it exists instead of not existing.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I can answer this. We don't know, and if we are machine, we will never know. The reason to start from arithmetic, is that it can be proved that there is no theory capable of explaining where arithmetic come from. We can only assume it. If you assume any theory in which you can derive the laws of addition and multiplication of the natural numbers, then it can be proved you assume a logically equivalent or stronger theory. So, the natural numbers is the only mystery which remains, but assuming them, we can explain why we cannot explain them. This is "well known" by logicians. In a sense, arithmetic is the simplest (turing universal) theory. From it you can explain why the numbers develop stable belief in consciousness and physical realities, and that the first one is fundamental, and the second one derived from the first one. It is big, in the sense that it shows that the platonist theologians are more rational than the aristotelian theologians (atheists and christians, notably). We might have to backtrack 1500 years, in the fundamental matter.
Bruno Marchal
Sep 24, 2011, 12:35:11 PM9/24/11
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On 24 Sep 2011, at 06:45, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/23/2011 10:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 22 Sep 2011, at 21:12, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
[SPK]
Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic.
I am not sure what you are saying. I just give a deductive argument that if my (generalized) brain can be emulated by a material digital device, then physics is a branch of number's psychology, itself a branch of number theory (or combinator theory, etc.).
[SPK]
I understand and follow that argument. My problem is that I cannot get my mental picture to work for this argument in the case of multiple entities. This is why I have claimed that your argument is correct but solipsistic.
You have to prove this. If you succeed I will declare comp false. But obviously the UD run not just all programs, but all interaction of programs. So to believe comp false from speculating that it leads to solipsism is premature.
To my shame I do not know how to translate my mental pictures into writen symbolic representations yet. I am still learning the proper mathematical language. I may have mentioned before that my thought are like proprioceptive sensations and visual images and my memory dyslexia makes learning symbolic languages very difficult.
Just today I found some of my old notes and references. I didn't understand these at the time but I knew that they where important. Now I do understand them a a bit more and I believe that I might be able to show the problem that I am thinking of for you, but it is not easy.
Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
My argument does not depend on interpretation. That is why it is a proof.
[SPK]
I understand that, but logically consistent results can follow from false premises.
Sure. The interesting case is when we get inconsistent result from premise, so that we have a reduction ad absurdum.
My problem is in the assumptions that you are making in your initial premises, that numbers (or equivalent) and arithmetic can exist as ontological primitives and that computations do not require some form of physical implementation.
No. My premise is that my brain is Turing emulable. The arithmetical realism is needed only to give a sense to the word digital.
Computations do not require physical implementation follows from the definition of computation, unless you believe that all arithmetical proposition are physical proposition. But this is just plainly wrong. "1+1 = 2" is independent of "F = ma", a priori. Then, assuming mechanism, we can derive "f = ma" from "1=1=2", roughly said, but that is a later result.
What I see is that neither numbers nor matter is primitive, both are emergent in a way from a neutral primitive that is neither. My reasoning follows lines similar to those that Bertrand Russell used in his idea of neutral monism.
But if you don't assume the number, then you cannot get them, nor anything mathematical (like Boolean algebra, Stone spaces, etc.).
What are your ontological assumption. You said "existence", but I asked you: existence of what. Existence, without specifying what is like a lonely quantifier, it does not mean anything.
You have refer to many papers which all assumes more than the numbers. So it is hard to understand what you mean by saying that numbers' laws are not primitive.
[SPK]
Craig does make a big deal about "special properties" but the properties of carbon, etc. do matter when it comes to real functionality. While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things,
It is. Or you have to find the flaw. I am, as always, open to search it with you, step by step.
OK, I accept your challenge. It will help me learn to write the mathematical symbols to do this. I must overcome my disabilities.
There is no math in UDA, except a passive understanding of Church thesis, to get the notion of universal dovetailer (which is of the same conceptual difficulty than the concept of universal machine).
it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality.
We have no choice. Of course, we can, like Craig, just assume that comp is false.
[SPK]
But I do not thing think that comp is 'false", I think it to be incomplete.
This has no meaning. Absolutely *all* theories, on numbers and machine are incomplete.
All what I say is that if comp is true, then the aritotelian conception of reality can't explain any physical facts. And given that it has never succeded in explaining any mental facts, it means we have to come back on plato, etc.
