Amoeba's Secret, by Bruno Marchal available from Kindle store

[Russell Standish]

Hi everyone,

Just want to let everyone know that the English translation of Buno
Marchal's "The Amoeba's Secret" is now available from Amazon's Kindle
store. See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRLEKPA


The Amoeba's Secret was written when Bruno received the
prestigious Prix Le Monde de la Recherche Universitaire for his PhD
thesis, only for the prize to be mysteriously revoked, and the book
not published. The original French version exists only as a manuscript
available from Bruno's website.

The Amoeba's Secret remains one of clearest explanations of Bruno's
UDA and AUDA arguments, and provides a lot of historical background
motivating him to formulate and study these issues in this way. Now,
after about 4 years of effort, Kim Jones and I have finally finished
the translation of this book into English.

For those of you who prefer their books hard, the paperback version
will probably be available towards the end of March. I need to see a
physical copy of what Amazon produces before approving it for
general sale. I have jigged things so that hard copy purchases are
entitled to a free Kindle version fo the book, so you can have the
best of both worlds.

Cheers

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[LizR]

I would like to get a "non-kindle version" (!) - is that available?

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[LizR]

Please let me know when the hard copy is available, as I would like a physical version (ironic, I suspect, given the subject).

On 4 March 2014 19:43, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:

[Bruno Marchal]

Many thanks, Russell. Many thanks, Kim.

Best,

Bruno

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[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Russel and Kim,

  I remember fondly when the translation of Bruno's thesis was being discussed. I am very happy to see the results of your hard work. Thank you for doing this! I will be buying a copy of it asap. :-)

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Mar 2014, at 05:28, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Russel and Kim,

  I remember fondly when the translation of Bruno's thesis was being discussed. I am very happy to see the results of your hard work. Thank you for doing this! I will be buying a copy of it asap. :-)

Thanks Stephen.

To be sure, it contains the thesis, but it is not the thesis. It is more the "history" of the thesis, that I have been asked to relate by Le Monde and Grasset, as the thesis was judged as too much technical for a large audience. I told them that I would need to relate a case of moral harassment (manipulation and diffamation) in the academy, but they told me that this was the point, as harassment (moral and sexual) is a real plea in some academies, and that would be useful. But a part of the academy seems to not wanting this public, and unfortunately the defamation has just been made wider by that prize, and Grasset never published the book, despite having told me so, even still four years after they got the manuscript.

I am not complaining, though. Without that harassment, I would still today be a researcher in mathematical logic waiting retirement to come back on my childhood questioning. In fact they sped up everything, in some way.

Amoeba splits everyday. The early form of the "UDA" was that IF an amoeba lives two days, THEN she is immortal. Basically, if she survived one duplication, then she survives all duplications. Then I was lucky to live after the birth of molecular biology, which will make this entirely into a "mechanistic" setting. Then I have been lucky to discover the little book by Nagel and Newman, on Gödel's proof, and I will see that the main duplication difficulty was completely solved mathematically, indeed by the Dx = "xx" diagonal method, and that will decide me to become a mathematician, instead of a biologist. 

Unfortunately, I will met some mathematicians and even logicians which were allergic to Gödel's theorem. Mathematicians are sensible persons which can react very emotionally, but one of them was of a much more darker type of mind.

Best,

Bruno

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[Bill Taylor]

> Then I have been lucky to discover the little book by Nagel and Newman, on Gödel's proof,

UNlucky, in fact. 

The Nagel & Newman book is a popularization from the 60's,
that is horribly out of date, misleading, crucially imprecise,
and altogether bad, (though readably written).

Readers beware!   This book will rot your brain.

-- Badmouthing Bill

**  Dog-ma is a bitch!

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Bruno,

  It is sometimes said that adversity is necessary in life, as it motivates innovation and evolution. :-)

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Mar 2014, at 13:21, Bill Taylor wrote:

> Then I have been lucky to discover the little book by Nagel and Newman, on Gödel's proof,

UNlucky, in fact. 

The Nagel & Newman book is a popularization from the 60's,
that is horribly out of date, misleading, crucially imprecise,
and altogether bad, (though readably written).

