Cosmology

[desiresjab]

To me there is no greater or more interesting subject than the universe itself. I have no technical training in cosmology. Everything I know or know about is from reading and self education on the subject. Not an expert, just another person with opinions and questions.

A question that nags me constantly is whether numbers preceded the laws of physics in the creation of the universe. Did number as some kind of Platonic ideal form precede the universe itself? It seems that possibly the laws of arithmetic had to precede our universe. Would not the laws of arithmetic be invariant across all universes, if there are more than one? I can understand a different periodic table with strange elements in other universes, but a different arithmetic is hard for me to imagine. We ourselves have constructed algebras where AxB does not equal BxA. That was not our natural arithmetic. Are other universes posiible where, for instance it was the other way around. In some other universe did they have to invent a weird algebra to make AxB equal BxA? Even if they did, 2 still meant two to them, didn't it?

Perhaps this question is interesting enough to draw some comments. It seems to stay with me.

[YesNo]

I'm no expert in these matter either, but I do like to express my opinion often because I don't know what my opinion even is.

Regarding numbers, I would agree with you that they seem to transcend space and time which is what our universe is limited by. However, I was under the impression that the matrix mathematics modeling quantum physics is non-commutative, that is AxB does not have to equal BxA. A and B in this case are matrices not numbers.

The idea of "forms" is interesting. They don't seem to be substantial and so they don't seem real. There may be all kinds of reality that do not seem substantial, but which are still real. Electromagnetic fields might be one example of this. Their only substance is that for any point of space we can assign a value to their strength which confirms with experiment. But there's nothing there. To bring this even closer to home, are species real, ontological things or are they just a way to model living reality? If one takes Niles Eldredge's punctuated equilibria idea of evolution, they are real. That would mean we are part of a larger living reality.

Another thing about our universe is that it is constrained by its space and time and these two are tied together by the maximum limit on the speed of light. Being in the universe can then be defined as being subjected to this maximum speed limit which is called "locality". But there are non-local phenomena observed through entangled particle experiments. So there is a non-local, not-inside-the-space-and-time-universe reality whose effects we can observe.

OK, I've rambled enough.

[Eupalinos]

I too apologize for my ignorance, which I'm confident is greater than either of yours, but a question I have that may seem very naive is why the limits of the universe are ascribed to space and time. Are not space or time perceptions we have of something, and not the something itself? Just as we perceive a color or sound, unaware of light or sound waves themselves. What we call space, time, sound, color are interpretations of perceptions, no? Therefore why are space and time distinguished as more important than any other ways we perceive reality?

Don't the laws of physics, in our own universe, change according to the nearness of the big bang, that is the further back one goes towards the beginning? So I rashly assumed the physics of a universe were probably unique and that if there are other universes their laws would likely evolve in a different way. I hope someone more knowledgable will chime in.

[North Star]

To me there is no greater or more interesting subject than the universe itself. I have no technical training in cosmology. Everything I know or know about is from reading and self education on the subject. Not an expert, just another person with opinions and questions.

A question that nags me constantly is whether numbers preceded the laws of physics in the creation of the universe. Did number as some kind of Platonic ideal form precede the universe itself? It seems that possibly the laws of arithmetic had to precede our universe. Would not the laws of arithmetic be invariant across all universes, if there are more than one? I can understand a different periodic table with strange elements in other universes, but a different arithmetic is hard for me to imagine. We ourselves have constructed algebras where AxB does not equal BxA. That was not our natural arithmetic. Are other universes posiible where, for instance it was the other way around. In some other universe did they have to invent a weird algebra to make AxB equal BxA? Even if they did, 2 still meant two to them, didn't it?

Perhaps this question is interesting enough to draw some comments. It seems to stay with me.
In some ways, I have to disagree with you. Mathematical operators would have to work the same way as it does in our universe, as the logic isn't bound by anything 'real', but our decimal system wouldn't mean anything to creatures that didn't develop mathematics using their ten fingers to count things. The nuclear strong force, weak force, gravitation and electromagnetism that are the four fundamental forces would still govern the universe, though. All the elements in the periodic table, and their infinite different compounds are formed in accordance with these forces. Another planet or whatnot may have a different ratio of these elements (and other particles, such as gravitons and graviolis), but I doubt that there could be elements that couldn't exist or be manufactured on Earth or in a supernova or some such.



I too apologize for my ignorance, which I'm confident is greater than either of yours, but a question I have that may seem very naive is why the limits of the universe are ascribed to space and time. Are not space or time perceptions we have of something, and not the something itself? Just as we perceive a color or sound, unaware of light or sound waves themselves. What we call space, time, sound, color are interpretations of perceptions, no? Therefore why are space and time distinguished as more important than any other ways we perceive reality?

Don't the laws of physics, in our own universe, change according to the nearness of the big bang, that is the further back one goes towards the beginning? So I rashly assumed the physics of a universe were probably unique and that if there are other universes their laws would likely evolve in a different way. I hope someone more knowledgable will chime in.
We sense wave motion as sound and colour. Motion happens in space and time, they are as real as the pressure waves producing the sound. And space and time are rather important. E.g. The Pauli exclusion principle states that two identical fermions can't occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. I would also be quite intolerant towards any attempt to sit on the chair I happen to be occupying at any given moment. You can sit there some other time, or you can sit then in some other place, and I don't care if you have a green or a red shirt. If you happen to be listening to something good, I might be more willing to make allowances, though.

The 'laws' of physics don't change, even though the matter changes. The law doesn't change when you get old enough to be able to legally drink alcohol.

[Eupalinos]

Thanks for the comments, North Star. Why, though, from philosophers to physicists, have space and time been placed ABOVE everything else? Why is wave motion, say, not of equal importance? Can space and time be experienced any more objectively than wave motion? (It seems implied in a lot of philosophy that it can be and is.)

[Eupalinos]

The universe functioned very differently at its birth than it does now, isn't that right? I thought the laws (some say habits) evolved over time.

[North Star]

The universe functioned very differently at its birth than it does now, isn't that right? I thought the laws (some say habits) evolved over time.
The laws are the same forever, and everywhere - that is why they are called universal laws. The universe has evolved, and interactions of particles and forces have become more varied, but the laws are still the same. As a person is born and grows up, their behaviour, rights, responsibilities and interactions with the world change, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the laws and norms of the society or the physical world have also changed.

[Eupalinos]

I've read that precisely this idea of universal laws has been a point of contention among physicists. There's been evidence that has led to the speculation that the laws are rather an equivalent to local by-laws. (These analogies to civic life in any case somehow don't seem quite apt.) The fine-structure constant has been observed to vary in space. There is endless speculation of what is theoretically possible in other universes.

[North Star]

I've read that precisely this idea of universal laws has been a point of contention among physicists. There's been evidence that has led to the speculation that the laws are rather an equivalent to local by-laws. (These analogies to civic life in any case somehow don't seem quite apt.) The fine-structure constant has been observed to vary in space. There is endless speculation of what is theoretically possible in other universes.
Sure. There have been plenty of laws discovered that have turned out to not work in all circumstances. That does not necessarily mean that there are no laws, however. It might just mean we don't know precisely what the laws (or constants) actually are.

[desiresjab]

Some excellent responses. I think we have not discovered all the laws of physics yet. The ones we have so far are correct but not the whole picture. Our attempt is to express any anomalies or new discoveries with only those laws we know so far. That is all we can do until/if more laws of physics are discovered.

To answer YesNo. Yes, the non-commutability does apply to matrices not natural numbers. It is still a different arithmetic, a weird one to us. My speculative question was whether in other universe beings would would have to invent something that seemed strange to them that allowed AxB to equal BxA. I am not sure the question is very good.

[YesNo]

Regarding laws of physics, I agree with North Star that they aren't supposed to change. This is more of a convenient assumption on our parts. We have to assume that what we can verify in the here and now will also work in any there and then we might imagine.

I think of the laws of physics as a special form of literature, a kind of sacred text, that we take as literally true (until someone can convince us these texts are false). We tend to forget that people wrote the laws of physics for the use of people. They are not out there in reality. They are only models. We hope they are a good representation for whatever is really out there, but as long as they work well enough for our current purposes they are probably fine.

One of the problems with the laws of physics is that they were written in mathematical languages. Mathematics is deterministic with constants like pi that are precise to arbitrary many decimal places. This feature makes us think that reality is the same way. But I agree with Eupalinos that reality is most likely not, given what has been found out about the uncertainty in quantum physics. Even the constants used in the laws of physics may not be constant in reality like pi is in mathematics.

[desiresjab]

Regarding laws of physics, I agree with North Star that they aren't supposed to change. This is more of a convenient assumption on our parts. We have to assume that what we can verify in the here and now will also work in any there and then we might imagine.

I think of the laws of physics as a special form of literature, a kind of sacred text, that we take as literally true (until someone can convince us these texts are false). We tend to forget that people wrote the laws of physics for the use of people. They are not out there in reality. They are only models. We hope they are a good representation for whatever is really out there, but as long as they work well enough for our current purposes they are probably fine.

