Sick of the PI debate let's try another angle
Tony Suessine
Tony Suessine wrote in message ...
Oops, given the parameters stated in the first paragraph,
the "not good" example in the second paragraph is an
insult to the intelligence of most everyone on this newsgroup.
retracting the 2nd paragraph if I haven't already been flamed (:
Tony
Tony Suessine
(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
God, Aliens doesn't matter)
Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
I'll give an example of what shouldn't count since I'm starting this
thread. A message encoded in our DNA. No good since mankind
could probably do this in the not too distant future. It is only evidence
that we were created by a technologically advanced race. I want
evidence of a godlike "race" that can alter/create the laws of the
universe itself.
Any ideas? I'm stumped.
Tony
Zunu News
<asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>
>Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
>you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
>i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
>couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
Not exactly mathematical, but if I died and woke up in heaven, hell,
nirvana, purgatory, etc., that would probably convince me.
>I'll give an example of what shouldn't count since I'm starting this
>thread. A message encoded in our DNA. No good since mankind
>could probably do this in the not too distant future. It is only evidence
>that we were created by a technologically advanced race.
Frankly, I don't really see what's the difference between a
sufficiently advanced alien and "God". Isn't God just a really
powerful alien who created a universe in his basement lab?
>I want
>evidence of a godlike "race" that can alter/create the laws of the
>universe itself.
If we looked up at the sky and the stars showed the entire solar
system was in a different part of the universe, that would pretty
clearly demonstrate to me that we were at the whim of a godlike power.
Or if the moon looked all wobbly like a soap bubble and if the clouds
were a nice shade of cotton candy blue and if the sun had swirly
colors like a big lollipop.
>Any ideas? I'm stumped.
How about if you heard a voice that said "Behold! I am God!" And
then things suddenly started going backwards in time really fast --
flowers turn into sprouts and the sun moves through the sky about once
a second like one of those artsy college films with a Philip Glass
soundtrack.
And then you look up and there's a big Godlike face peering down
imperiously at you from the heavens, and somehow you know that that
face belongs to John S. Novak III even though you've never seen him
before. And the eyes seem to follow you everywhere. And they are
like coals of fire, and his hair is like lamb's wool, and his sinews
are of burnished copper and behind him is the heavenly host with
myriads of angels all dressed for battle!
And the earth cracks open, and out of the depths swarm millions of
slithery things of pure evil, their rank smell nigh overpowering. You
cannot see them directly, but their shadows taunt you from the corners
of your eyes.
And then you put down that crack pipe and you swear never to inhale
another controlled substance, ever. Or read anything by Stephen R.
Donaldson.
Oh, BTW, ObSF: Phil K. Dick. Take your pick.
--
|| ne...@zuME.nu || To reply, take "ME" out!
||-----------------------------------------------------
|| Hidden talent counts for nothing -- Nero
Tony Suessine
Joshua P. Hill wrote in message ...
>How realistic are you trying to be? I mean, there are lots of
>possibilities if you want to play loose with it. How about a big box
>somewhere that has new stars coming out?
>
I just was tired of the lets prove the negative (although I
did agree with the negative). Realistic of course!! Ok
I will go out on a limb here and get shot down. I started this
thread so I guess I get burnt first. A pattern is discovered in
the creation of virtual particle pairs. (Pick your time unit). First
pair created at time 1 in cubic (pick your volume unit) ...
anyways the rest of the pattern follows ... Particles created at
1,2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23 up to prime number X and then repeats.
Since IMHO this would not be a probable result, could this be
evidence of a message. Let's up the ante. At the end of every series
is an apparent random number. String them together and they are
PI in base two (I love binary). Would this convince anyone?
Tony
Tony Suessine
Zunu News wrote in message ...
>How about if you heard a voice that said "Behold! I am God!" And
>then things suddenly started going backwards in time really fast --
>flowers turn into sprouts and the sun moves through the sky about once
>a second like one of those artsy college films with a Philip Glass
>soundtrack.
>
>And then you look up and there's a big Godlike face peering down
>imperiously at you from the heavens, and somehow you know that that
>face belongs to John S. Novak III even though you've never seen him
>before. And the eyes seem to follow you everywhere. And they are
>like coals of fire, and his hair is like lamb's wool, and his sinews
>are of burnished copper and behind him is the heavenly host with
>myriads of angels all dressed for battle!