My evidence is that comp must assume situations that are in gross conflict with physical reality, such the ability to be implemented without requiring the consumption of resources.
1) Not at all. Even if computation needs resource, it can find them in the arithmetical platonia, they don't need to be Turing emulable (BTW)
2) computation, even physical computation, does not need resource (by results by Hao Wang, Fredkin and Toffoli, Zurek, etc.)
Even a perfect reversible computer must have memory available in some fashion.
To memorize, even physically, you dont' need resource. Only to erase, but even this can be done locally, without using global resource.
But so you do assume physics. I agree there is a physical reality, but with comp, we cannot take for granted any physical laws. Indeed we must derive them from the numbers, and this in the special self-reference manner I have begun.
What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics)
I think you have good intuition here, but you need to develop them. Note that there are semantic of G and S4Grz in term of totally disconnected Hausdorff spaces, or the Cantor scattered space which ground that intuition, and the Stone duality, in the frame of self-reference, as I think I have already told you (work of Blok and Esakia).
[SPK]
Thank you, I am studying hard but find that the books are not written in a pedagogical way, they are more like "look-up tables" that one is supposed to memorize. Such memorization has always been impossible for me. :-( With regards to the Blok-Esakia Theorem and isomorphism. Could you recommend a good book? I have found several in Google books. I am also studying the Hennesy-Milner Property, as it is almost exactly what I have in mind with my crude bisimulation algebra.
I think that this is terribly premature with respect to the main point we are discussing. And, no, I don't know any book on the subject, which is not highly technical. The main things exists only in journal and papers. But it is utterly advanced compared to what I say. It can only be used when much progress in made in the conceptual. They are clearly not interested in matter and mind, just in abstract processes. I gave you links to the work of Abramski and Girard (Geometry of interaction) which is closer, but still very far. The closer is perhaps Esakia and Blok, but a lot of Phd thesis are needed to just begin to make a bridge.
both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics.
The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Jason said that Craig's theory entails consciousness is an epiphenomenon. I wait Craig's reply, given that he gives a role to the subjectivity. It "insists", Craig told us. No idea what *that* means, but I think he introduce that idea for escaping the accusation of making consciousness an epiphenomenon. To be sure Stathis has convincingly show that Craig is not coherent on this (and so can say anything).
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se, as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-completeness concerns polynomial tractability. I have never understood why you refer to it.
[SPK]
Can you see how the idea of a "harmony" or "orchestration", as Leibniz discussed, is a solution to a Np-complete problem?
Not at all.
The fact that it is an optimization problem over N variables where each and every combination of the variables must be compared with every other. I use the ideas found on this wiki page, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem
For a computation of the type that Leibniz envisioned, it seems obvious that one must some an NP-complete problem that has an infinite number of variables. It not only has to simulate all possible worlds but it also has to compare all of them to each other so that one can be found that the world is such that there are no observable violations of physical law in it, aka Harry-Potterims or White Rabbits. The Boolean version of this is SAT.
I don't see any relevance on this is the mind-body problem. It is relevant for the engineering, but not for the matter problem, which depends on infinite computations. The non relevance of the NP class comes from the first person invariance of the delays. It might have a role later, but up to know, it does not even appear on the horizon.
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p.
One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions – bits of strings – that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Consciousness exists, so there is something. It can't be an illusion, given that an illusion requires consciousness. But Russell is right in the sense that the "everything" philosophy minimize the TOE information needed.
[SPK]
I agree that that is one of the necessary compoments of the process of consciousness, but it alone is insufficient.
Sure. The progress is to take the "all computation" notion of everything. This is something, of course, but is simple, as elementary arithmetic is simple. Then, well, see the papers or the archive.
One's model of consciousness must allow for interactions between multiple minds and recursive self-modeling and maybe more. Compactness of the topological dual spaces also seems necessary.
Sure. But it must allow me eat pizza, and go to the movies, etc.
Recall how Observer moments are finite?
Not Bostrom 1-OM, which are infinite in the mechanist theories.
3-OM are just (relative) computational states.
[SPK]
Umm, I forgot about that. I need to understand what motivated Bostom's definition of OMs. I do not understand the concept of 3-OMs. How can the content of experience be public?