One of the problems with the laws of physics is that they were written in mathematical languages. Mathematics is deterministic with constants like pi that are precise to arbitrary many decimal places. This feature makes us think that reality is the same way. But I agree with Eupalinos that reality is most likely not, given what has been found out about the uncertainty in quantum physics. Even the constants used in the laws of physics may not be constant in reality like pi is in mathematics.

Mathmatics is not a problem. Well, it is a problem when we cannot understand it and would like to. I run into math beyond the boundaries of my knowledge all the time.

The misconception I find with non math folk in my experience is not exactly This feature makes us think that reality is the same way, but it is related perhaps. Many people do not understand that proofs in science and proofs in math are not done the same way. Scientific "proofs" consist of the repeatability of experimental results. Then the math is worked out and confirms the results. Sometimes the math comes first. It might lie there practically unnoticed for generations until a smart scientist notices the connection to his experiments. Pure mathematical proofs require no more than some sand and a finger.

We are all familiar with the phrase the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Some mathematicians have pointed out that they think the unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics is more realistic. They say mathematics is dreadfully ineffective everywhere that it is not unreasonably effective, which is a lot of places.

A few scientists are currently exploring the hypothetical connection between consciousness and quantum physics. What a monumental task! Is mathematics even suited for the job? Apparently they are using Li Algebra for some of the work, according to Ed Mitchell. I have a suspicion that new mathematics will have to be invented. I have never done any Li algebra, so can't say much about it or its chances of being successful. It is interesting and encouraging that high powered minds are now taking up this challenge.

I have my own theories about consciousness and quantum physics, but they are lay fantasies not supported (or unsupported) by math. We are in between the scale of the universe and the scale of the atom. I do not know if it is my own phrase, but I call it quantum leakage into our scale. I have a suspicion (not a belief) that alpha religious experiences, dreams, ESP, all of what we call psychic phenomena are due to quantum leakage into our scale. Dreams seem to share many characteristics with quantum "reality." I could easily believe that a hundred years or more will pass before any progress is made in this endeavour. Maybe never. We may meet our limits somewhere, and this could be the place.

[YesNo]

I haven't read Wigner's paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. Here is a wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_t he_Natural_Sciences This is probably the article: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

I don't think mathematics needs to describe some natural phenomenon. For example, transfinite numbers don't seem to have much use in our finite universe. Only some mathematics has use-value in the natural sciences.

I like your idea of quantum leakage, but I don't understand it. Regarding supernormal phenomena (to use Dean Radin's term), I assume there is more going on than we are culturally willing to admit.

Although natural sciences rely heavily on mathematics to make predictions other sciences such as economics or psychology don't unless they are processing data. They still make predictions based on theory (rules or laws). Sometimes the predictions actually come true which is why people want to get the advice of economists and psychiatrists. Even a reader of Tarot cards is making predictions based on a theory, rules or laws that they interpret and people pay for those services for the same reason they pay for a physicist's or economist's or a psychiatrist's predictions: the predictions provide use-value to them.

But think of what each of these disciplines attempting to make predictions imply about reality. They are not consistent views. The physicist using deterministic mathematics implies that reality is deterministic and completely reducible to unconscious stuff. There is no need for consciousness in that view. The economist and psychiatrist assumes there is some form of individual consciousnesses making choices but nothing more than that. The Tarot reading implies there is some sort of psychic reality enveloping those individual consciousnesses.

The problem is that predictions on all these levels work reasonably well enough that people are willing to pay physicists, economists, psychiatrists and Tarot readers for their services. They are all unreasonably effective, or effective enough to provide use-value to others.

[desiresjab]

Comparing Tarot cards to mathematics and science seems like a bad analogy from the start. Tarot card prediction can do no better than 50% in the long run, and is pure charlatanism, hardly good enough for science. In fact, statistics can be used to disprove the use value of Tarot cards to anyone who can understand the reasoning. Tarot cards are no better at prediction than religion or soothsayers. Well, it's useful to me, dammit, is hardly good enough either. This is no more logical than people standing on the word Faith to actually mean, I will believe any illogical thing I want, and you cannot prove I am wrong.

Calculus uses both infinitesimal and infinite "quantities" with wonderful and undeniable results. Complex numbers were useless to begin with, other than providing a theoretical basis for solutions we already knew existed, but have now found their way into many fields where they are gainfully employed with everyday jobs. Transfinite math may well have its day in applied math. No one can say.

Determinism is not a mathematical construct. Mathematics is neutral, unless you want to claim that two must follow one is determinism. The fact that the square root of 64 must be 8 does not to me imply that the physical universe is deterministic. There is no physical cause and effect in math, other than the trivial genre I just cited. Maybe you have an idea which could change my mind on this, since it is not ironclad yet. Like a telescope, math neutrally facilitates and organizes logical observation, without standing for a particular view of the universe.

Maybe you feel the trivial determinism of math "leaks" into science, or pours in. Maybe it does. And surely I cannot prove otherwise. It is an interesting question.

[YesNo]

Comparing Tarot cards to mathematics and science seems like a bad analogy from the start. Tarot card prediction can do no better than 50% in the long run, and is pure charlatanism, hardly good enough for science. In fact, statistics can be used to disprove the use value of Tarot cards to anyone who can understand the reasoning. Tarot cards are no better at prediction than religion or soothsayers. Well, it's useful to me, dammit, is hardly good enough either. This is no more logical than people standing on the word Faith to actually mean, I will believe any illogical thing I want, and you cannot prove I am wrong.

I am just trying on ideas here. However, I mentioned Tarot cards because I was expecting you would not see them as a "science". Some people don't see psychiatry as a science either. Or economics, but they all make predictions based on patterns that form part of their theories.

Just because someone has a theory doesn't mean it is good at making predictions. There are many theories I don't believe in, such as, the belief that the world will end with the coming blood moon. We will see if that prediction holds true in a few weeks. I put it right up there with the interpretation of quantum theory called "many worlds".

With regard to the Tarot, I think there might be something to it, but I am still trying to make sense out of what that is. I can see the card patterns as a kind of prompt to stimulate the intuition of the reader to come up with a prediction. This would be similar to someone giving a prompt in a writing exercise. But why should the prediction work, that is, be useful to the hearer? It could be that the hearer makes the prediction work by acting to encourage or discourage the prediction. More shocking, at least to our modern biases, there could be a psychic reality that we are a part of that is deliberately talking to us through things like these card patterns. This would be an interpretation of the Tarot that would imply that there is more going on than just a prompt. It would be like saying the muses are real.



Calculus uses both infinitesimal and infinite "quantities" with wonderful and undeniable results. Complex numbers were useless to begin with, other than providing a theoretical basis for solutions we already knew existed, but have now found their way into many fields where they are gainfully employed with everyday jobs. Transfinite math may well have its day in applied math. No one can say.

The calculus uses the idea of a "limit". This avoids actually working with a zero in the denominator. So infinity is never actually used. Complex numbers could be represented by 2 by 2 matrices if the "imaginary" number i referring to the square root of -1 is a problem. One of the objections to transfinite numbers, such as that given by Leopold Kronecker, is that they have no physical representation and so they should not be considered part of mathematics.

Regarding the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics, people think mathematics is reasonably effective. That may be a cultural bias. This is another reason why I bring up economics, psychology and the Tarot. It is more easy for people to see that the patterns studied by these theories, to the extent they work, are "unreasonably effective". They don't believe that about mathematics.



Determinism is not a mathematical construct. Mathematics is neutral, unless you want to claim that two must follow one is determinism. The fact that the square root of 64 must be 8 does not to me imply that the physical universe is deterministic. There is no physical cause and effect in math, other than the trivial genre I just cited. Maybe you have an idea which could change my mind on this, since it is not ironclad yet. Like a telescope, math neutrally facilitates and organizes logical observation, without standing for a particular view of the universe.

Maybe you feel the trivial determinism of math "leaks" into science, or pours in. Maybe it does. And surely I cannot prove otherwise. It is an interesting question.

That two must follow one is the basis for the determinism I am talking about. A mathematical function with time as an input parameter becomes a deterministic model. That is why it is a problem.

Suppose there existed a world function. One can then start with an input state and get any past or present state as the output. As I understand quantum physics, such a world function cannot exist. All one can get is a deterministic "wave function" which only gives a non-random range of probabilities for a particular state.

Because of that one is forced to ask: if the universe really isn't deterministic as previously believed, why does mathematics work as well as it does? It is just as unreasonably effective as economics, psychiatry or even the Tarot.

[desiresjab]

World functions? We will get to that.

I use the infinity symbol all the time in calculus. Zero to infinity are typical bounds for an integral. Just because we have worked out techniques to avoid doing actual arithmetic calculations with infinities and infinitesimals does not mean we are not working with them, it means precisely we are working with them, including them as part of the maths family. Moreover, our methods for doing so are infallible where they apply. Infinity is an idea, not a number. You cannot subtract a number from an idea. The Limit was a new function in mathematics to work with this idea. Many predecessors of Newton and Leibniz almost got it, or had a piece of it tamed and hints of its methods. This broken chain goes all the way back to Archimedes.