>
>And the earth cracks open, and out of the depths swarm millions of
>slithery things of pure evil, their rank smell nigh overpowering. You
>cannot see them directly, but their shadows taunt you from the corners
>of your eyes.
>
>And then you put down that crack pipe and you swear never to inhale
>another controlled substance, ever. Or read anything by Stephen R.
>Donaldson.
Don't know about S. Donaldson but how did you find out about my
crack use. Was it from the guy who sold me weed or the guy
who sold me the LSD. No wait it was the guy who prescibes the
Prozac wasn't it?
Tony
Tony Suessine
Tony Suessine wrote in message ...
>
>crack use. Was it from the guy who sold me weed or the guy
>who sold me the LSD. No wait it was the guy who prescibes the
>Prozac wasn't it?
Please ignore. My therapist say my rantings are due to reading
AI Heaven every week or two.
Tony
Hop David
Tony Suessine wrote:
> I want
> evidence of a godlike "race" that can alter/create the laws of the
> universe itself.
>
> Any ideas? I'm stumped.
>
> Tony
Creation of matter?
Hop
Aaron Bergman
>I just was tired of the lets prove the negative (although I
>did agree with the negative). Realistic of course!! Ok
>I will go out on a limb here and get shot down. I started this
>thread so I guess I get burnt first. A pattern is discovered in
>the creation of virtual particle pairs.
This really doesn't make sense. One cannot really talk about
numbers of virtual particles.
Aaron
--
Aaron Bergman
<http://www.princeton.edu/~abergman/>
Aaron Bergman
>
>Aaron Bergman wrote in message ...
>>This really doesn't make sense. One cannot really talk about
>>numbers of virtual particles.
>
>I have been under the impression that particle/anti-particle
>pairs are always being create/annilated. I was just pointing
>to a detectable frequency in their creation.
This is sort of a way of thinking about Quantum Field Theory, but
I wouldn't take it too literally.
Tony Suessine
Aaron Bergman wrote in message ...
>This really doesn't make sense. One cannot really talk about
>numbers of virtual particles.
Maybe I stated it wrong but hey I expected to be "flamed" (:
I have been under the impression that particle/anti-particle
pairs are always being create/annilated. I was just pointing
to a detectable frequency in their creation.
Tony
William Clifford
<asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>
>Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
>you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
>i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
>couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
Are you sure you want this as a condition? Any evidence that a given
diety could give us for his/her/their existence could certainly be
forged by other godlike entities. How could we possibly tell the
difference between God and a Godlike fake?
-William Clifford
John Schilling
I think he is trying to make a distinction between "merely" ultra-advanced
tecnology and literal, theological omnipotence. At least in the abstract
this is a distinction worth making. A basic taxonomy:
Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
anything within the framework of natural, physical law.
Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to order. Probably created
this universe and wrote its physical law in the first
place.
Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
Whether or not Type II/III Gods even *can* exist is of course questionable,
but we need to be clear on what we are talking about.
As far as convincing evidence is concerned, Sagan's suggestion of messages
encoded in basic mathematical constants might work, modulo concerns about
implementation and statistical ambiguity. But if the value of pi or e or
radical 2 has been unambiguously written to order, there's a Type III God
at work.
For a Type II God, use the same mechanism but with dimensionless physical
constants like the fine-structure constant or the electron/proton mass ratio.
Type I Gods can just perform suitably impressive physical feats. Set up
a wormhole transit system to dump a couple hundred blue-white supergiants
into a constellation ten light-years out spelling "Yes, Earthlings, I Exist".
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Brooks Moses
> It really is getting kind of hard to fit a creator into the picture,
> because She would either have had to work pretty damn hard to disguise
> Her handiwork or settle on some basic laws and let the universe take
> care of itself. I suppose you could work with the former scenario--the
> universe could be a zoo cage, with the equivalent of concrete rocks
> and trees--but that's a very old idea.
(Randomly attaching my response here....)
I think what would be fairly conclusive would be some sort of
mathematicophysical proof that the human mind and consciousness could
not be accounted for by any laws of physics that resemble what we know
about the rest of the universe....