Experience are 1-OM.
Computational state are public 3-OM.
Your explanation in terms of the diary seems to ignore the fact that without the invariance of structure with respect to transitivity (that matter generates)
Which matter?
it is not possible to have a diary or record of any kind, so how can OMs be public in the situation of "(relative) computational states"? How, exactly, are the individual computational states related with each other.
The 3-OM are usually related by one universal machine/brain/cosmos. The 1-OM are related in a more statistical way, by all the universal machine relating them.
I know that you discuss the Goedel's numbering scheme and how it can code relations, but how does this work without the invariance with respect to transitivity to act as a separable mapping between the numbers themselves and the Goedelian Bew(p)? Similarly, how is a computation "implemented" without any notion of transitivity at all?
I don't see how a computation could be emulated in arithmetic, without being transitive. I am not sure I understand what you say here.
This is what I do not understand of UDA and is why I believe it is incomplete. I see repeated uses of words, in your papers, that imply transitivity but the definitions of computation and arithmetic that you use do not allow it to exist. I am confused! Either Change exists or it does not!
You have the basic laws of change: the sequence of numbers itself 0, s(0), s(s(0)), s(s(s(0))), etc.
The work of the UD, consists in dovetaling on all computation, like in my post to pzomby. The UD generates all sequences (for all i and j)
phi_i(j)^0, phi_i(j)^1, phi_i(j)^2, phi_i(j)^3, phi_i(j)^4, phi_i(j)^5, ....
here the initial arithmetic (laws of addition, and multiplication) act as the emulator making "true" the passage from a state to another state.
Of course, the UD might need 10^(10^(10^1000))) steps for going from the computational step "phi_45(777)^10 to the computational step "phi_45(777)^11". But from the personal point of view of the machine 45 (in case she introspect enough), this will change nothing.
Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite. Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication! (Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
This idea also how the appearence of a Cartesian theater effect, that (pace Dennett) actually explains something without an actual infinite regress of explanations! Basically, the homunculus of the Cartesian Theater model is proposed to be something like a "strange attractor" on the configuration space or, by the dually, computation space of the brain. The attractor is a computational model of the global behavior of the brain and is capable of computing simulations of itself since, if we believe in computational universality, a model of a computation is a computation too. So the experience that we have of being a "driver in a body" makes sense, given that what we actually experience of the world is the brain's Virtual Reality simulation of the world *and* this simulation is a computation capable of simulating itself,
A computation does not necessarily simulate itself, although universal machine can simulate their own computations.
[SPK]
I agree, I am pointing to the universal machines in this claim about the Cartesian theater. This is the reason why I claim that self-awareness and consciousness are this identical. Self-awareness requires universality whereas basic consciousness does not. So this implies that there are 1-OM that do not involve self-awareness at all.
I am not sure why you use self-awareness/ consciousness. It is clearer to use self-consciousness/consciousness, or self-awareness/awareness. To simplify, self-awareness is given by Bp, (Bew''p'), and self-cosnciousness by Bp & p. With B Löbian. If B is not Löbian, yet universal, Bp gives awareness, and Bp & p gives consciousness, and Bp & p & Dt gives the consciousness differentiation flux (and matter).
This is OK with what you say: some 1-OM can be aware and conscious, without being self-aware and self-conscious.
It is this idea that I see replicated in Graig's idea of "sense".
Really? You are lucky. You might elaborate on this.
[SPK]
albeit at a lower resolution and level of complexity. Since the brain has access to finite physical resoulces to run the computations there will be a short truncation of the regress of simulations within simulations; maybe only 3 to 4 recursions, I figure, at the most.
Kleene's theorem is the tool for cutting the infinite regression in computer science. AUDA's self-reference, and intensional variants of it, is 100% based on this theorem, even if it is hidden in the arithmetical soundness and completeness theorem of Solovay.
Ah yes, the beautiful Kleene recursion theorems.
You can say that. I like to call it the fundamental theorem of matter independent biology. A bit like G and G* gives a matter and machine independent theology.
But it seems that they only work for well-founded set theories.
?????????
Kleene's theorem is a language and theory independent theorem on digital machines. And it is the theorem which makes possible to solve a lot of fixed point problem to give sense to non well-founded theories.