Kronecker, unfortunately for his ideas and arguments that cite him for credibility, said the same thing about transcendental numbers--they were not real, as in actual, they were superfluous baggage. He tortured and harried the more sensitive Cantor who had not been born a millionaire. Kronecker's inherited wealth made him free to incorporate his eccentricity in mathematical philosophy. He was a talented whacko who believed any number system beyond the rational would eventually be proved superfluous, all secrets of nature and logic in the end yielding themselves up to mere integers and basic arithemetical operations. If there ever was a world function, it would be in integers. To a Platonist this idea is immensely appealing and hard to justify. I would like to believe it, but I also believe the irrational number pi is actual in our universe because it is operational there. Not only is pi irrational, it is transcendental, meaning it forms a subclass more numerous than the class it comes from. There are more transcendentals than there are algebraic irrationals. Great mathematicians worked hard to prove such propositions, all of which was nothing but hogwash to Kronecker. Kronecker worked hard to recast irrationals as mere rationals in another clothing. Transcendentals would not yield. No wonder he hated them.

Numbers can be used for chicanery. When non-mathematical readers see pages of advanced statistical forumlas in the appendix of a book, it is very impressive, and seems to stamp the good househeeping seal of approval on everything within. There was a book called The Bible Code a few years back. Oprah pushed it on her show. It had all these massive forumlas and calculations in back to support its silly theory.

To me Tarot cards are as pure hogwash as irrational and transfinite numbers were to Kronecker. That their psuedo-informationan can sway some human minds is undeniable. That has nothing to do with the cards themselves. The subject came prepared to be moved, already conditioned by years of cultural superstition. Spirit trumpets, ouija boards, pyramid power, soothsaying, etc., are mere stage decorations, contributing nothing to the action. The mind in this case is its own cause and effect. Those instruments and techniques come from our race's childhood, and I am no more impelled to give them credence than the I am the words of goat herders from four thousand years ago who had visions on spoiled cheese. How the mind responds to superstition and can turn it into belief is the underlying field. Tarots cards and the others are just part of the charlatanistic hangover from 19th century supernaturalism. They are no more interesting than objects of any other superstition.

One following two does not require time, in spite of linguistics. That is your mistake. One follows two, it always will, it always has, that does not mean it happens at a different time. You lead yourself astray with equations involving time.

When charlatans use mathematics for chicanery that says nothing about how effective mathematics is or is not. It is not effective in some fields, for instance, because those fields are mere bunko to begin with. It is effective in showing how foolish some notions are instead of the opposite. Because I cannot prove that a black cat running across one's path is not bad luck, does not mean that with valid mathematics I cannot demonstrate with high reliability that the superstition is bunko, despite any changes in the person's behavior due to cultural conditioning and other parametric adjustments. All I need are enough cats and honest subjects. In this way mathematics can be used to illustrate if not prove the silliness of superstitions to reasonable people, just as it could be used to support the observational evidence for the injunction against incest.

One following two is independent of time, therefore of physics. When the big bang spit out the laws of physics there was no need to spit out that one follows two. Two can only follow one, but it does not do it a certain time later. A universe with different physics can be imagined, but a universe where one is not followed by two cannot. They are independent of each other. To cite as an exception a universe which somehow runs backwards does nothing to discourge my belief that such arguments are mere semantics. One also follows two in a universe which runs backwards, since the notion has nothing to do with time. In fact, one following two has no more to do with physics than a microscope has with the laws of biology.

I do not have to say one follows two. I can say two is the whole number beside and greater than one, to get rid of language that seems to suggest something happening in sequential time. Determinism involves sequencing in time, one being a smaller whole number than two does not, is the point. Notice that my new phrasing seemed to transfer responsibility from time to space. Mere linguistic limitation in action. One is the smaller neighbor of two is independent of both space and time.

[YesNo]

I use the infinity symbol all the time in calculus. Zero to infinity are typical bounds for an integral. Just because we have worked out techniques to avoid doing actual arithmetic calculations with infinities and infinitesimals does not mean we are not working with them, it means precisely we are working with them, including them as part of the maths family. Moreover, our methods for doing so are infallible where they apply. Infinity is an idea, not a number. You cannot subtract a number from an idea. The Limit was a new function in mathematics to work with this idea. Many predecessors of Newton and Leibniz almost got it, or had a piece of it tamed and hints of its methods. This broken chain goes all the way back to Archimedes.

Since both the infinitesimal and the infinity symbol are short for a limit process, infinity itself is not part of calculus.



Kronecker, unfortunately for his ideas and arguments that cite him for credibility, said the same thing about transcendental numbers--they were not real, as in actual, they were superfluous baggage. He tortured and harried the more sensitive Cantor who had not been born a millionaire. Kronecker's inherited wealth made him free to incorporate his eccentricity in mathematical philosophy. He was a talented whacko who believed any number system beyond the rational would eventually be proved superfluous, all secrets of nature and logic in the end yielding themselves up to mere integers and basic arithemetical operations. If there ever was a world function, it would be in integers. To a Platonist this idea is immensely appealing and hard to justify. I would like to believe it, but I also believe the irrational number pi is actual in our universe because it is operational there. Not only is pi irrational, it is transcendental, meaning it forms a subclass more numerous than the class it comes from. There are more transcendentals than there are algebraic irrationals. Great mathematicians worked hard to prove such propositions, all of which was nothing but hogwash to Kronecker. Kronecker worked hard to recast irrationals as mere rationals in another clothing. Transcendentals would not yield. No wonder he hated them.

What do you mean by pi being operational in our universe? I am reading a book by Frost and Prechter, "Elliott Wave Principle". They think the golden ratio is operational in our universe, specifically in the social mood that drives the stock market. Is this the sort of thing you are referring to?



Numbers can be used for chicanery. When non-mathematical readers see pages of advanced statistical forumlas in the appendix of a book, it is very impressive, and seems to stamp the good househeeping seal of approval on everything within. There was a book called The Bible Code a few years back. Oprah pushed it on her show. It had all these massive forumlas and calculations in back to support its silly theory.

To me Tarot cards are as pure hogwash as irrational and transfinite numbers were to Kronecker. That their psuedo-informationan can sway some human minds is undeniable. That has nothing to do with the cards themselves. The subject came prepared to be moved, already conditioned by years of cultural superstition. Spirit trumpets, ouija boards, pyramid power, soothsaying, etc., are mere stage decorations, contributing nothing to the action. The mind in this case is its own cause and effect. Those instruments and techniques come from our race's childhood, and I am no more impelled to give them credence than the I am the words of goat herders from four thousand years ago who had visions on spoiled cheese. How the mind responds to superstition and can turn it into belief is the underlying field. Tarots cards and the others are just part of the charlatanistic hangover from 19th century supernaturalism. They are no more interesting than objects of any other superstition.

I would need to see the evidence not just an assertion. I don't think it has to do with the cards themselves either. It could be a pendulum or tea leaves or I-ching yarrow sticks.



One following two does not require time, in spite of linguistics. That is your mistake. One follows two, it always will, it always has, that does not mean it happens at a different time. You lead yourself astray with equations involving time.

All you have to do is allow t to represent time and assume time can vary continuously and you can create a function using t. Once you have that, I don't see how you can avoid determinism.



When charlatans use mathematics for chicanery that says nothing about how effective mathematics is or is not. It is not effective in some fields, for instance, because those fields are mere bunko to begin with. It is effective in showing how foolish some notions are instead of the opposite. Because I cannot prove that a black cat running across one's path is not bad luck, does not mean that with valid mathematics I cannot demonstrate with high reliability that the superstition is bunko, despite any changes in the person's behavior due to cultural conditioning and other parametric adjustments. All I need are enough cats and honest subjects. In this way mathematics can be used to illustrate if not prove the silliness of superstitions to reasonable people, just as it could be used to support the observational evidence for the injunction against incest.

Why do you want to believe it is not bad luck? I'm not saying it is.



One following two is independent of time, therefore of physics. When the big bang spit out the laws of physics there was no need to spit out that one follows two. Two can only follow one, but it does not do it a certain time later. A universe with different physics can be imagined, but a universe where one is not followed by two cannot. They are independent of each other. To cite as an exception a universe which somehow runs backwards does nothing to discourge my belief that such arguments are mere semantics. One also follows two in a universe which runs backwards, since the notion has nothing to do with time. In fact, one following two has no more to do with physics than a microscope has with the laws of biology.

I do not have to say one follows two. I can say two is the whole number beside and greater than one, to get rid of language that seems to suggest something happening in sequential time. Determinism involves sequencing in time, one being a smaller whole number than two does not, is the point. Notice that my new phrasing seemed to transfer responsibility from time to space. Mere linguistic limitation in action. One is the smaller neighbor of two is independent of both space and time.

The big bang did not create the laws of physics. Human beings created those laws to help human beings work with nature. The same thing applies to the Bible or the Quran. God did not write those works. Human beings did.

[desiresjab]

Human beings did not create the laws of physics, they discovered them and wrote them down. That is called formulating. Minus thirty-two feet per second per second would still be the acceleration of an object falling to earth, whether or not a man ever existed to formulate it, or the second derivative of the position equation, if you will. Physics does not equate to the Bible and the Koran well except broadly as sytems that explain things. In the superstition system the best story tellers explained things, and it was left for the best observers under the scientific system to correct the ancients almost universally on every point later, except where they themseves had been mathematical in the approach to understanding "nature." Ancient mathematics is trustworthy, ancient physics often is not. Archimedes knew the volume of a sphere. Aristotle's explanation of a falling object's acceleration to be like that of a horse that runs faster as it approaches the barn, is pretty weak beside -16t^2.