- Brooks
Brooks Moses
> On 14 Sep 1999 10:46:39 -0700, schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling)
> wrote:
> > Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
> > maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
> > same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
> >As far as convincing evidence is concerned, Sagan's suggestion of messages
> >encoded in basic mathematical constants might work, modulo concerns about
> >implementation and statistical ambiguity. But if the value of pi or e or
> >radical 2 has been unambiguously written to order, there's a Type III God
> >at work.
> I love your analysis, but no matter how correlated one's sample,
> there's no way to prove that an infinite number of digits isn't
> random, unless you have the rule that generated them--in which case
> they wouldn't require a Type III God.
Eh, not necessarily. Suppose that it was found that, in some decoding
scheme, the base-7 expansion of the square root of (say) 144000
corresponded to words in ancient Hebrew. More specifically, legible
ancient Hebrew sentences that made semantic sense, at least insofar as
what had been humanly read. As far as mathematical proof, it was found
that this continued as far out as one wanted to take it -- the number
decoded into properly spelled Hebrew words.
Now, to the extent that you could prove this pattern continued, you'd
have found that the digits were in some limited way not random -- or, at
the very least, non-normal in a manner which has no connection
whatsoever to numbers at all. On the other hand, this would not at all
be having the rule that generated them.
Of course, there's always the possiblity that this could be explained by
an immensely clever Type I god who noticed a non-normality in this
particular set of numbers, and created the entirety of the Hebrew
language and a lot of other more fundamental bits about language in
general specifically so that this would decode into something sensible.
But, the likelihood of that being plausible becomes smaller and smaller
the further into the number you go and still get semanticly sensible
sentences.
Which is what it all boils down to, anyway -- in pretty much any of
these cases, you'd have something that logically appeared incredibly
highly unlikely, yet not completely provably non-random, coupled with a
humanities-based realization that sort of transcended the logic.
Now, what might make an interesting story would be if a such a message
was found, but it about 37 volumes in, explicitly stated that it was
simply a random construction of number theory, and was not at all put
there as a message from a diety. And then proceeded to put forth a
significantly good argument for why such was the case.... But I
digress.
- Brooks
Brooks Moses
> would it prove the existence of God as opposed to the metaphysical
> nature of thought?
Um, right. It wouldn't, exactly. But I think that proving the
metaphysical nature of thought would at least be a step in the "right"
direction, and would make the idea of a God a lot more plausible and
probably easier to demonstrate.... Note the "I think" -- that's mainly
just personal opinion, based largely on my personal beliefs about the
nature of God. :)
- Brooks
Tony Suessine
Roger Carbol wrote in message <8E41576BDrcarbol@news>...
>Tony Suessine <asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>
>> Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>> (totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>> God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>
>
I don't think so anyways if you think so disregard the word...
What I wanted was to have the PI debate mixed up a bit
by speculating what might convince them. The "anti" crowd
seemed to be more meticulous in their arguments and I wanted
to see what they could do on the other side.
Tony
Brooks Moses
> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 15:55:14 -0700, Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> >Eh, not necessarily. Suppose that it was found that, in some decoding
> >scheme, the base-7 expansion of the square root of (say) 144000
> >corresponded to words in ancient Hebrew. More specifically, legible
> >ancient Hebrew sentences that made semantic sense, at least insofar as
> >what had been humanly read. As far as mathematical proof, it was found
> >that this continued as far out as one wanted to take it -- the number
> >decoded into properly spelled Hebrew words.
>
> generates the number. This does not prove the existence of a Type III
> God, because a Type II God could have written the rule that way.
Well, that depends on whether the rule that generates the number is a
physical law or something derivable from basic logic. As I understand
the terminology, it would take a Type III god to write the square root
of 144000 in some specific way.
> Scenario B--it can't be proved that the sequence results from the rule
> that generates the number. In that case, there's no way to demonstrate
> that the sequence is anything more than random chance, no matter how
> many observations one makes. Once again, it doesn't require a Type III
> God.
Well, yes. I wasn't really doubting that. I think there's a point
where it makes a lot more sense to believe in a intentional creation of
the number's pattern by a diety than to believe in something of the sort
happening by a chance that's on the verge of nonexistent.