No: lucky. If only because I discovered the dx = "xx" method there, which decided me to do mathematics.

Then a few time later I will assist to a course on lambda calculus given by Jean Ladrière, and ask him if he has still some examplary of his "Les limitations internes des formalisme", and he will give me his last exemplary. That lengthy book will quickly give me the taste for rigor in logic and philosophy. I will also buy Kleene's 1952 book "Introduction to metamathematics", and eventually the original papers selected by Martin Davis. 

Readers beware!   This book will rot your brain.

Yes, sure. Let us made it illegal. You assume the readers are stupid. That's all. 

The only "error" in Nagel and Newman, besides some lack of rigor (rather normal for a short popular introduction to the subject), is their anti-mechanist conclusion, but that will make me think. It is an interesting error, with a long tradition, and you can analyze it entirely in term of confusion of some "hypostases". I detail such misuses of Gödel in all details in "conscience et mécanisme".

-- Badmouthing Bill

Badmouthing you are. We agree on that.

Bruno

**  Dog-ma is a bitch!

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[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, March 4, 2014 8:40:36 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Many thanks, Russell. Many thanks, Kim.

Best,

Bruno

Is it ok to ask why the prize got revoked? Some kind of politics?

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2014 at 09:27:20AM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 05 Mar 2014, at 05:28, Stephen Paul King wrote:
>
> >Dear Russel and Kim,
> >
> > I remember fondly when the translation of Bruno's thesis was
> >being discussed. I am very happy to see the results of your hard
> >work. Thank you for doing this! I will be buying a copy of it
> >asap. :-)
>
> Thanks Stephen.
>
> To be sure, it contains the thesis, but it is not the thesis. It is
> more the "history" of the thesis, that I have been asked to relate
> by Le Monde and Grasset, as the thesis was judged as too much
> technical for a large audience. I told them that I would need to
> relate a case of moral harassment (manipulation and diffamation) in
> the academy, but they told me that this was the point, as harassment
> (moral and sexual) is a real plea in some academies, and that would
> be useful. But a part of the academy seems to not wanting this
> public, and unfortunately the defamation has just been made wider by
> that prize, and Grasset never published the book, despite having
> told me so, even still four years after they got the manuscript.

To add to that, the first thesis (Brussels thesis) is a truly
formiddable work at ca 800 pages (both for translation, and for any
aspiring reader), and the second thesis (Lille thesis) is more concise
and technical, but lacks some of the motivations and connections. By
contrast SoA has a human element, making the work accessible, as well
as giving a good excuse to introduce the background ideas (which are
simply cited in a technical thesis), and the motivational ideas. As
well, it is Bruno's third (or even fourth, if you count the original
papers) explanation of the ideas, and like a good wine, it gets better
with time :).

Kim originally started translating the Brussels thesis, but that
really was a monumental task that was bound to never have been
finished. Both Kim and I thought SoA was a more suitable target for
translation, but that still took us more than 4 years to do :).

[LizR]

On 6 March 2014 02:36, Stephen Paul King <Step...@provensecure.com> wrote:

Dear Bruno,

  It is sometimes said that adversity is necessary in life, as it motivates innovation and evolution. :-)

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger" or words to that effect.

[Bill Taylor]

On Thursday, March 6, 2014 10:36:15 AM UTC+13, Liz R wrote:

> "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" or words to that effect.

Tell that to the (formerly) rock-climbing tetraplegic!

- Terse T

** Sign on the physics depaerment laser machine:-

**   "Do not look into this machine with your remaining eye."

[LizR]

On 6 March 2014 15:31, Bill Taylor <shirt...@hotmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, March 6, 2014 10:36:15 AM UTC+13, Liz R wrote:

> "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" or words to that effect.

Tell that to the (formerly) rock-climbing tetraplegic!

I think in Neitzsche's day there was less possibility of the bady injured being kept alive. But in any case, I imagine he didn't mean physically stronger ... and he was a bit bonkers, you know.