I know that cosmology implies discussion of physics, but discussion can only be facilitated at this point by separating math and physics for the moment, to show that they are as independent as stars and telescopes. Math has no more effect on physics than telescopes have on stars, but provides a similar service.

A little man keeps whispering in your ear about equations with t as time. We are not as far as time in the discussion yet. You are like Aristotle's horse.

A number line does not need sequential time where causality happens. The truth that two follows one, or that two is the greater-in-magnitude-neighbor of one, is independent of time or space. I need you to see that.

Either agree to this or explain to me some properties of a universe where two is not the larger neighbor of one. Don't try any semantic arguments. Failure of English to state the proposition without apparent reference to space or time, is a weakness of language not number. Running the universe backwards will not work either, because that can be cured by adding a negative sign to reverse actions performed backwards, and could still be considered. Math and physics are independent. The discussion of what they are can be left for later. Right now, you are forced to admit they are independent, or describe the physics of a universe where two is not the successor of one. If two is not the successor of one, then there is no two at all. If two did not exist, it would shortly have to be invented anyway, like we invented the number i for the square root of -1.

The calculus discussion is no more than a sidebar where we are sparring to sharpen our swords. I have no actual protest over your stance. It is the stance of most calculus teachers, who are not paid to be philosophers. They repeat the orders of higher priests who are freakishly adverse to contradiction and demand that every proposition be on logical theoretical footing. Never mind they had to add a bunch of words to explain how they made it so. A limit exists to deal with infinity. We either have a way of dealing with infinity or we do not. We have a way. That means we are using it. I consider the dispute here to be semantic. That argument is so old it bores. You understand mathematicians were integrating from 0 to infinity with great success long before they made it technically illegal? Infinity and infinitesimals are at the very heart of calculus. Ways to deal with them and get back results is what calculus is.

Like I said, though, a mere sidebar.

Pi is present in the formulations of ubiquitous patterns we observe in nature. It is vital to scientific calculations of all kinds. Its relationship to geometric figures and natural numbers is well documented. Like e, it is a very special number intimately related to "the way things work" as well as the way things have to work. We know it exists and cannot produce it directly. Rough copies of it work just fine, depending on the precision needed for the application. We could always pretend that it does not exist, but we would have to admit that the organization of our universe is based on something that does not exist. The fact that these important numbers keep coming up again and again is enough to say they are operational. Do not mistake this for saying they are part of the causual train. They do nothing.

But that is physics. You know what the real holdup is. Make one of your choices, please.

[YesNo]

Human beings did not create the laws of physics, they discovered them and wrote them down. That is called formulating. Minus thirty-two feet per second per second would still be the acceleration of an object falling to earth, whether or not a man ever existed to formulate it, or the second derivative of the position equation, if you will. Physics does not equate to the Bible and the Koran well except broadly as sytems that explain things. In the superstition system the best story tellers explained things, and it was left for the best observers under the scientific system to correct the ancients almost universally on every point later, except where they themseves had been mathematical in the approach to understanding "nature." Ancient mathematics is trustworthy, ancient physics often is not. Archimedes knew the volume of a sphere. Aristotle's explanation of a falling object's acceleration to be like that of a horse that runs faster as it approaches the barn, is pretty weak beside -16t^2.

Since the laws of physics change as our understanding of nature changes, they were made by humans. They are texts. My view is that to believe our texts are out there in reality is the same as believing that God wrote the Bible.

Also you have introduced determinism through t in "-16t^2".



I know that cosmology implies discussion of physics, but discussion can only be facilitated at this point by separating math and physics for the moment, to show that they are as independent as stars and telescopes. Math has no more effect on physics than telescopes have on stars, but provides a similar service.

A little man keeps whispering in your ear about equations with t as time. We are not as far as time in the discussion yet. You are like Aristotle's horse.

I have no problem with separating mathematics from physics.



A number line does not need sequential time where causality happens. The truth that two follows one, or that two is the greater-in-magnitude-neighbor of one, is independent of time or space. I need you to see that.

I can see that two follows one in any universe.



Either agree to this or explain to me some properties of a universe where two is not the larger neighbor of one. Don't try any semantic arguments. Failure of English to state the proposition without apparent reference to space or time, is a weakness of language not number. Running the universe backwards will not work either, because that can be cured by adding a negative sign to reverse actions performed backwards, and could still be considered. Math and physics are independent. The discussion of what they are can be left for later. Right now, you are forced to admit they are independent, or describe the physics of a universe where two is not the successor of one. If two is not the successor of one, then there is no two at all. If two did not exist, it would shortly have to be invented anyway, like we invented the number i for the square root of -1.

I agree that math and physics are independent. Since math leads to determinism and the universe is not deterministic, they are not the same.



The calculus discussion is no more than a sidebar where we are sparring to sharpen our swords. I have no actual protest over your stance. It is the stance of most calculus teachers, who are not paid to be philosophers. They repeat the orders of higher priests who are freakishly adverse to contradiction and demand that every proposition be on logical theoretical footing. Never mind they had to add a bunch of words to explain how they made it so. A limit exists to deal with infinity. We either have a way of dealing with infinity or we do not. We have a way. That means we are using it. I consider the dispute here to be semantic. That argument is so old it bores. You understand mathematicians were integrating from 0 to infinity with great success long before they made it technically illegal? Infinity and infinitesimals are at the very heart of calculus. Ways to deal with them and get back results is what calculus is.

Like I said, though, a mere sidebar.

Yes, it is a sidebar, but I am glad you acknowledge that calculus is based on limits to be logically consistent. Doing this does avoid philosophic arguments.



Pi is present in the formulations of ubiquitous patterns we observe in nature. It is vital to scientific calculations of all kinds. Its relationship to geometric figures and natural numbers is well documented. Like e, it is a very special number intimately related to "the way things work" as well as the way things have to work. We know it exists and cannot produce it directly. Rough copies of it work just fine, depending on the precision needed for the application. We could always pretend that it does not exist, but we would have to admit that the organization of our universe is based on something that does not exist. The fact that these important numbers keep coming up again and again is enough to say they are operational. Do not mistake this for saying they are part of the causual train. They do nothing.

But that is physics. You know what the real holdup is. Make one of your choices, please.

You have told me that physics and math are separate and now you say that pi is part of ubiquitous patterns in nature. I think the golden ratio can also be seen in nature, but what one gets are not exact examples. They are, however, close enough that one can use pi or the golden ratio in theories that try to model reality. Theories about reality and reality are not the same thing.

[desiresjab]

How does it feel to never budge your feet?

There is nothing else I can do with you, since you make no effort. Go ahead and admit the calculus argument is mere semantics, then follow that as if it is somehow relevant to anything that I used t to represent time in -16t^2.

You are not capable of considering a proposition requiring no time or space. The abstraction is too much. Since you could not stick with the first question I proposed and absolutely refuse to consider it, you really do not expect me to go on with you, do you?

[desiresjab]

Here is the question one more time, in simplified form. Would two be the successor of one in any universe, despite its physical laws?

If answer is no, provide example universe.

If answer is yes, this means the proposition is independent of any universe that could have developed.

Yes or no, please. Worry later about what each answer might imply for physics and determinism.

[YesNo]

Here is the question one more time, in simplified form. Would two be the successor of one in any universe, despite its physical laws?

Yes. :)



If answer is no, provide example universe.

If answer is yes, this means the proposition is independent of any universe that could have developed.

Yes or no, please. Worry later about what each answer might imply for physics and determinism.

[Ecurb]

"Laws" (of physics or an science) are "theoretical principles deduced from the observation of facts".

Objects do not accelerate at 32 feet per second per second because of the law of gravity; the law exists because objects accelerate at that rate. Falling objects accelerated at that rate before the law existed, before language existed. "Laws" are linguistic creations.

[desiresjab]

Yes. :)

Good. Thank You. This means that the notion of two being the successor of one has priority over "the ways things physically work" in any universe that could ever come into being. To me it does. They have no way of contradicting it.

These underlying notions of mathematics have some kind of priority in any universe imagineable, but I cannot tell you how or if they change or shape "the way things work." I don't think they do. They are just something that is, somehow implicit in thought that cannot conceive it otherwise. Just the notion of singularity itself implies duality by definition.

Space is not sacred, time is not sacred. We now conceive of them differently than all the centuries that preceded the 20th. But two is the successor of one stands as firmly as ever, immutable, unchanging, impossible to be otherwise.

I think that is pretty cool, and stunning, once it is accepted, that something has priority to be itself in any possible universe. Does that amount to a constraint on time or matter? It never gets involved, yet always is there, and never shares with its opposite notion.

Before any laws were written, could any other have been written? Events within a universe running backwards would still be labled 1,2,3...

Notice that would actually be recorded in backwards fashion to the inhabitants, and two still succeeds one.