In other words, if I rolled a 128-sided die thirty-seven thousand times,
translated the results into ASCII text, and obtained a play by
Shakespeare and a well-written original critique of the play, then I
would find it a lot easier to believe that somebody or some "diety" was
playing with my die, rather than that it occurred by random chance --
even if I was completely certain there was no way to explain the
interference by known physical laws. The fact that I can't _prove_ it
wasn't random chance is somewhat irrelevant to that belief.
> >Now, to the extent that you could prove this pattern continued, you'd
> >have found that the digits were in some limited way not random -- or, at
> >the very least, non-normal in a manner which has no connection
> >whatsoever to numbers at all. On the other hand, this would not at all
> >be having the rule that generated them.
>
> How could one generate the digits without a rule? And if one merely
> detected them somehow--the results of some kind of measurement, for
> example--one couldn't make the proof.
Well, ok, so I was unclear. Mainly by not using "random" correctly --
obviously the digits are non-random, because I was talking about a
number derived from number theory. What I meant was that, aside from
that rule and things that logically followed from it, they ought to
appear random -- any pattern that we found in them should be a clear
result of the rule used to create them. But, if we found some other
complex pattern which demonstrably didn't have anything to do with the
rule that we used to generate the numbers (an example of the complex
pattern would be encoded meaningful sentences), and the digits also fit
that pattern, then something unusual is going on.
Er, I mean "what I now mean", not "what I meant" -- my thoughts are
fuzzy and changing on this topic. :)
But I do think that a relevant point is that the original question was
"What would you consider a convincing argument", not, "What would you
consider a logical proof" of the existence of a diety (or something
indistinguishable from such). I don't think the questions are the same
-- and if you do, are you honestly prepared to swear that if you rolled
a 128-sided die thirty-seven thousand times and get ASCII codes of a
play and a critical analysis, that you would chalk it up to random
chance when you can't find a physical explaination for that anomaly? :)
- Brooks
Hop David
"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
> But the notion of a theistic God makes
> me uncomfortable, as does the notion that there's something
> priviledged about thought or consciousness, which strikes me as too
> geocentric.
>
> Josh
If there are other races in the universe, presumably they'd think and have
consciousness. I don't see why these things should be just limited to the
earth. Why would the notion that consciousness is privileged be geocentric?
Regards,
Hop
Hop David
John Schilling wrote:
> I think he is trying to make a distinction between "merely" ultra-advanced
> tecnology and literal, theological omnipotence. At least in the abstract
> this is a distinction worth making. A basic taxonomy:
>
> Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
> anything within the framework of natural, physical law.
>
> Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to order. Probably created
> this universe and wrote its physical law in the first
> place.
>
> Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
> maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
> same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
>
I could see less than a Type I God: A race that couldn't do absolutely anything
within the framework of natural, physical law, but could do a heck of a lot
more than us. Maybe call these Type .707 or .618 Gods (sorry, I don't like
roman numerals)
Just a few millenia ago powers such as instantly obliterating cities or seeing
things from very far away were considered God like powers. Now modern man has
powers comparable to those held by early pantheons (Odin, Zuess, et al). Maybe
the ancient Greeks would regard _us_ as Type .75 Gods.
Hop
Brooks Moses
>
> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 19:29:17 -0700, Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >Well, that depends on whether the rule that generates the number is a
> >physical law or something derivable from basic logic. As I understand
> >the terminology, it would take a Type III god to write the square root
> >of 144000 in some specific way.
>
> rewrite physical law to order" to embody mathematical law. Schism!
I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
My understanding is that a Type II god could rewrite things like
relativity and gravity -- i.e. stuff that's a property of the physical
universe and wouldn't require logic itself to be violated in order to be
true.
[...]
> >In other words, if I rolled a 128-sided die thirty-seven thousand times,
> >translated the results into ASCII text, and obtained a play by
> >Shakespeare and a well-written original critique of the play, then I
> >would find it a lot easier to believe that somebody or some "diety" was
> >playing with my die, rather than that it occurred by random chance --
> >even if I was completely certain there was no way to explain the
> >interference by known physical laws. The fact that I can't _prove_ it
> >wasn't random chance is somewhat irrelevant to that belief.