Comp does not need set theories.
I use only ZF, ZFC, ZF+k, as example of stupendously rich Löbian machine, among billions of others. I don't mind so much on their particular discourse contents.
This is the source of the measurement problem that you face,
My work is to reduce the mind-body problem to that "statistical measure problem", + the gift of a clean separation and explanation of qualia and quanta. This has nothing to do with foundedness and non well-foundedness in set theory. I don't use set theory.
it is demonstrated well by the Banach-Tarsky paradox. Bisimulation requires non-well founded logics and sets generally, so this method of preventing regress is not available. There are alternatives but they are not so easy to state.
Well, you might be saying something here, but it is only you who can acknowledge if this can help the UDA problem of deriving the physical laws, including all *known* physical type of interactions from addition and multiplication.
I can imagine (speculate) that the existence of the comp measure might be equivalent to ZF+g, with g asserting the existence of a *huge* cardinal, and that in 3000 years, we discover that ZF+g is inconsistent, but that by replacing the foundation by the anti-foundation in ZF, we preserve the consistency. But if you have better clue, it is up to you to make them precise.
My work is not a technical solution to a problem. It is a technical formulation of a problem, together with a *conceptual solution* or explanation, already provided by the machine themselves, which is closer to Plotinus than Aristotle.
Bruno
Bruno Marchal
Sep 24, 2011, 12:58:58 PM9/24/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 24 Sep 2011, at 07:00, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/23/2011 10:53 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 23 Sep 2011, at 05:18, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/22/2011 9:04 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 11:22 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:
On 9/22/2011 1:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
[SPK]
Sure, let us consider this similarity to Leibniz' "per-established harmony" idea. Could you sketch your thoughts on the similarity that you see? I have my own thoughts about pre-established harmony, but I see, in Craig's ideas, other concepts similar to those of Leibniz that do relate to a notion of "harmony" and other somewhat unrelated concepts but not necessarily include the "pre-established" aspect. I haev an argument against the concept of "pre-established" as Leibniz uses it.
From what I understand of Craig's theory it describes a difference between first person and third person experience/reality. Each being two sides of the same coin, where first person experience is the interior side of what its like to be the material. The first person experience of is indeterminable (and possibly relies on the indeterminism of physics?) and can cause physical changes above and beyond what can be predicted by any third-person physics. While we are a machine according to this theory, we are a special machine due to our history as organisms and the special properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. which form the basis of our biochemistry. Functional equivalence is either not possible, or will lead to various brain disorders or zombies.
[SPK]
Hi Jason!
Excellent post!! But can you see how this is really not so different from Bruno's "result"?! Bruno just substitutes (N, +, *) of matter and the 1p experience is the 'inside dream" of Arithmetic. Same basic outline, very different semantics, but a radically different interpretation...
[SPK]
Both theories suggest that neither matter nor first person experience are what is commonly understood, but aside from that it seems little is in common. To me there is a big difference between saying first person experience is a dream inside of arithmetic compared to a an innate sense capability of substance (carbon atoms, electromagnetic fields, neurons, I am not sure which).
That is your opinion and I accept it as such.
Bruno's result is well-defined, refutable, does not reject the physical laws as currently understood, and does not make unfounded assertions, such as: only certain materials can experience red, no computer program can feel, think, understand, etc.
[SPK]
Umm, "does not reject the physical laws as curently understood", really? Where is there any sign of compliance with thermodynamic laws? Nevermind, math need not comply with physical law, especially if it is used to deny the reality of physical law... Nice dodge! But that would be a bone-headed and crude assessment of Bruno's result. My critisism of Bruno's result is the same as the critisism that I have for all forms of ideal monism. It reduces matter to an epiphenomena and thereby negating any causal or even meaningful role. What difference does our existence as carbon based organisms if we are merely "the dreams of numbers", why do numbers even bother having dreams? They exist, and according to Bruno, Arithmetic is all that is necessary to exist.
Thanks for using the word "result", which is the accurate one. But then again, if you doubt about the *result*, you have to find the flaw. You can't use your philosophical worries to refute a proof.
Now, your philosophical worries are not founded. The result makes matter the object of a phenomenology or epistemology (that is different from epiphenomenon!).