Without perplexing and sophistic observations of so-called proofs, like the one in the preceding paragraph. I am happy with the confession and realization that there are principles in our universe which are true and could not be untrue in any universe. Welcome.

[desiresjab]

"Laws" (of physics or an science) are "theoretical principles deduced from the observation of facts".

Objects do not accelerate at 32 feet per second per second because of the law of gravity; the law exists because objects accelerate at that rate. Falling objects accelerated at that rate before the law existed, before language existed. "Laws" are linguistic creations.

The number line lables its own cardinality and ordinality at the same time. In concept, the numbers all exist at once, instead of coming into being sequentially. Two is, has been, and ever will be the successor of one. Before anyone was there to think of it, before the universe itself, no option was possible but to create a universe where two-ness succeeds one-ness, in the realm of pure abstraction, and not with any reference to time or space. Two-ness exceeds one-ness in a different abstraction called magnitude. It is space and time oriented language that has diffculty getting away from all such references. They are not necessary for the proposition to be seen.

[desiresjab]

Yes. :)

Now I have some observations about pi and e, but other constants as well, and whether they exist. They are infinite, so technically cannot fully be produced, yet they normally play a part in the best descriptions we can make of everything from waves, to bust and boom cycles in animal populations to radioactive decay--virtually all scientific fields produce formulas involving these two numbers, in particular. They are not effecting radioactive decay, they merely express how it does it.

Other than a handful of transcendental constants, which arguably do not even exist, no other numbers are special. Seven is not related to nature in a widespread way. Neither is three, nor is one hundred and forty-one, or any other integer or fraction. Only these numbers exhibit that connection, and they all belong to a higher order of infinity. Rational numbers (now including the algebraic rationals) are infinite but countable. This means that Cantor devised a clever way of lableing them. The transcendentals are infinite, but not countable, as the rationals are. In other words, there is no strategy for lableing them all. Rather, Cantor was clever enough again to show that you could not do this. It was impossible. Transcendentals always resist complete labling of their species. It cannot be otherwise.

Only transcendental constants seem to have the special connection. An amazing fact. What are they? I don't know. They are little vortices that drill all the way to infinity. When one considers how much more numerous these fictitious creatures are than their rational cousins on the number line, maybe it is not surprising that they are all transcendental. Scatter a random handful of constants in a universe and they would all be transcendental numbers by the laws of probability. They are not physical but mathematical constants. They appear everywhere in mathematics. They are widespread in physics and every other science. Just what their deeper reality is, if they have one, mystifies me. I do not know why they relate or if other constants would replace them in a different universe. They are baffling.

[Ecurb]

The number line lables its own cardinality and ordinality at the same time. In concept, the numbers all exist at once, instead of coming into being sequentially. Two is, has been, and ever will be the successor of one. Before anyone was there to think of it, before the universe itself, no option was possible but to create a universe where two-ness succeeds one-ness, in the realm of pure abstraction, and not with any reference to time or space. Two-ness exceeds one-ness in a different abstraction called magnitude. It is space and time oriented language that has diffculty getting away from all such references. They are not necessary for the proposition to be seen.

Clearly, math is different from physics in that it involves purely logical systems. All mathematical theories are merely restatements of the basic premises. I haven't thought about whether those premises are logically necessary or not, and I'm not sure. Nonetheless, math is a language, and its rules are linguistically determined. It would be logically possible (for example) to have a number system that didn't differentiate whole numbers from other numbers -- the number line might be continuous.

[YesNo]

Now I have some observations about pi and e, but other constants as well, and whether they exist. They are infinite, so technically cannot fully be produced, yet they normally play a part in the best descriptions we can make of everything from waves, to bust and boom cycles in animal populations to radioactive decay--virtually all scientific fields produce formulas involving these two numbers, in particular. They are not effecting radioactive decay, they merely express how it does it.

They "exist" already in the sense that they can be defined. I don't understand your use of the word "exist".

It is not just that they cannot be fully produced, but if reality contains discontinuous quantum jumps, the use of these mathematical constants may break down at some decimal precision and fail to be useful in modeling reality.



Other than a handful of transcendental constants, which arguably do not even exist, no other numbers are special. Seven is not related to nature in a widespread way. Neither is three, nor is one hundred and forty-one, or any other integer or fraction. Only these numbers exhibit that connection, and they all belong to a higher order of infinity. Rational numbers (now including the algebraic rationals) are infinite but countable. This means that Cantor devised a clever way of lableing them. The transcendentals are infinite, but not countable, as the rationals are. In other words, there is no strategy for lableing them all. Rather, Cantor was clever enough again to show that you could not do this. It was impossible. Transcendentals always resist complete labling of their species. It cannot be otherwise.

I don't understand why the other transcendental constants don't exist. Is it because there may be no way to compute or define them?

The golden mean, (1+sqrt(5))/2), might be another number, although algebraic, right up there with pi and e, or do you not consider it so?

Also I don't understand what the uncountable nature of the set of transcendental numbers has to do with this argument. It is the set of transcendental numbers as a whole that is uncountable. The number of elements in a subset of those numbers may well be countable or even finite. For example, the set of numbers, {pi,e}, containing only pi and e is countable. The number of elements in that set is even finite and equals 2 since there are only two numbers in that set.



Only transcendental constants seem to have the special connection. An amazing fact. What are they? I don't know. They are little vortices that drill all the way to infinity. When one considers how much more numerous these fictitious creatures are than their rational cousins on the number line, maybe it is not surprising that they are all transcendental. Scatter a random handful of constants in a universe and they would all be transcendental numbers by the laws of probability. They are not physical but mathematical constants. They appear everywhere in mathematics. They are widespread in physics and every other science. Just what their deeper reality is, if they have one, mystifies me. I do not know why they relate or if other constants would replace them in a different universe. They are baffling.

What "special connection" are you talking about? I don't understand "little vortices that drill all the way to infinity". Don't forget at some level there are discontinuous quantum jumps in the quantum physics model of reality.

I agree that if you picked random numbers from the set of real numbers, the result would most likely be all transcendental numbers since there are many more of them. However, I don't know to what extent mathematical constants, which exist precisely through their definitions, imply that reality must contain those constants simply because they are used in physical models. This is the problem of confusing the model with reality.

[desiresjab]

Right all.

Just because a mathematical structure can be created does not mean any kind of physical manifestation of that system, such as a universe, is possible using it as a replacement for two is the successor of one. We can formulate p-adic numbers, but can they underlie a physical universe where two is the successor of one is no longer true. Can it work?

About the golden ratio formula. Yes, it is a mere algebraic irrational. I was thinking of it as a possible exception when I wrote the last post. But at this point, I do not believe it is as "strongly involved" as pi and e. The golden ratio is not a number naturally occurring in scientific research at every level, though just about anything in math can be shown to be related, even if remotely, to anything else by enough manipulation.

The mere fact that it comes from a countable set makes it suspect, probablistically, but its expectation is minutely north of zero, so it was not quite impossible that a constant of great importance which was non-transcendental might be among some finite number of them distributed in a universe. However, note with interest also that 2 raised to the golden ratio formula as a power, would be transcendental, by the Gelfond-Schneider theorem. I reserve judgement on this.

About Constants. When one measures the energy present in the vacuum of space, for instance, that is a different kind of constant, an actual physical constant based on measurement. This constant is never going to pop up everywhere in math and science like pi and e do. Pi and e are mathematical constants.

The limits of these numbers' ability to reflect reality and quantum jumps across scale in formulas is indeed a great question, and beyond me. Somewhere among the equations of quantum physics or their derivations are sure to be found the trusty trig functions, which are transcendental because of good old pi.

Mathematicians do some amazing things. I think there is an approved proof out there showing that one or the other of pi or e is more transcendental than the other. I forget which. I will have to look that up and get back to you.

[YesNo]

Somewhere among the equations of quantum physics or their derivations are sure to be found the trusty trig functions, which are transcendental because of good old pi.

There is Euler's formula which relates e and sines and cosines. If you put pi in for x, you get Euler's identity. This relates e, pi and i together.

Fourier analysis can approximate general functions with sums (superpositions) of trig functions. My positivist leanings make me doubt that reality actually contains these superpositions, for example the view that one might be able to use them to split reality into "many worlds", although they make a mathematical model of reality easier to work with.

[desiresjab]

There is Euler's formula which relates e and sines and cosines. If you put pi in for x, you get Euler's identity. This relates e, pi and i together.

Fourier analysis can approximate general functions with sums (superpositions) of trig functions. My positivist leanings make me doubt that reality actually contains these superpositions, for example the view that one might be able to use them to split reality into "many worlds", although they make a mathematical model of reality easier to work with.

Lie algebra is applied to infinitesimal transformations. This sounds like it could be relevant to the quantum jumps you spoke of earlier. I know that a particular brand of it is being used by at least one research group to investigate relations between consciousness and quantum theory, which automatically makes it of interest. In various algebraic structures some normal properties of arithmetic hold and others do not. The kind of object it is depends on which particular properties hold and which do not. Monoids, groupoids, sub groups, magmas, lattices et al, all merely pervert one or more of these properties or eliminate operators. Good old Abelian groups have all the properties of normal arithmetic, I believe, right up to commutivity. Everything else seems like a brand of perversion of Abelian groups to explore deeper and deeper complexity and explain more relations easily. But the non-Abelian structures work, too, and have plenty of applications in advanced research.