>
> I agree. This conversation isn't any fun at all! <g>
LOL! :)
Don't you just hate it when that happens? You get all fired up for a
debate, and find out that you agree.... How utterly horrid. ;)
A random possibly interesting point is that, while I do believe in God,
I really don't expect to find any such messages -- I pretty much expect
God to restrict godself to acting as a Type I god, despite having a
capability not to. (I'm not sure on the Type II / Type III bit -- I'd
be a bit clearer if I had a concept of what it would actually mean to
alter the rules of logic!) This raises some obvious issues with also
believing in the resurrection literally....
- Brooks
Blaine Manyluk
<RqHdNz+B9qRqkm9XOWHoLJwZ7=l...@4ax.com>...
> Frankly, I don't really see what's the difference between a
> sufficiently advanced alien and "God". Isn't God just a really
> powerful alien who created a universe in his basement lab?
God *is* an alien, by definition. God is not Human, and not from
Earth (or anywhere else in this physical space-time).
======================================================================
[To reply, remove the S's from my address, and change the R's to N's.]
William Clifford
[context preserved below]
It still seems to me that a Type I God could convincingly spoof for us
mere mortals the effects we would expect of the other two kinds.
Consider: it would be a bad, bad, bad idea to ask a Type II God to
rewrite physical laws for us. We evolved under the physical conditions
that we know a love right now. If the least of those gets pushed up or
down a little we could find ourselves in a lot of trouble. Trouble
breathing, trouble keeping the atoms together...
A Type III God could keep us safe in a bubble of physical paradox.
I'm not sure how a GII could keep us safe. If it seems that there be a
limit in how well we could observe events outside our bubble, where
the rules are different.
A GI could use special effects to mimic the effects of a GIII or some
fast talk to convince us of its GII limitations.
None of these types of God are really obligated to prove anything to
we mere mortals. They could probably bribe us for our worship much
cheaper than 'prove' it through the elaborate tests we devise here.
If, for some unfathomable reason, it's really necessary for a given
unbeliever to be convinced the God in question could just rewrite the
individual's brain until they did.
On 14 Sep 1999 10:46:39 -0700, schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling)
wrote:
>wo...@yahoo.com (William Clifford) writes:
>>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:10:30 -0400, "Tony Suessine"
>><asuessi...@gatecom.com> wrote:
>>>Ok I am looking for the most skeptical people to respond.
>>>(totally against any higher intelligence creating the universe
>>>God, Aliens doesn't matter)
>>>Instead of focusing on why PI can't do it. What would convince
>>>you? It much be part of basic science/physics/mathematics.
>>>i.e. nothing that a race 10,000 years more advanced than us
>>>couldn't trick us with. I can't think of much. Most is ridiculous.
>>Are you sure you want this as a condition? Any evidence that a given
>>diety could give us for his/her/their existence could certainly be
>>forged by other godlike entities. How could we possibly tell the
>>difference between God and a Godlike fake?
>
>I think he is trying to make a distinction between "merely" ultra-advanced
>tecnology and literal, theological omnipotence. At least in the abstract
>this is a distinction worth making. A basic taxonomy:
>
> Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
> anything within the framework of natural, physical law.
>
> Type II God: Can rewrite physical law to order. Probably created
> this universe and wrote its physical law in the first
> place.
>
> Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic. Can
> maintain irresistible force and immovable object at
> same time. 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? No problem?
>
>Whether or not Type II/III Gods even *can* exist is of course questionable,
>but we need to be clear on what we are talking about.
>
>
>As far as convincing evidence is concerned, Sagan's suggestion of messages
>encoded in basic mathematical constants might work, modulo concerns about
>implementation and statistical ambiguity. But if the value of pi or e or
>radical 2 has been unambiguously written to order, there's a Type III God
>at work.
>
>For a Type II God, use the same mechanism but with dimensionless physical
>constants like the fine-structure constant or the electron/proton mass ratio.
>
>Type I Gods can just perform suitably impressive physical feats. Set up
>a wormhole transit system to dump a couple hundred blue-white supergiants
>into a constellation ten light-years out spelling "Yes, Earthlings, I Exist".