It makes substancial Matter (primitive matter) just disappear (useless in both *physics* and psychology: a good thing given that primitive matter is a metaphysical concept of Aristotle theology, and that there has never been evidence that it exists, nor has been ever used by any physician (except perhaps the week-end, out of papers).
[SPK]
Why do you continue to write as if I believe that matter is primitive? My claim is that neither matter nor abstract structures, such as arithmetic, are primitive! You seem to assume that arithmetic is primitive, as did Plato, so I understand your alliance with him.
Not at all. In UDA I assume only that my brain works like a machine, at some level. Then I prove that we are already living in arithmetic and don't need to assume more than arithmetic.
Arithmetical realism is used by everybody. The platonist consequence are in the conclusion, not in the premise.
If you believe that 17 is a prime number, then you are enough realist to get the consequence of mechanism.
I reject both Aristotle and Plato except as good teachers on the path to better ideas. We must crawl before we can walk before we can fly. ;-) I do like Plato's discussion of the idea of souls and their reincarnation. I have always wanted to ask Plato why he thought that souls needed to be incarnated at all. Why bother with the mortal coil of flesh when the soul is already eternal? Maybe the soul requires incarnation in order to evolve and have meaningful experiences! But this latter idea would conflict with Plato's claim that matter and the flesh are crass and wasteful.
Plotinus will get the correct (relatively to comp, and the theaetetus knowledge theory). Souls fall. No matter what. This generates matter, which is only what God cannot determine, nor the machine.
[SPK]
We are irrelevant phantoms. Our lives are meaningless; to quote the Bard: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
On the contrary. Comp provides a rather transparent interpretation of Plotinus theology. We have free will, and life has meaning. God becomes a soul attractor, etc.
I have no problem with those concepts. In fact I think that your attempts at rehabilitating theology is a good thing that needs to be pursued further. Science and Belief need not conflict.
Science is belief. By chance, some belief might be true, but that science can never say.
snip
While it is true that we can build universal Turing machine equivalents out of practically anything, explaining and modeling the physical world is not about computations that do not require resources or can run forever or such "ideal" things, it is about how all this stuff that has particular properties interacts with each other. We simply cannot dismiss all of the details that encompass our reality by just invoking computational universality. What is that truism? The Devil is in the Details!
Craig posits an infinite devil, but does so without evidence. And contrary to evidence from physics, chemistry, neurology, etc.
Frankly I have grown tired of debating Craig's thesis because his responses ignore everything we say, and he has admitted as much: that nothing we say will convince him he is wrong. Only interviewing someone who has received a partial digital neural prosthesis can do that.
You (jason) are optimist. I am afraid Craig made clear that even someone (cf. my "sun in law") with a brain prosthesis will not confirm it. I think he admit having "bad faith".I have met someone who is so much against comp, that he told me that if ever he got an aritificial brain and survive, he will consider that he is dead, and might attend its own funeral!So even if Craig himself survived with an artificial brain, he will construct sentences like "I am dead, I am a zombie".
Craig just does not argue.
[SPK]
OK, then don't read his post nor comment on them.
My own thesis follows this same outline, except that I propose that the topological spaces are the "outside" and algebras (which would include Bruno's (N, +, *) and minds are the inside. This outline dispenses with the problem of psycho-physical parallelism that I will make a comment on below. There is no need to explain why or how matter and mind are harmonized or synchronized when, ultimately, they are jsut two different (behaviorally and structuraly) aspect of each other, all of this follow from M. Stone's representation theorem.
Do you agree that computers can be conscious?
[SPK]
Not computers as they are considered by most, but yes, I do.
So, the consequences follows. Matter does not exist primitively, and physics is not the fundamental science. The theology of Aristotle is refuted. And Plato? Not yet.
[SPK]
I think that both where correct but only partly. Plato and Aristotle considered different aspects of Existence as important.
Existence of what?
Also, it is sure that Aristotle and Plato points on different aspect of God, let us say. But the whole big difference, is that for the Aristotelian, Matter (Nature, the Observable) is the main God. For Plato Matter (Nature) is only an emanation (shadow, border) of the real God (which is unobservable, has no name, etc.).
A monist has to made a choice here.
Do you prefer a phenomenoly of mind in a theory of matter, or
A phenomenology of matter, in a theory of mind.