Maybe models from one of these structures will eventually be able to capture some laws of consciousness in quantum mechanical math, or even vice versa! Wouldn't that be something? One cannot help but think of the words of Yeats, since this is a literature forum: Whatever flames upon the night/Man's own resinous heart has fed.

Are the laws of consciousness to be found in quantum mechanics, or the laws of quantum mechanics in consciousness?

[desiresjab]

The continuity of important transcendentals might be the most natural smoothing functions across quantum jumps, similar to Euler's Gamma function and the factorial function. The action all takes place in the complex system, not the lowly reals, these days. The great graphs like the Mandlebrot set, all come from complex number manipulations. Attempts to solve the Reimann hypothesis, for instance, the most important unsolved problem in prime number theory, take place in the complex domain. If it falls, other important problems will fall right behind it, yielding many conjectured and unproven results.

[YesNo]

I don't know what you mean by the "continuity of important transcendentals".

[HCabret]

I like when non-scientists talk about quantum mechanics like they have anything approaching an understanding of it.

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics" -Richard Feynman

[YesNo]

Yeah, it is not easy to understand. Nor is it easy to understand why it is so hard to understand, but if Feynman could not understand it either, I feel in good company.

[HCabret]

Yeah, it is not easy to understand. Nor is it easy to understand why it is so hard to understand, but if Feynman could not understand it either, I feel in good company.
I am completely uncomfortable with my inability to understand quantum mechanics. I am, however, confident enough to admit that I have literally no understanding whatsoever of quantum mechanics.

I've read Elegant Universe, and I barely understand the big picture basics of general relativity. At least enough to watch Interstellar.

[desiresjab]

I don't know what you mean by the "continuity of important transcendentals".

I was clumsy with that. What I intended was that the continuing values in each decimal place of pi or another constant might turn out to provide best-fit bridges of continuity across quantum jump states. Speculation. Dreaming. I wouldn't put it past them, though. Something for a science fiction story.

[desiresjab]

I am completely uncomfortable with my inability to understand quantum mechanics. I am, however, confident enough to admit that I have literally no understanding whatsoever of quantum mechanics.

I've read Elegant Universe, and I barely understand the big picture basics of general relativity. At least enough to watch Interstellar.

I think one of the things that now makes physics so appealing to artistic types is its mystery. The quantum world is not the same old Isaac Newton block party. It is not even the Einstein block party. It is a wilder party than both.

[desiresjab]

If no universe is possible where two is not the successor of one, that would act as a constraint upon a creator of universes, would it not? Or would act as a constraint upon the random creation of universes through any process, if you prefer.

But does this even qualify as a constraint, since it does not, in fact, eliminate even one possible universe? It is as tautalogical as saying: You may not create any universe which may not exist.

Now the big question? How much of basic arithmetic must be true in any universe we can conceive of--a universe of actual particles and physics, not just abstractions? Not enough is known about how particles come to exist in the first place to answer this authoritatively.

But even in our everyday world various algebraic structures have numerous and sometimes profound applications and implications, though they are not of our natural "home algebra." Each one of them defies axioms of our home arithmetic by tweaking just one or more deep properties, such as distribution across multiplication or association across addition, and letting the system run, so to speak. My belief is that the job is going to require all the tools of mathematics and likely some strains that are not invented yet.

Could a type of universe whose existence is impossible from our perspective ever make the leap from abstraction to reality? Does our inablity to imagine a universe make its existence impossible?

[YesNo]

I am completely uncomfortable with my inability to understand quantum mechanics. I am, however, confident enough to admit that I have literally no understanding whatsoever of quantum mechanics.

I've read Elegant Universe, and I barely understand the big picture basics of general relativity. At least enough to watch Interstellar.

I don't know much about it either. Someone posts something. I check it out further. Jim Baggott's "The Meaning of Quantum Theory" is a good summary of the issues.

Quantum physics is not only for physicists as desiresjab mentioned earlier. It is not Newton's or Einstein's block party. The standard Copenhagen interpretation ties the hands of physicists with its positivism and leaves the interesting interpretations for those willing to speculate on what reality might actually be. It is now a philosopher's playground.

[YesNo]

If no universe is possible where two is not the successor of one, that would act as a constraint upon a creator of universes, would it not? Or would act as a constraint upon the random creation of universes through any process, if you prefer.

Since our universe had a beginning and is finite, I assume there are other universes. However, I don't think the various universes were created randomly. That is the sort of speculation one can expect to hear from those pushed up against the wall with our universe having a beginning who do not want to admit that something or someone made a choice to start it. I am not interested in looking for constraints on whatever consciousness created ours.



But does this even qualify as a constraint, since it does not, in fact, eliminate even one possible universe? It is as tautalogical as saying: You may not create any universe which may not exist.

The more interesting question is does one need consciousness for our universe to exist at all.



Now the big question? How much of basic arithmetic must be true in any universe we can conceive of--a universe of actual particles and physics, not just abstractions? Not enough is known about how particles come to exist in the first place to answer this authoritatively.

But even in our everyday world various algebraic structures have numerous and sometimes profound applications and implications, though they are not of our natural "home algebra." Each one of them defies axioms of our home arithmetic by tweaking just one or more deep properties, such as distribution across multiplication or association across addition, and letting the system run, so to speak. My belief is that the job is going to require all the tools of mathematics and likely some strains that are not invented yet.

Could a type of universe whose existence is impossible from our perspective ever make the leap from abstraction to reality? Does our inablity to imagine a universe make its existence impossible?

I think we already discussed this and I granted that mathematics is true in itself. It does not depend on the existence of a universe for it to be true. So the question of how much of basic arithmetic must be true in any universe is trivial. If the mathematics is logically consistent, it is true in any universe.

This sounds to me like you are confusing models with reality. Our universe is not reducible to mathematics. Some theories within mathematics may find use-value as approximations of reality. They allow us to make predictions through them more simply, but those models are only approximations. They are not reality. They did not create reality.

This is one of the reasons I brought up the Tarot earlier as well as economics or psychology or Elliott Wave technical analysis of the markets. These are all models which offer some predictive power, but they have little mathematics backing them up. My point: a useful model of reality does not even have to be mathematical.

[YesNo]

If no universe is possible where two is not the successor of one...

It occurred to me this morning that two being the successor of one is a binary order relation on the set of integers. One could also define an opposite binary relation where two is less than one. Both of these relations would be possible in all universes, both real and imaginary, since they are based on definitions which are independent of those universes.

[desiresjab]

It occurred to me this morning that two being the successor of one is a binary order relation on the set of integers. One could also define an opposite binary relation where two is less than one. Both of these relations would be possible in all universes, both real and imaginary, since they are based on definitions which are independent of those universes.

That would not interfere with duality. Duality is independent of the spelling of the numbers one uses to define it.

[desiresjab]

It occurred to me this morning that two being the successor of one is a binary order relation on the set of integers. One could also define an opposite binary relation where two is less than one. Both of these relations would be possible in all universes, both real and imaginary, since they are based on definitions which are independent of those universes.

I don't think that would interfere with duality. Duality is independent of the spelling of the numbers one uses to define it.

It seems much more simple after all to ask: How much is it possible for home arithmetics to differ in other universes from our own? No doubt mathematics could be approached in different ways. Requiring rigorous proofs (our way) would be only one way to proceed. Does mathematics always end up in the same palce, no matter where it starts? It is not the same even among human cultures. Yet mere counting is at the heart of all mathematical beginnings that I know of. Must that itself be so? I find it difficult to imagine how a civilization might come upon the arithemetic of matrices first and then develop our normal arithemetic as a strange alternative. Could our fundamental arithemetic seem strange to them but operations on matrices seem completely normal and natural? Not sure how that could happen, or if it could. How would such a universe support that view?

[desiresjab]

In the end I go back to Shakespeare. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..

How so? I have even dreamed of universes I cannot imagine. Therefore all of these and more must exist, if Shakespeare is right.

[YesNo]

I don't think that would interfere with duality. Duality is independent of the spelling of the numbers one uses to define it.

I don't understand what "duality" has to do with this. One could probably construct a countably infinite number of binary order relations on the integers. Start with 0 and then use the axiom of choice to pick the next integer making sure it does not agree with the one in a previous order relation. It looks like there might even be an uncountable number of such possible relations.



It seems much more simple after all to ask: How much is it possible for home arithmetics to differ in other universes from our own?

I think we need a definition of "home arithmetics" to continue this. The term doesn't make sense to me.



No doubt mathematics could be approached in different ways. Requiring rigorous proofs (our way) would be only one way to proceed.

My suspicion is that mathematics requires proofs or it is not mathematics. Our way would be the only way to do it.



Does mathematics always end up in the same palce, no matter where it starts? It is not the same even among human cultures. Yet mere counting is at the heart of all mathematical beginnings that I know of. Must that itself be so? I find it difficult to imagine how a civilization might come upon the arithemetic of matrices first and then develop our normal arithemetic as a strange alternative. Could our fundamental arithemetic seem strange to them but operations on matrices seem completely normal and natural? Not sure how that could happen, or if it could. How would such a universe support that view?