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Stephen,

On 05 Mar 2014, at 14:36, Stephen Paul King wrote:

Dear Bruno,

  It is sometimes said that adversity is necessary in life, as it motivates innovation and evolution. :-)

OK. But that is not a reason to torture the kids, of course.

You said what I said. Some could believe I got "academical problem" because I made a strange discovery (say), but the less glorious truth is that I made a strange discovery public much earlier than I thought because of problem with one "academician", which prevents me to do a "normal carrier", and made me decide to pursue research as an independent hobby, for a long period.

I always took the good side of the situation, though, but this has made eventually the "enemies" even more nervous, and acting irrationally. Of course, in this case, it hides to me the possible genuine misunderstandings that can naturally crop up in a complex domain (the mind-body problem), where basically we are presented with a unique dogmatic Aristotelian conception of reality most of the time.

It is impossible for me to judge if people have a real problem with the FPI, or if they are just repeating gossip, as it has been often reported to me.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

Well, thanks. Let us hope.

>
> Kim originally started translating the Brussels thesis, but that
> really was a monumental task that was bound to never have been
> finished.

I think I should rewrite it, probably in english. I made it self-
contained, but I realize that it still assumes part of mathematical
logic which are unknown by most readers. It is hard to be self-
contained in the "interdisciplinary studies".
My deadline for a new book ordered to me has been delayed for two
years more, but I'm afraid that this is not enough for a self-
contained book.

> Both Kim and I thought SoA was a more suitable target for
> translation, but that still took us more than 4 years to do :).

We might expect an even larger part of the academical world to ignore
all this even more, because of the shame of hiding some discovery or
questioning just to protect some peers.

No problem, I am already dead, in many senses.

Bruno

>
> Cheers
>
> --
>
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> Principal, High Performance Coders
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

[Stephen Paul King]

Dear Bruno,

  My children complain that my forcing them to go to school is torture... LOL...

[Bruno Marchal]

Dear Stephen,

  My children complain that my forcing them to go to school is torture... LOL...

Torture them at home, to change their mind about school ...

Well, I am joking. No need to explain them too early what torture really is, as they might get depressed (but today they might know, by movies, internet, ...).

Well, of course, you might listen to them, because it happens that some children are harassed by teachers, or by peers. This happens also through facebook or other cyber-social application. 

That can come close to torture, and it ends very often, by suicide (the common consequence of moral or sexual harassment when it last for some time, (especially on people ignoring cannabis or salvia, or some solid philosophy of life)).

But then, your children might just find school a bit boring and that's normal, even quite sane, and as long as they have normal notes, you have nothing to worry. 

:)

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Stephen Paul King]

I get your point, Bruno and agree. 

[Bruno Marchal]

It is OK, to ask, but it is delicate.

But it is, partially, the content of two chapters of "the amoeba's
secret".

Very shortly. From 1973 to 1977 I have been manipulated by a
psychopath. The result being that I will be happy teaching mathematics
in high school, to "earn my life", and doing research as a hobby, but
still attending course, conferences, and doing a lot of conferences,
also, and eventually Professor Gochet, a logician will push me to
publish and I will publish "Informatique théorique et philosophie de
l'esprit", which contains a preliminary version of the universal
dovetailer argument (abridged for reason of place), explaining the
first person indeterminacy (FPI), the Movie Graph "Paradox", and then
the main idea of AUDA, that is, how the Dx ="xx" method enable us to
study the logic of the 3p reference, and the 1p reference, although at
that time I was still missing the Theaetetus idea. That was published
in 1988, in Toulouse, France. I exposed it publicly in 1987, where I
will meet Dennett, and that was at the time of its brainstorms book
(my favorite), and Mind's I, which is the book coming the closest to
comp. A new edition should contain some passage from Galouye, and
matrix or "the prestige".

Well, similar circumstances will make me engaged, to teach modal
logic, to a group of people (IRIDIA) interested in Artificial
Intelligence. The psychopath succeeded in making believe everyone that
I was mad, so my own much previous attempt to create a AI lab were
just seen as confirmation that I was mad or crackpot. So when I was
hired in that lab, the department of mathematics will send bullet on
IRIDIA. Then Smets, the creator of IRIDIA, will make pressure on me to
make a PhD thesis, and it is indeed through the search of modal system
for Smets "belief theory" that I will give some faith to the deontic
axiom ([]A -> <>A).