My point: comp gives the choice: matter has to be explain phenomenologically in a theory of mind (and the theory of mind = the theory of machines including the theories by machines).
My idea is a bit tricky because we have to treat topological spaces (such as the totally disconnected compact Hausdorff spaces dual to Boolean logics) both as the form and content of 1p and as mathematical objects. This is not a problem because math is all about representing 1p and more! This makes sense because mathematical representations can both represent themselves and be what they represent. WE see this explained in a round about way in Stephen Wolfram's essay on intractability and physics. The basic idea of the essay is that physical systems are, effectively, the best possible computational model of themselves. We do not need to postulate computations separate from the physical processes themselves, if we are going to stay int eh semi-classical realm. If we wish to go to a fully quantum model, they the wavefunction (and its evolution) of a physical system is the computation itself of that system.
Vaughan Pratt argued that QM is just a consequence of the way that the stone duality is implemented. I am just taking this ideas and exploring them for flaws and falsification, but to do so I have to be able to fully explain them (not an easy job!) but that is what is necessary to claim that I understand them.
This assessment of Craig's idea seems accurate from what I can tell at the start but falls down on the epiphenomena bit AFAIK...
Consciousness to Craig is an epiphenomenon, since he has said there is no reason to evolve this tehnicolor cartesian theater.
I need to get his comment on this statement about the Cartesian theater.
[SPK]
Okay.
The reason I say it is an epiphenomenon is that if there is no reason to evolve it, then human behavior would be unaltered with its absence. Thus its presence makes no difference one way or the other according to his theory.
I did not see the post that implied that so I cannot comment.
[SPK]--The similarity I see to the pre-established harmony is that Liebniz posits two realities, a physical reality and reality of experiences. Each follows their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics. Instead, physical law is such that it coincides with what a mind would do even if there were no mind, and the mind experiences what physical law would suggest even if there were no physical world. It is analagous to a matrix-world where we experiencing a pre-recorded life and experiencing everything of that individual. Liebniz postulated his idea when it became clear that Newton's laws suggested a conservation of not only energy (as Descartes was aware) but also momentum. Therefore an immaterial soul could have no affect on physics. This led Leibniz to the idea that God setup both to necessarily agree before hand.
Jason
About this pre-established harmony: Leibniz proposed it as a way to select the "best of possible worlds", given all possible, and explain the synchrony of events (that his hypothesis of Monads required to exist) between monads.
Recall that the monads are "windowless" and to not exchange substances. (BTW, this effectively makes them totally disconnected spaces if we consider the topological implication of this property of windowlessness!) Monads have both internal aspects (defining 1p content) and external aspects (defining physical reality) that , as you point out "... follow their own laws independently of the other, but physics does not affect or could not implement a mind, nor is the mind really affecting physics"; but if we follow my thesis there would be no minds without physics nor physics without minds per se,
[SPK]
Could there not be universes devoid of conscious observers internal to them? We can come to know about some of these universes through math at least, even if they contain no self-aware patterns.
DId you notice that I distinguish consciousness from self-awareness? Consciousness can be purely passive. A thermometer is conscious. Self-awareness requires some form of self-modeling to be included in consciousness.
as the duality between algebras and topological spaces is a form of "natural transformation" between Categories. Yes, there would be physics for monads that do not have self-awareness - such as electrons and quarks, but self-awareness is a higher order computational modeling process that need not be instantiated (pace Russell) but is possible given sufficient topological and, dually, algebraic structure. So this thesis implies a very weak form of panpsychism.
It can be proven that Leibniz's pre-ordained harmony implies a logical contradiction and thus is flawed: even an omnipotent god cannot perform computations of infinite NP-Complete problems in zero time - which is exactly what is required to have god establish the harmony of the universe prior to creating it or as you wrote: "God setup both to necessarily agree before hand". How can one perform a task that requires an eternity to complete the set up in the first place? It cannot ever begin!
Why does it have to take place in zero time?