I don't think the universe needs to support this except to allow consciousness to exist, but that brings me back to a previous question: is it possible to have a universe without consciousness?

Edit: Godel showed that mathematics couldn't be both complete and consistent. All we can hope for is that it is consistent. What that means to me is that if we start with the same assumptions we should reach the same conclusion, otherwise I would have to doubt whether mathematics can be consistent or not. I don't see how this depends on the kind of universe we are in.

[Eupalinos]

is it possible to have a universe without consciousness?
Can you go into some more detail as to why this question comes up for you? Interesting discussion.

[desiresjab]

I don't understand what "duality" has to do with this. One could probably construct a countably infinite number of binary order relations on the integers. Start with 0 and then use the axiom of choice to pick the next integer making sure it does not agree with the one in a previous order relation. It looks like there might even be an uncountable number of such possible relations.

Tricks do not mean it could support a universe. We are getting beyond this.


I think we need a definition of "home arithmetics" to continue this. The term doesn't make sense to me.

Home arithemetic is exactly the fundamental principles of counting we learned in early grade school. That is the system which is normal and intuitive to us. Systems that ignore or counter-define any properties of that system are legitimate in some sense, but counter-intuitive to us. They came later in our development as mathematicians.


My suspicion is that mathematics requires proofs or it is not mathematics. Our way would be the only way to do it.

A famous mathemetician, maybe Barrow who wrote Pi In The Sky, envisioned a system of math from a civilization which did not require proofs for propositions to be defined as true. A quadrillion examples without a counter example appearing was rigorous enough for them. They were able to perform other operations with perfect confidence (for them) that no counter examples would ever crop up. They could assume, for instance, that there are infinite pairs of twin primes, and base further calculations on this "fact," from which they might glean other "facts." This mathematics would be philosophically different from ours, yet easily capable of existing.


I don't think the universe needs to support this except to allow consciousness to exist, but that brings me back to a previous question: is it possible to have a universe without consciousness?

A wonderful question. I am not sure how the machine hybrids which will supplant us are going to feel about that kind of question. Their own particular origins will not be in as much dispute for them as our own are to us.


Edit: Godel showed that mathematics couldn't be both complete and consistent. All we can hope for is that it is consistent. What that means to me is that if we start with the same assumptions we should reach the same conclusion, otherwise I would have to doubt whether mathematics can be consistent or not. I don't see how this depends on the kind of universe we are in.

Anyone who cannot love Godel cannot love a mad scientist. The biggest stars of the mathematical universe often come out of nowhere. In the end it wasn't the Great Hilbert or the mighty Bertrand Russel or Peano who got the final say, it was freaky little Godel. He crushed the hopes and years of work from them all in a few pages. One of Einstein's famous quotes goes that he himself was irrelevant anymore but he still went in to work everyday at Princeton for the privilege of walking home with Godel. On Einstein's birthday (70th?) Godel presented him with a gift perhaps no other could have--a legitimate manipulation of Einstein's own equations pointing to a universe where time travel would be possible. Now that was a cool gift.

We might had better learn somewhere along the way that human intuition can be both a brilliant and a false guide to what is possible. We would hate to fall into a similar trap as poor Kant, whose legacy will forever bear the blemish of his postulation of Euclidian space as an a priori truth. Kant thought this view of space was on unassailable grounds. Another view of space did not occur to him. Euclidian space was a necessary truth, not a contingent one. He rested his case.

By the time Kant was nearing his deathbed the teenaged Gauss had already recognized non-Euclidian space, as proven by entries in his notebooks when he was thirteen. He never published his discovery. When Gauss made ripe but few his motto, he really meant it. If he had published even half of what he knew, instead of waiting for his students and later mathematicians to discover his secrets, mathematics might be fifty years ahead of where it is now. Wouldn't we love to know what frontiers it will have broken in fifty years? If only Gauss had possessed a few more of the gracious personality traits of Euler and fewer of the anal retentive ones of Newton.

Anyway, whether universes are possible which we can only imagine to be impossible, is very tricky if one lets it run. I feel the answer might lie at a higher meta-logic but not our current level. What we can imagine, expands forever like the arms of a graphed curve. We don't even know if such a curve has asymptotes. There goes that imagery bug again. Metaphors are rather hard to defend scientifically.

Like yourself, I am happy to leave it for now that some axiomatic logical propositions are independent of the kind of universe we are in. It was an important first distinction to make. Otherwise it would keep clouding the issues later on in various contexts and guises. It still might anyway, but we have cleared the way of enough philosophical boulders for modern cosmology to begin without constant interference from the galleries of ourselves.

[YesNo]

Tricks do not mean it could support a universe. We are getting beyond this.

What trick? Why does mathematics have to "support a universe"? What I am trying to probe is what I see as a confusion between a particular model (mathematics) and reality (whatever it is).



Home arithemetic is exactly the fundamental principles of counting we learned in early grade school. That is the system which is normal and intuitive to us. Systems that ignore or counter-define any properties of that system are legitimate in some sense, but counter-intuitive to us. They came later in our development as mathematicians.

That doesn't mean our home mathematics could not be something else in the same universe.



A famous mathemetician, maybe Barrow who wrote Pi In The Sky, envisioned a system of math from a civilization which did not require proofs for propositions to be defined as true. A quadrillion examples without a counter example appearing was rigorous enough for them. They were able to perform other operations with perfect confidence (for them) that no counter examples would ever crop up. They could assume, for instance, that there are infinite pairs of twin primes, and base further calculations on this "fact," from which they might glean other "facts." This mathematics would be philosophically different from ours, yet easily capable of existing.

That sounds like a physics rather than a mathematics.



A wonderful question. I am not sure how the machine hybrids which will supplant us are going to feel about that kind of question. Their own particular origins will not be in as much dispute for them as our own are to us.

John Searle's "Chinese Room" argument has put an end to the AI dream.

[YesNo]

Can you go into some more detail as to why this question comes up for you? Interesting discussion.

I don't think a universe can exist without consciousness. One of the reasons for thinking this is to examine what we mean by "agents". These would be parts of the universe that can make a choice. Agents have enough consciousness to make a choice. We would be examples agents.

Agents are not totally free to act. Their choices can be predicted. For example, given a choice between vanilla and chocolate ice cream on a certain day the probability distribution of my choice might be 30% for vanilla and 70% for chocolate. Now consider an electron with its choice between spin up or spin down. That choice could also have a 30%-70% probability distribution. Based on this behavior, could the electron not also be considered an "agent" with enough "consciousness" to make a choice?

There are people who would claim that consciousness doesn't exist at all, being some kind of illusion of something still unknown, or it is an ephiphenomenon generated by unconscious matter that functions through determinism and randomness. Mathematics would be the model that patterns that determinism and randomness. But, given the uncertainty in quantum physics, is it possible for "unconscious matter" to even exist? If it is not, then no universe can exist without consciousness.

[Eupalinos]

This is not a theory of agency I had encountered before and it's intriguing. In this scheme is there a worthwhile distinction to make between a consciousness that thinks about its choices and one that has no potentiality of self-reflective thought? Or are the evolved forms of thought unimportant?

The word consciousness would seem to have attached to it through common usage 'awareness' -- is there evidence that awareness might be attributed to an electron? Maybe our perceived awareness is illusory? I'd be curious to learn more if you can point me in a certain direction of texts. (Also interested in your explanation.)

[desiresjab]

What trick? Why does mathematics have to "support a universe"? What I am trying to probe is what I see as a confusion between a particular model (mathematics) and reality (whatever it is).

That doesn't mean our home mathematics could not be something else in the same universe.

I have to disagree. I think our home arithemetic has to be what it is in the universe we are aware of. Sure there have been primitive societies who only counted 1, 2, and went from there to many. That is still an abbreviation of fundamental counting. It contradicts it in no way. Beings in our universe should develop the natural way of counting before anything else. I absolutely cannot see any being or civilization developing matrix algebra first and coming to fundamental counting later, which would make fundamental counting, then, an alternative algebraic structure to those beings, and matrix algebra their home arithemetic. Maybe that is possible to say in words. But how could it happen with live beings in a universe? I say that it cannot happen in the universe as we currently understand it.

[desiresjab]

I absolutely cannot see any being or civilization developing matrix algebra first and coming to fundamental counting later, which would make fundamental counting, then, an alternative algebraic structure to those beings, and matrix algebra their home arithemetic. Maybe that is possible to say in words. But how could it happen with live beings in a universe? I say that it cannot happen in the universe as we currently understand it.

But of course we now know again that we understand so little of our universe that the phrase anything is possible, seems apt from the point of view of pure wonderment. Still, from what is known, I do not see how it could happen.

[HCabret]

Chong: “One day I took some acid and played Black Sabbath at .78 speed.”
Cheech: “Yeah? And then what happened?”
Chong: “I saw… GOD!

[desiresjab]

Chong: “One day I took some acid and played Black Sabbath at .78 speed.”
Cheech: “Yeah? And then what happened?”
Chong: “I saw… GOD!

It applies.