-William Clifford
Riboflavin
>I could see less than a Type I God: A race that couldn't do absolutely
anything
>within the framework of natural, physical law, but could do a heck of a lot
>more than us. Maybe call these Type .707 or .618 Gods (sorry, I don't like
>roman numerals)
What, you don't like using .VII as notation? Or maybe VII/X?
--
Kevin Allegood ribotr...@mindspring.pants.com
Remove the pants from my email address to reply
"I am convinced people who worry about spelling and punctuation
on the net fold their underwear before they have sex. It's just got to be."
- Bunboy
Riboflavin
>Zunu News <ne...@zuME.nu> wrote in article
><RqHdNz+B9qRqkm9XOWHoLJwZ7=l...@4ax.com>...
>
>> Frankly, I don't really see what's the difference between a
>> sufficiently advanced alien and "God". Isn't God just a really
>> powerful alien who created a universe in his basement lab?
>
>God *is* an alien, by definition. God is not Human, and not from
>Earth (or anywhere else in this physical space-time).
A court in Florida dealt with a lawsuit by a man who wanted to sue Satan for
the damages old scratch had done to his life dismissed it on the grounds
that the defendant did not reside within any area over which the court had
jurisdiction, thus invalidating the lawsuit.
Erik Max Francis
> Hop David wrote in message
> <37DF0BFD...@tabletoptelephone.com>...
>
> >I could see less than a Type I God: A race that couldn't do
> > absolutely anything
> >within the framework of natural, physical law, but could do a heck of
> > a lot
> >more than us. Maybe call these Type .707 or .618 Gods (sorry, I
> > don't like
> >roman numerals)
>
> What, you don't like using .VII as notation? Or maybe VII/X?
I'd suggest (I/II)^(I/II) or [V^(I/II) - I]/II.
Then again, three significant figures isn't much to go on.
--
Erik Max Francis | icq 16063900 | whois mf303 | email m...@alcyone.com
Alcyone Systems | irc maxxon (efnet) | web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA | languages en, eo | icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W
USA | Wed 1999 Sep 15 (16%/949) | &tSftDotIotE
__
/ \ Man is a hating rather than a loving animal.
\__/ Rebecca West
Zunu News
wrote:
>I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
>was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
>mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
>from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
I'm not clear on this 1+1 =1 thing. I mean, 1+1=2 because we define
it to be that way as an axiom of mathematics. It's true, mathematics
can be used to model the universe, but out in the real universe, for
some things, 1+1 =2, sometimes 1+1= 1.9883, sometimes 1+1=0, sometimes
1+1 = 3, and sometimes you can't add things at all.
We choose 1+1 = 2 as our math because we've decided that that
formulation suits our purposes more often than not.
So in order for a type III God to make 1+1=1, he'd have to change our
minds, that's all. And a type I God can do that, no big deal.
John Schilling
>"Joshua P. Hill" wrote:
>> I think we're interpreting our type II Gods differently. I took "Can
>> rewrite physical law to order" to embody mathematical law. Schism!
I think we're going to have to burn you at the stake now... :-)
>I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
>was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
>mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
>from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
>My understanding is that a Type II god could rewrite things like
>relativity and gravity -- i.e. stuff that's a property of the physical
>universe and wouldn't require logic itself to be violated in order to be
>true.
That was the intention I had when I came up with the taxonomy. There's
no logical or mathematical reason that the electron-proton mass ratio
has to be 1836.152701..., we just empirically observe that it is. It
is therefore concievable that there might be an entity which can change
that.
Pure mathematics and logic are an entirely different matter, and the
entity that can change the value of pi and e and 1+1+1 is an entirely
different order than the one which can "merely" change Mp/Me.
Brooks Moses
> Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu> writes:
> >I thought the "can make 1 + 1 = 1" in the definition of the Type III god
> >was a pretty clear point that it took a Type III god to rewrite
> >mathematical law. Besides, mathematical law is deductively derivable
> >from logic, unless I've misread stuff....
> That was the intention I had when I came up with the taxonomy. There's
> no logical or mathematical reason that the electron-proton mass ratio
> has to be 1836.152701..., we just empirically observe that it is. It
> is therefore concievable that there might be an entity which can change
> that.
>
> Pure mathematics and logic are an entirely different matter, and the
> entity that can change the value of pi and e and 1+1+1 is an entirely
> different order than the one which can "merely" change Mp/Me.