Then I will put down the thesis, but I said to Smets that it would be
better "the psychopath" would not be, well, even close to a jury. That
was delicate, if not impossible. Smets and everybody thought I was
paranoiac.

Eventually I put it down. November 1994.
Quickly, I got the jury, basically the psychopath and
"friends" (victim accomplices).
After month of discussion, smets seem thinking that things go right as
he was invited to a meeting to discuss the extension of the jury,
including more experts with a fair choice between him and the
mathematicians.

That was a trap. The meeting was the, normally formal, decision of
receivability, that is a pre-defense formal decision, quasi
administrative, and they will decide by vote of "experts", that is
even before hearing me even for a minute. They will justify that in a
not that bad report, as all experts recognize not seeing any flaw, but
a literary philosopher was not convinced. (?).

I will defend without problem the thesis elsewhere (Lille), a bit
later due to things of life type of thing.

It is a thesis in computer science, and I will got the best grade, and
people were enthusiast about this, and indeed I will get that prize
about eight month after the defense, as it is an annual prize for the
best thesis in the french community. It is not a scientific prize, but
the jury contained scientists (mathematicians, computer scientists).

But then, those of Le Monde and Grasset told me rewrite it and explain
the story somehow.

That was delicate, it is still is, but again, why should I not trust
them, and I will write it chapters by chapters asking them if that was
OK, and, after some time they get the manuscript, but nothing will
happen, except that Grasset will abandon that contract with "le prix
Le Monde, I will still be reassured that there were just late for some
reason, but then nothing, not even the money, nothing.

In 2009, I get eliminated from the list of laureates on the 1998 year
on the net, which make me decide to prosecute the psychopath and some
of its accomplice victims, just for the peace of my conscience.

A guy in Paris was asked to attribute the FPI to someone else, so for
a time in Paris, it was not really the FPI which was the problem. The
guy was honest and changes the subject, or related it only to QM.

Then the disastrous meeting of the ASSC, in Brussels, pfft, I don't
want to talk on this right now ...

I am partially faulty as I don't submit paper, but I continue to
oblige when asked.

There is a gap between logicians and physicists, the subject matter is
difficult, but here the "little history" has not helped. In a context
where the bigger history (1500 years of authoritative aristotelianism)
is not that more helpful.

At least someone like John Clark tries to argue (I have never met an
"opponent"), and he says something, and gives me hope to convince me
that the FPI might make no sense. Alas, he convinces nobody (including
himself, I think).

So the answer is yes, it is political, even psycho-media-political,
but made easy in a context where doubting Aristotle makes you a bit
out of the ordinary.

Well, if you think sincerely one step in UDA is controversial, please
don't hesitate; I love that subject matter and from time to time I do
met people who genuinely misunderstood it, or ignored it. Some people
unconsciously add a metaphysic which is not there.

You can see it as an extension of Everett to arithmetic, made
necessary when we assume computationalism.
is it really more shocking than Everett? Well shocking does not mean
invalid anyway, when we try to be serious.


Bruno







http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Jason Resch]

Congratulations Bruno, and thank you Russell and Kim!

I am anxious to get my hands on the hard copy.

Jason

[Bruno Marchal]

On 07 Mar 2014, at 05:36, Jason Resch wrote:

Congratulations Bruno, and thank you Russell and Kim!

I am anxious to get my hands on the hard copy.

Thanks Jason. 

Best,

Bruno

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[David Nyman]

Hi Bruno

I'm reading your fascinating work right now on Kindle and finding it very enlightening on many fronts. Many thanks also for the fine work of the translators! It's appalling that you had to suffer such discouragement and interference and it does you credit that you have persisted and prevailed despite this. Max Tegmark (whose book I'm also reading) also tells how he was explicitly warned by a senior colleague that publishing (or even talking openly) about foundational topics not currently in the mainstream was very likely to harm his career. He says he had to develop two distinct professional faces, which he actually calls Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and be very wary about who he let see one or the other. He also had to find cunning ways to conceal more speculative topics in the context of more conventional-seeming papers.