[SPK]
Becasue the computation of the infinite NP-Complete problem had to finish BEFORE the Harmony could be created. One cannot travel the shortest route between N cities if one does not know which road to take first. One does not begin to built a house before the construction plans are finished, no? Leibniz's Harmony was a "orchestration" that required all possible universes to be compared to each other to find (at least!) the universe where soemething like us existed. We ahev this neat thing in physics called the Principle of least action. The actual path of a trajectory is the one that follows the least action of the Lagrangian, if I may use that crude portrayal of classical physics. How is it possible for this universe where all trajectories automatically follow the least action path and has no White Rabbits (that we ahve seen so far) and has universal laws of physics be considered as an orchestration without doing the computation of the precise initial conditions and boundaries that would induce it to the point that Leibniz could write out his thoughts in a form that we can tread, think and write about here and now?
I am critiquing Leibniz's idea here, not advocating it per se, but offering an alternative, a rehibilitation if you like. My point is that the notion of a pre-established harmony has a meaning and this meaning has implications. The word Leibniz used was "pre-established harmony" (at least the English version of it); "pre" as in before, established as in creating the universe. These implications are rather simple to understand. How is the "harmony" found among the ensemble of possible harmonies? How is the discovery of such possible such that it can be known, by God, *before* he established the initial conditions of the universe. How does one know how to create X before X can be known? Did he just "will it into existence"? This is a logical contradiction. Could it be that you cannot see this because you conflate existence of X with the definiteness of the properties of X?
Is God able to contradict logical necessity? I rejected fundamentalist Christianity for less when I realized that the belief system that I was raised in as a child was full of logical contradictions! Am I to allow myself to believe similar nonsense, even if packaged in a "secular" wrapper? NO!
The problem for best of all worlds as I see it, is to evaluate a universe, God has to see what happens in it, and this requires implementing the conscious beings within it. Therefore all possible worlds would be realized and experienced by its inhabitants during the search for the best of all possible worlds.
The alternative to Leibniz' self-contradicting explanation is to consider that the NP-Complete computation as running for eternity,
NP-complete doesn't mean it takes forever to complete, just possibly exponential amount of time.
[SPK]
The number of possible universes in Leibniz' ensemble of "best possible worlds" was at least countably infinite, thus the number of variables of the NP-Complete problem was at least aleph-null. How many steps does a computation of an NP-Complete problem require? At least one, even given an infinite parallel computer with an infinite quantity of resources. We can think of resources as memory states and can bypass other resource and thermodynamic requirements by considering the computer as perfectly reversible, but wait... where are those memory states going to exist prior to the creation of the universe? How exactly does a memory state exist if there are no universes of matter that allow for some form of invariance under transitivity such that a read/write operation can be uniquely related to a particular digit in the algorithm string?
1 does not equal 0.
Now I could see that you might discount this by appealing to an ideal Turing machine, it does not need resources to perform a computation of arbitrary length. Heck, it can "write on the walls of Platonia" if it needs too. It has no limitations at all! Really?
it never begins and it never ends - kinda like Bruno's UD* - and 1p are finite instances or "streams" of this eternal computational process. Each stream instantiates a Monad and the psycho-physical parallelism is the natural result of the Stone duality between the insidge (logical algebras) and the outside (topological spaces), no need to have an explanation of mind and body interactions! All the neat stuff follows from considering how minds interact with each other. The appearance of a "beginning of time (and space!)" that we seem to have is simply an artifact of the finiteness of our 1p.
One interesting and strange twist of this idea is that it implies that we never actually observe the outside aspects of monads (Leibniz does mention this in his Monadology), we only experience the internal representations of them. This twist is a form of the argument that we find in the Matrix thought-experiment that since we cannot prove that we are not in a matrix we should assume that we are and work out the consequences. This idea also seems consistent with Russell's thesis that "the set of all the universes that make up the Multiverse, contains no information at all, and is in fact Nothing; it is just from the inside, as mere descriptions – bits of strings – that we are, that there seems, from our point of view, to be something." quoting from http://www.scitechexplained.com/2010/06/theory-of-nothing-written-by-russell-k-standish-the-multiverse-quantum-immortality-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Recall how Observer moments are finite? Does this not imply that there is an event horizon effect in the history of an observer whose 1p is given in terms of OMs? This is an effective cut-off on information that follows from its ability to only resolve a finite amount of information, which is just another way of saying that OMs are finite. Thus this idea implies that the "singularity" of the Big bang never happened nor necessarily exists, an interesting and counter-intuitive implication!