Which raises the question of what exactly it means to change that. I
can pretty easily conceptualize what it means to change the mass ratio
of electrons and protons. With more effort, I can even conceptualize
what it would mean to have mass/energy nonconservative -- that's still a
Type II change.
I simply cannot visualize what it would mean to have logic itself
changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
there?)
- Brooks
John Schilling
>John Schilling wrote:
>> That was the intention I had when I came up with the taxonomy. There's
>> no logical or mathematical reason that the electron-proton mass ratio
>> has to be 1836.152701..., we just empirically observe that it is. It
>> is therefore concievable that there might be an entity which can change
>> that.
>>
>> Pure mathematics and logic are an entirely different matter, and the
>> entity that can change the value of pi and e and 1+1+1 is an entirely
>> different order than the one which can "merely" change Mp/Me.
>Which raises the question of what exactly it means to change that. I
>can pretty easily conceptualize what it means to change the mass ratio
>of electrons and protons. With more effort, I can even conceptualize
>what it would mean to have mass/energy nonconservative -- that's still a
>Type II change.
>I simply cannot visualize what it would mean to have logic itself
>changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
>I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
>and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
>my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
>three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
>individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
>count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
>there?)
Yep, that's type III Godlike Omnipotence at work.
Note, of course, that if a Type III God choses to set things up that way
to begin with, it will make perfect logical sense because it will be
perfectly logical. And we'd be discussing the absurdity of hypothetical
Type III Gods setting things up such that two apples plus two apples
adds up to four apples.
And, as noted earlier, I'm making no claims as to even the possibility
of a Type III God actually existing, just proposing the label for
discussion. Type III Gods certainly figure into a lot of theological
debate - orthodox Christianity pretty much rejects any Type I or II
interpretation of the Trinity, for example - so the need is there.
Zunu News
[This is from a thread originating in rec.arts.sf.science, regarding
the potential powers of a Supreme type being I have added
talk.philosophy.misc and sci.logic because they seem to be relevant to
this discussion. I would recommend perusing the entire thread,
particularly John Schilling's excellent post,
7rm1lv$8ru$1...@spock.usc.edu, wherein he discusses three increasingly
powerful types of Gods.]
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:07:56 -0700, Brooks Moses <bmo...@stanford.edu>
wrote:
[re: a Supreme being that could alter logic itself]
>I simply cannot visualize what it would mean to have logic itself
>changed -- would that mean that a Type III god could make it so that if
>I have some apples in my left hand, and some apples in my right hand,
>and I count all the apples in my left hand "one, two", and the apples in
>my right hand "one, two", and then count all the apples "one, two,
>three, four, five", _without_ changing the number of apples in each hand
>individually???? (And, mind you, without futzing my memory so that I
>count "one, two, four, five" and believe that I put the "three" in
>there?)
>
In some ways, the universe already does things like that. How much is
290,000 km/s + 290,000 km/s? If you just add the numbers, you won't
get the right answer.
1 + 1 = 10 (bits).
1 + 1 = 1 (air bubbles/black holes)
1 + 1 = 3 (humans)
1 + 1 = 2 (in a grade school primer)
When we say that a God III can change the rules of math and logic,
which rules are we talking about? Human rules, that's all. The
universe doesn't observe the rules of arithmetic. It appears to
behave in a fashion that allows us to use these rules in some
contexts, but not in all. If we were quantum sized, or star sized, we
might have created quite different rules to begin with.
So I agree with your puzzlement about the apples. The only reason we
can count "apples" is because we have a convention which says that
there is a category, "apples", containing discrete members that can be
grouped. Look what happens when you try to count pieces of chewing
gum. Or drops of water. Doesn't work so well.
Also, the idea of categories is something of a pretense. We're
pretending that it makes sense to group one apple with another. But
what happens when you add 1 apple and one kiwi? "We still have two.
Two fruits." What about one apple and one pair of binoculars? "We
still have two. Two objects." Hmm, but isn't a pair of binoculars
already two objects? How about one apple and one set of baseball
cards? Or switching away from apples, how about one liter of sand and
one bucket (in which the sand is placed?) I don't know of anyone who
would identify that last as being two objects.