As he points out in his section on Everett, one of the most insightful minds in physics was in effect blocked from the possibility of a career in the field as a consequence of those very insights. There are, alas, too many other cases. It's sad that academia and research, with their supposedly higher standards of objectivity, seems no less subject to the wiles of politics and human perversity than most other fields. I became familiar with such machinations in the business world, but I used to fondly imagine, perhaps influenced my early reading of Karl Popper, that science was a field in which pure rationality must surely prevail over obfuscation and outright misrepresentation. Popper said that humans are unique in being able to "let our ideas die in our stead". That's as may be, but nonetheless there seem to be not a few who are willing to perish themselves sooner than change their minds.

David

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 07 Mar 2014, at 16:59, David Nyman wrote:

Hi Bruno

I'm reading your fascinating work right now on Kindle and finding it very enlightening on many fronts. Many thanks also for the fine work of the translators! It's appalling that you had to suffer such discouragement and interference and it does you credit that you have persisted and prevailed despite this. Max Tegmark (whose book I'm also reading) also tells how he was explicitly warned by a senior colleague that publishing (or even talking openly) about foundational topics not currently in the mainstream was very likely to harm his career.

"mainstream", that is the new word in fashion. That means nothing. The ASSC uses it systematically. 

In practice "mainstream" means "aristotle theology", simply. They want comp, and they want Matter, and so are inconsistent, and that explains the use of the authoritative argument. I think, in some way.

He says he had to develop two distinct professional faces, which he actually calls Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and be very wary about who he let see one or the other. He also had to find cunning ways to conceal more speculative topics in the context of more conventional-seeming papers.

Keep in mind that comp speculation is that x + 0 = x, x + (y +1) = (x + y) + 1, etc. Plus the idea that there is no magic, or actual infinities playing a relevant role in the brain (others than those on which the first person plural is confronted in arithmetic).

As he points out in his section on Everett, one of the most insightful minds in physics was in effect blocked from the possibility of a career in the field as a consequence of those very insights.

OK, but in this case it is not clear if it is ideological, or just "short term profits". (Or both).

There are, alas, too many other cases. It's sad that academia and research, with their supposedly higher standards of objectivity, seems no less subject to the wiles of politics and human perversity than most other fields. I became familiar with such machinations in the business world, but I used to fondly imagine, perhaps influenced my early reading of Karl Popper, that science was a field in which pure rationality must surely prevail over obfuscation and outright misrepresentation. Popper said that humans are unique in being able to "let our ideas die in our stead". That's as may be, but nonetheless there seem to be not a few who are willing to perish themselves sooner than change their minds.

But you know, 99,9% of the scientists are honest, but then, sometimes, that can't help against a minority of bureaucrats with "protections".  I have been lucky to have the support of biologists, engineers, and even by many logicians. Unfortunately the prize "Le monde" has spread the defamation. Unlucky, anecdotical, circumstances.

I knew that  I never should have left the ocean, but then I was curious, and, to be sure, a bit tired being eaten by the locals. Nothing really changed since, and science has not yet  begun. But we, the platonists are about infinitely patient :)

Bruno

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[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Friday, March 7, 2014 3:59:06 PM UTC, David Nyman wrote:

Hi Bruno

I'm reading your fascinating work right now on Kindle and finding it very enlightening on many fronts. Many thanks also for the fine work of the translators! It's appalling that you had to suffer such discouragement and interference and it does you credit that you have persisted and prevailed despite this. Max Tegmark (whose book I'm also reading) also tells how he was explicitly warned by a senior colleague that publishing (or even talking openly) about foundational topics not currently in the mainstream was very likely to harm his career. He says he had to develop two distinct professional faces, which he actually calls Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and be very wary about who he let see one or the other. He also had to find cunning ways to conceal more speculative topics in the context of more conventional-seeming papers.

 

But Everett's idea wasn't scientific, none of the 'interpretations' were - the whole interpretation paradigm was a panicky rush job and was fundamentally flawed. Because the core proposition was that something can be explained purely in terms of itself, resulting in more objective knowledge about it than there was to begin with. That's pure magical thinking because it's saying objective knowledge comes out of thin air.