There are universes just like this one whose initial condition was this universes as it existed 1 second ago. I think these are much rarer however than universes with more uniform initial conditions. (There are many times more combinations than our present highly ordered (evolved) state).
[SPK]
OK, so? How does the term "rarer" have a meaning in an infinite ensemble? What form of the axiom of choice does God pick so that he can know the difference between rare and not so rare? Do you understand the measure problem? It has been mentioned before on this list...
[SPK](Penrose and Hawking's singularity theorems work only if gravity exists at infinitesimal size/ infinite energy scale and this is, on its face, merely an idealization.) We would see an event horizon in our most distant past, but not because there is an infinite gravitational gradient behind it. Because of this (and considerations such as those that Russell explains in his book), my thesis implies the "perfect cosmological principle" that any average observer would see pretty much the same thing as any other no matter where in a universe it found itself. All observers would see an event horizon in their distant past and would see a universe that they believe is middle aged.
I think there is potential for more variation. What do the beings who live under Europa's ice sheets see? Or what about those beings who are blind and only hear (or universes in which there is no such thing as light)?
More, less... what is the difference?
Our universe is not middle aged compared to how long it might last. (Then again, we may be in a simulation so we can't really know how old the universe is really).
To Jason (and Stephen): I am still not sure, but I do think that comp entails that the physical universe might be infinitely old. The intuition comes from the fact that matter and time emerges from *all* the computations. Somehow, self-observation enlarge the past. I am not sure because some "arithmetical conspiracy" cannot be excluded, so it is just a reasonable feeling.This would not mean that there is no big bang, but the big bang might be the result of something else. A student of me told me that in plasma physics they have models where the big bang is a product of a a huge gravitational collapse, and that they can explain the cohesion of galaxies without using dark matter, in an infinitely old cosmos, but I am not an expert in Plasma.
Bruno
[SPK]
Existence, considered as a primitive cannot have an origin, thus it must be eternal.
I have no clue what you mean by Existence.
Usually I interpret it by arithmetical truth, and this works to make some sense on what you say, in the mechanist theory.
I have studied the plasma global cosmology models and found them a bit too crude and contradicted by observations while the plasma physics model of solar systems, galaxies, and other structures within our cosmos are very nice indeed.
meekerdb
Sep 24, 2011, 1:44:20 PM9/24/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On 9/24/2011 12:07 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
> A final consideration: do you believe Pi has such a value that when Euler's number is
> raised to the power of (2*Pi*i) the result is 1? Pi has a value which no human has
> determined, as determinig it requires infinite time and memory. If only those
> mathematical things known to humans exist, then Pi's true value does not exist.
> A final consideration: do you believe Pi has such a value that when Euler's number is
> raised to the power of (2*Pi*i) the result is 1? Pi has a value which no human has
> determined, as determinig it requires infinite time and memory. If only those
> mathematical things known to humans exist, then Pi's true value does not exist.
I think this is questionable. One can use the value of pi, calculate with it, determine
it's relation with other quantities. So you can't write it's decimal expansion, how
significant is that?
Brent
Jason Resch
Sep 24, 2011, 2:56:13 PM9/24/11
to everyth...@googlegroups.com
On Sep 24, 2011, at 12:44 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On 9/24/2011 12:07 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>> A final consideration: do you believe Pi has such a value that when
>> Euler's number is raised to the power of (2*Pi*i) the result is 1?
>> Pi has a value which no human has determined, as determinig it
>> requires infinite time and memory. If only those mathematical
>> things known to humans exist, then Pi's true value does not exist.
>
> I think this is questionable. One can use the value of pi,
> calculate with it, determine it's relation with other quantities.
We can use an approximation of it's value, or a definition of how to
derive it's value (given infinite time and memory), but we've never
known or used it's value. All of it's definitions require
infinities. If these infinities don't exist, because your philosophy
of mathematics is constructivist, then it follows that Pi does not
exist.
> So you can't write it's decimal expansion, how significant is that?
Sure everything is questionable. But according to Rogers theory the
unnown digits of Pi do not exist and/or have no definite value since
no human has determined them.
What this equation and reasoning suggests is that there can be certain
values which are unknown to us. Such as the googolplexth digit of Pi.
Jason
>
>
> Brent
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