Anyway, my point is that the math and logic are beautiful human
creations (maybe *we* are Type III Gods) inspired by our observation
of the universe, but I don't believe that It is contingent upon our
maths, or that our maths are contingent upon It. If the universe were
to suddenly drastically change so that apples would suddenly merge or
multiply, one and one would still equal two, in the mental universe of
our own creation.
Once again, does anyone have any good philosophical references for
this topic?
Riboflavin
>I'm not clear on this 1+1 =1 thing. I mean, 1+1=2 because we define
>it to be that way as an axiom of mathematics.
Actually, that's not really correct. What I (and presumably the other
posters) are talking about when we talk about making 1+1=3 is making 1+1=3
_under the normal rules of arithmetic_, not just coming up with a situation
where you could label it 1+1 =3. The idea is that the Type3 omipotent being
can change the basic workings of mathematics outside of simple physical
phenomena; if I'm talking about 'changing the value of Pi', I don't mean
'measuring the ratio of diameter to circumference in curved space', I mean
'making it so that when you caluclate Pi mathematically you get something
other than the 3.14159... we're familiar with.
Also, "1+1=2" is not an axiom of modern mathematics, you can construct the
rules for arithmetic using only the basic axioms of set theory (which don't
include defining 1+1 as equal to 2) and deriving numbers and arithmetic from
there.
>It's true, mathematics
>can be used to model the universe, but out in the real universe, for
>some things, 1+1 =2, sometimes 1+1= 1.9883, sometimes 1+1=0, sometimes
>1+1 = 3, and sometimes you can't add things at all.
Which is why changing the mathematics is more impressive than changing the
physical universe. Also, the tricks with "1+1 =3" and "sometimes you can't
add things at all" are really just semantic games in my book, deliberately
mislabeling the objects under discussion to pull a fast one on the other
person.
>We choose 1+1 = 2 as our math because we've decided that that
>formulation suits our purposes more often than not.
Um... that's really not an accurate way to put it, it would be more accurate
to say that by the rules of arithmetic 1+1=2 and we've decided to use
arithmetic to model the world.
>So in order for a type III God to make 1+1=1, he'd have to change our
>minds, that's all. And a type I God can do that, no big deal.
No; while a type I god could make us think that he could do any of the
actions of the other gods, he could not make it so that you could prove that
1+1=3 under the rules of arithmetic (although he could make you think that
he could).
Riboflavin
[snippage below]
> Type I God: Sufficiently advanced technology. Can do absolutely
> Type III God: Not subject to laws of mathematics and logic.
>but we need to be clear on what we are talking about.
>
undetectable, irresistible mind control, which means that a type I could
provide proof of being one of the 'stronger' two types simply by making you
think he did. It renders the classification scheme worthless in actual
application, since the weakest type can always provide proof that he is one
of the stronger types.
Hop David
Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
>
> I'd suggest (I/II)^(I/II) or [V^(I/II) - I]/II.
>
> Then again, three significant figures isn't much to go on.
>
Hey, that's pretty good! O.K., I'll be generous and give you four
significant figures: 2.7182
If you can do that in roman numerals my hat will be off to you.
On Schillings scale I guess this would represent being(s) that could
rewrite physical laws and well on their way to rewriting math constants and
doing logically impossible stuff.
Regards,
Hop
ala...@mindspring.com
would like to add a little from an odd angle, that of number
representation. In some really old computers, (2nd generation
word-oriented machines), the number "0" could be represented several
ways because the sign field was always present for that particular
type of arithmetic. For some models, the results of arithmetic could
be +0 or -0, depending on the signs of the original numbers. In 3rd
generation equipment, some of the mainframes still can represent
positive numbers in two different ways (in "packed-decimal" format),
thus, the result of arithmetic may take on 3 types of "0." Beyond
this, some floating point operations will produce equivalent numbers
but with different binary representations so that even if the numeric
values are "equal" the representations are with different exponents.
This may not be startling, but it seems to me that ambiguity in the
meaning of numbers, is one indication that logic need not be absolute
in all of its applications. I've always thought that a computer that
could return "true, false, maybe" would be much more valuable for
dealing with inductive types of problems than purely true-false
machines. Categories can overlap, we currently spend many cycles find
"the fit."
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