 

Put differently it's a method justifiable in philosophy only. Because philosophy define anything true it likes. But just consider what that proposition is actually saying. First of all, it just builds in the huge assumption that  QM 'strangeness' can be explained in terms of itself only. Which assumes that it isn't one component of a set that all need to be explained together. Yet every single major scientific paradigm shift has precisely those traits in coming to be.

 

In all cases, the initial conditions for the shift are independent discovery lines, roughly equally robust and productive, but far apart with different approaches and supporting concepts. One of the defining traits of all of our best scientific threads, was bigger and bigger breakthroughs, each time solving one thing but raising new problems in the process. As the breakthroughs got larger, the nature of the new problems would change to become that the problems were intractable - unsolvable. In terms of that thread, with the concepts and methods it was using.

 

The mark of this, was that the problem literally could not be defined anymore by that set of concepts alone. So things stalled, and people previously getting progress were baffled by this and stuck for a way forward. Because there literally was no way forward, because the issues defied conceptualization. But the stasis got them looking around what else was happening, maybe prepping up on other core threads for a career switch.

 

But what that process revealed to the scientists was that the problem that couldn't be defined in terms of their thread alone, could be defined when two (or more ) threads were taken together. What that realization kicked off were periods of methodological convergence. Which - because these are people drawn from the small pool of great scientific geniuses, they managed to get right.

 

The strategy for convergence they settled on, was to start with the background concepts first, make those more explicit (many of them weren't). Then put them on a mathematical basis. Because math is a common language and maths can translate between the different contexts. Therefore math could converge the threads by going background concepts first.

 

The background concepts they settled on, was the subset of concepts that named the forces and effects, which were first furnished with units if not there aready. Then units into numerate form,. Then duplicate or equivalent forces between threads extracted. Equations then linking common forces or effects across threads, each one linking locally to a thread to distinctive forces or effects only seen there. Units discovery being the primitive model of translation, but things were converging strongly now, toward equations that related previously separate effects, now purely in terms of each other.

 

It was this overt work that created the convergent effect.. Theories are abstract so occupy no dimensional space to be physically convergent. But the linkage and convergence of units and forces and effects, harmonized the background conceptual framework, which is equivalent to ambient dimensionalituy, or environment. The original big problems were independent of the threads they came out of now, sitting between threads, And began to get solved by taking all threads together, thus driving convergences further.

 

The end result would be a revolution....that would see major gerneralizations of earlier theories. The marke of that being, not only a revolution of theory, but of the whole conceptual framework....seeing everything transformed.

 

Which transformation revealed yet more insight of objective nature, since despite everything changing, some thing remained the same through the process and were preserved, save now at new levesl of detail. These became the 'principles'.

 

This is the story of science. You or we don't have to like it...we can find Poppers C&R more satisfying if we choose. But nothing is changed by what we think. That's the story of science. It's a richly characteristic phenomenon that produces effectively new knowledge that wasn't there before. It was there before, but in pieces scattered across what were thought to be separate processes.

 

That's the trait. It's more obvious and evident the more profound the scientific revolution was. It's more in evidence, or less hard to spot, in the latter breakthroughs than earlier. Because the latter ones were more complex, and the stakes were higher, and the problems more baffling. As such there were more convergent threads, more conceptual complexity to draw upon.

 

The take away from this, is not only that the 'interpretation' approach is totally flawed and misconceived,. But also that the 'strangenss' so baffling out of QM. The fact the strangeness literally defines definition using what are our best most central concepts and principles. The fact strangenss appears to threaten science itself in totally throwing out all the key knowledge that came out of science. Like local realism.

 

All of that is far from unprecedented. It's TYPICAL of the furthest extent a singular thread can go. QM may be the worst dose of it yet, or the most baffling and incomprehensible. But the same phenomenon of problems that defy definition and threaten the whole science are the traits of threads that now have problems that cannot be resolved on their own terms, but in that thread on its own.

 

And the way that resolves is always the same theme too. Theories previous left separate, have problems that sit astride tmultiple hread. that can only be solved by taking such threads together. by taking

 

In other words, the interpretation theme is exactly wrong.

 

Even the traits of MWI are to significant extent predictable from the inverting character of Interpretation. Real progress is impossible when things go this wrong. The mark of real progress is concept enriching, new detail level breakouts, major and minor convergences, larger and larger revolutions defined by more and more levels of detail and associated supported concept framework are transformed and overhauled. All of which surges progress forward, and proliferates its possibilities, as new questions, on new levels, for new

generations.  So that's scientific progress.

 

 

 

 

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[LizR]

The MWI simply removed the metaphysical assumptions that had been added by earlier interpretations (Copenhagen etc). It didn't add any, all it said was, essentially, assume that the existing equations are correct..

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Brett Hall]

On 8 Mar 2014, at 4:47 pm, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, March 7, 2014 3:59:06 PM UTC, David Nyman wrote:

Hi Bruno

I'm reading your fascinating work right now on Kindle and finding it very enlightening on many fronts. Many thanks also for the fine work of the translators! It's appalling that you had to suffer such discouragement and interference and it does you credit that you have persisted and prevailed despite this. Max Tegmark (whose book I'm also reading) also tells how he was explicitly warned by a senior colleague that publishing (or even talking openly) about foundational topics not currently in the mainstream was very likely to harm his career. He says he had to develop two distinct professional faces, which he actually calls Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and be very wary about who he let see one or the other. He also had to find cunning ways to conceal more speculative topics in the context of more conventional-seeming papers.

 

But Everett's idea wasn't scientific, none of the 'interpretations' were - the whole interpretation paradigm was a panicky rush job and was fundamentally flawed. Because the core proposition was that something can be explained purely in terms of itself, resulting in more objective knowledge about it than there was to begin with. That's pure magical thinking because it's saying objective knowledge comes out of thin air.

Everett's idea wasn't (isn't?) scientific because of the "interpretation paradigm"?

Does this also mean that the interpretation of the observations of things like the phases of Venus and the orbits of the Galilean Moon of Jupiter that the heliocentric theory is superior to the geocentric theory isn't "scientific"? 

Or that the interpretation of fossils as being evidence of dinosaurs actually existing hundreds of millions of years ago is likewise "magical thinking" because there are alternatives available like: the dinosaurs were around 5000 years ago (or whatever)

and wiped out by a flood?

Isn't all science about explanations (which are interpretations) of observations (which are interpretations)? 

I'm easily confused! 😝

Brett

[LizR]

On 9 March 2014 02:25, Brett Hall <brha...@hotmail.com> wrote:

But Everett's idea wasn't scientific, none of the 'interpretations' were - the whole interpretation paradigm was a panicky rush job and was fundamentally flawed. Because the core proposition was that something can be explained purely in terms of itself, resulting in more objective knowledge about it than there was to begin with. That's pure magical thinking because it's saying objective knowledge comes out of thin air. 

Everett's idea wasn't (isn't?) scientific because of the "interpretation paradigm"? 

To be precise, Everett decided to see what QM was saying if you didn't interpret it.

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Just want to let everyone know that the English translation of Buno
Marchal's "The Amoeba's Secret" is now available from Amazon's Kindle
store. See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IRLEKPA


The Amoeba's Secret was written when Bruno received the
prestigious Prix Le Monde de la Recherche Universitaire for his PhD
thesis, only for the prize to be mysteriously revoked, and the book
not published. The original French version exists only as a manuscript
available from Bruno's website.

The Amoeba's Secret remains one of clearest explanations of Bruno's
UDA and AUDA arguments, and provides a lot of historical background
motivating him to formulate and study these issues in this way. Now,
after about 4 years of effort, Kim Jones and I have finally finished
the translation of this book into English.

For those of you who prefer their books hard, the paperback version
will probably be available towards the end of March. I need to see a
physical copy of what Amazon produces before approving it for
general sale. I have jigged things so that hard copy purchases are
entitled to a free Kindle version fo the book, so you can have the
best of both worlds.

Great job by you guys, congratulations!

Didn't get to reply timely, but please... time?!

I'll have to not buy it, just to restore correctness for there to be some dissent, which is dumb, because I want it.

Sometimes sacrifice is the best next move.

Glad to be of service, gentlemen. PGC

 

Cheers

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics      hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales          http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Bruno Marchal]

On 08 Mar 2014, at 06:47, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, March 7, 2014 3:59:06 PM UTC, David Nyman wrote:

Hi Bruno

I'm reading your fascinating work right now on Kindle and finding it very enlightening on many fronts. Many thanks also for the fine work of the translators! It's appalling that you had to suffer such discouragement and interference and it does you credit that you have persisted and prevailed despite this. Max Tegmark (whose book I'm also reading) also tells how he was explicitly warned by a senior colleague that publishing (or even talking openly) about foundational topics not currently in the mainstream was very likely to harm his career. He says he had to develop two distinct professional faces, which he actually calls Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and be very wary about who he let see one or the other. He also had to find cunning ways to conceal more speculative topics in the context of more conventional-seeming papers.

 

But Everett's idea wasn't scientific,

I disagree. The idea that Everett has proposed a new interpretation of QM, is explicitly denied by Everett, who explicitly proposes a new "formulation" of QM, and for a logicians, Everett just propose a new theory, which basically is the same as Copenhagen theory, with the withdrew of the collapse (baldy defined and close to non-sensical) of the wave axiom.

It is a much simpler theory than Copenhagen, the only one consistent with comp and its many weakening, and it is the only theory which makes sense in quantum cosmology. It invites also to to the idea of quantum computer and exploitation of the superposition and their contagion/entanglement.

none of the 'interpretations' were - the whole interpretation paradigm was a panicky rush job and was fundamentally flawed. Because the core proposition was that something can be explained purely in terms of itself, resulting in more objective knowledge about it than there was to begin with. That's pure magical thinking because it's saying objective knowledge comes out of thin air.

 

Put differently it's a method justifiable in philosophy only. Because philosophy define anything true it likes.

It was just a new, simpler, *theory* Not a new interpretation. The SWE = many-worlds, unless we add ad hoc rules, contradicting the SWE.

Bohr said it clearly: QM does not apply to macro-object, and the laboratory obeys to classical physics. In fact Bohr just said that QM is false in the macro-realm. Everett showed that Bohr was just reifying "world-unicity", which is an 1p view, and should never be reified. Everett derived that "unicity feeling" from a quantum version of the FPI.

Probably more on this in my answer to another post by you.

Bruno

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

I profoundly agree on that key point, although, as a logician, I would mention the "literal interpretation". If you don't interpret it *at all*, then it is equivalent with toilet paper, ... well, except for the ink perhaps.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

On 08 Mar 2014, at 07:34, LizR wrote:

The MWI simply removed the metaphysical assumptions that had been added by earlier interpretations (Copenhagen etc). It didn't add any, all it said was, essentially, assume that the existing equations are correct..

I agree. MWI can be said to be the literal interpretation of QM. This can be made precise by using the mathematical-logical notion of "Herbrand universe", but as you say, it is just the reading of the SWE, + the usual interpretation of physical propositions.

MWI is a consequence of both the linearity of the SWE, + the linearity of the tensor product.

Then it confirms the more obvious many-computations which exist in arithmetic, and on which our consciousness has to supervene when we assume computationalism.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[LizR]

Well yes one has to read English and maths to understand his thesis!

[Joseph Knight]

I am in the process of translating certain chunks of the Lille thesis, LaTeXed, for personal use. (Currently, CH5, on Lobian machines). My French sucks, but with the help of Google Translate I'm doing a serviceable job. However when I'm done I can make it available to anyone who's interested. 

BTW thanks very much to you and Kim for translating SoA. It was informative and fun to read, providing some answers to questions like "How the hell did anyone ever think of the UDA??". And of course, congrats to Bruno.

[Bruno Marchal]

Thanks Joseph.

Best,

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[LizR]

I received my copy yesterday and am up to page 25. Very interesting so far, and "discretely charming" :)