Most people are used to contemplating the negative philosophical implications of Godel's theorems. Godel proved that mathematics has infinite complexity, but that under one roof it can never resolve all contradictions or settle all disputes from its axioms. Theoretically, under the new set of axioms of a higher meta logic the old disputes could all be settled, but they would only give rise to new and more advanced disputes not decideable under that new axiomatic system. This process could go on ad infinitum, always allowing us greater understanding but never completing that understanding.

Infinite complexity cannot necessarily capture any possible reality, but maybe it could. Of which order is the infinite complexity of mathematics--Aleph nought or the continuum? Aleph nought could not give rise to all possibilities along the continuum. This is a conjecture which surely has to be true.

[desiresjab]

I like starting my universe with infinite mathematical complexity. A result of finite complexity would have been crushing.

It will probably now require some time to make an acceptable definition of consciousness. It is a whole family of functions or a gradient of one complex function. If we grant a mosquito consciousness along with ourselves in our scheme, we have to acknowledge vast differences in the two types, though we are stating that at one level of abstraction there is some property they hold in common which is more fundamental to an understanding of them than their differences.

If consciousness is a gradient from ameoba to mosquito to porpoise to man to..., then we are allowed the liberty of arbitrary demarcations along that gradient, such as the numbers on a number line, until at some point in the future we might actually know where the important points along that curve lie and what those points represent. An attempt at an intuitional arithemetic of consciousness. The naiive version.

I propose as minimal that undefined but understood level of consciousness necessary to catch one's self thinking as the qualification for what I call super-consciousness. Thinking about thinking is the critical threshhold I arbitrarily select as the beginning of true consciousness, we have named super consciousness. If you cannot think about what you are thinking about, then you are not super conscious, though indeed you are conscious and thinking.

Since it is only the super conscious beings that can consider themselves and formulate mathematical laws, if I must make a demarcation, I make it here.

[YesNo]

This is not a theory of agency I had encountered before and it's intriguing. In this scheme is there a worthwhile distinction to make between a consciousness that thinks about its choices and one that has no potentiality of self-reflective thought? Or are the evolved forms of thought unimportant?

Yes, the consciousness implied in an electron because of the choice it makes between being spin up and spin down is very primitive compared to the consciousness that we enjoy. We don't even see it as conscious which I think is part of the motivation for dualism. Intuitively we view the world around us as composed of real, animate agents such as people, pets and so on as well as inanimate reality such as sidewalks, stones, water and so on. The inanimate part looks as if they are not agents at all. Hence the dualistic split between agents and supposed non-agents.

This is only one way to approach the question of whether a universe is possible without consciousness. I am primarily motivated with finding a justification for Thomas Nagel's panpsychism (see his essay in Mortal Questions) which implies that consciousness would have to permeate the universe to the lowest levels in order for our consciousness to eventually appear at all. I see this as a justification for reductionism given that consciousness (ours) exists.

What I am trying on here is philosophy, not physics. I limit physics to positivism as the Copenhagen interpretation does. When physicists start doing philosophy it seems to me they get intuitively caught up with a mathematics mysticism since they are used to using mathematical models. That is what I want to avoid. This leads them to ideas of "determinism" and "randomness" neither of which I think are part of reality, but are part of their models. It also leads some of them to project mathematical structures such as the superpositions of trig functions in the Schrodinger's wave function onto reality with each superposition being one of the "many worlds". My view is that reality is more interesting than these mathematical models.



The word consciousness would seem to have attached to it through common usage 'awareness' -- is there evidence that awareness might be attributed to an electron? Maybe our perceived awareness is illusory? I'd be curious to learn more if you can point me in a certain direction of texts. (Also interested in your explanation.)

I don't think the electron is aware only conscious enough to make a choice, but I don't know. It has a disposition and it appears to make "choices" when subjected to experiments. This leads to a different view of causality from the ideas we typically assume today which can be traced to David Hume. One book that I have found fascinating is Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum's Causality: A Very Short Introduction.

[durlabh]

Multiverse. ( Theory of many universes)

Quantum theory’s application results predict the presence of multi universes, overlapping our universe-- parallel universes existing with our universe, un-detective but affecting human mind & destiny. To us these look strange, with their other worldly properties of many dimensions, physical properties without postulates of atoms & our kind of energy. All our scientific laws of time, gravity, electromagnetic forces my not apply there.
Not only physical but mental realities may have different properties over there. Newtonian laws, Einstein conclusions, Bohr’s theories are true only in a limited field but may be unable to hold in other universe, ushering in a much wider context in physical structures.
Any laws of ours put reality under deterministic mode as to satisfy scientist’s egos and make it something static and dead but Life is more dynamic, with movement and change. Scientific theories are based on laws of logic as proven by their long winded equations and cover a very limited field into dead entity.
Moreover, Einsteinian theories predicted much more energy in the universe then in that of visible matter and detectable energy. There must be more matter that we can detect as to support time and space & which is termed as The Black matter/energies and according to their estimate, these can count for up to 90 % in our universe. We are only dealing only with 10% of our visible universe. Our established scientific laws and properties may amount to very tiny portion of our intrinsic universe.
In Buddhist scriptures it is mentioned that Buddha visited three thousand other universes to give his sermons. Guru Nanak stated that there are stars upon stars, planets upon planets, universes upon universes and human mind gets tired of applying its intellect in thinking about.
Both science and religion indicate that reality is far vaster than our logical minds can grasp.

Durlabh Singh© 2015

[YesNo]

Any laws of ours put reality under deterministic mode as to satisfy scientist’s egos and make it something static and dead but Life is more dynamic, with movement and change.

I hadn't thought of ego being an explanation for the love of determinism.



Moreover, Einsteinian theories predicted much more energy in the universe then in that of visible matter and detectable energy. There must be more matter that we can detect as to support time and space & which is termed as The Black matter/energies and according to their estimate, these can count for up to 90 % in our universe. We are only dealing only with 10% of our visible universe. Our established scientific laws and properties may amount to very tiny portion of our intrinsic universe.

I wonder if there is any dark matter or energy. Maybe we just need to revise the laws of physics or find a way to take better measurements.

[desiresjab]

Some scientific theories have names that are irrestible to the public. Relativity, Chaos theory, String theory, Disaster theory and now Mulit-verse. Is there a human being alive who does not want to believe this? I want to believe in multiverses. But my own standards prevent me from subscribing to theories with no empirical evidence.

As I undertrstand it multiverses were postulated because our cosmological constant was so finely tuned that it seemed to impliy a deliberate action on the part of an intelligence. Multiverses were posited to provide an end run around the notion of a designer. Our strange cosomological constant is not so strange if there are up to 10^500 other universes lurking somewhere out there.

I think there is no evidence for multiverses other than this flimsy excuse for a theory. I wish it were otherwise. I suppose I could be convinced.

[desiresjab]

I am no expert on multiverse theory, I want to make that clear. As far as I have examined it, I love it and it seems plausible in a highly abstract way. Evidence, or at least more rational theorizing on the subject is something I would like to see. But most of what one reads even from established minds, seems much closer to populist extrapolations gone wild than science.

Perhaps we are witnessing science molting from its old skin. Or better, the catepillar is transforming into a butterfly. Is science becoming more verbal as its discoveries grow ever more abstract? Somewhere along the line the math has to work out. But the public has an appetite for suggestive science, which is a new term coined right now to mean wild and fun extrapolations on serious theories with suggestive names. Like a comet, science has a tail which is most of what we see.

[YesNo]

Some scientific theories have names that are irrestible to the public. Relativity, Chaos theory, String theory, Disaster theory and now Mulit-verse. Is there a human being alive who does not want to believe this? I want to believe in multiverses. But my own standards prevent me from subscribing to theories with no empirical evidence.

As I undertrstand it multiverses were postulated because our cosmological constant was so finely tuned that it seemed to impliy a deliberate action on the part of an intelligence. Multiverses were posited to provide an end run around the notion of a designer. Our strange cosomological constant is not so strange if there are up to 10^500 other universes lurking somewhere out there.

I think there is no evidence for multiverses other than this flimsy excuse for a theory. I wish it were otherwise. I suppose I could be convinced.

One gets the likelihood of a multiverse as soon as one accepts that our present universe had a beginning. If it happened once it probably happened many times before. Hence a multiverse.

However, that argument implies those other universes would all be very similar to our own since our universe is all we have evidence for.

If one also needed, because of one's metaphysical assumptions, to deny transcendent consciousness (or ultimately to trash consciousness of any sort), then finding evidence for the beginning of our universe results in cognitive dissonance. In order to keep one's metaphysics intact, one now has to scramble to explain where all the stuff of the universe came from. One can no longer assume our universe has always been there. Did all this stuff come "from nothing"? That idea would make things even worse, but it looks as if not only did all the stuff in our universe but also space and time itself had a beginning.

One way to deal with cognitive dissonance is to explain it away adequately enough so one can forget the dissonance and be happy again. One common way this is done is to appeal to "randomness" and allow the multiverse to contain all kinds of strange universes. Why does this help? With randomness some people think they can rationally continue pretending that consciousness does not exist.

Because they are the result of a metaphysical angst, I don't accept randomness arguments. So, I would agree with you, desiresjab, that there is no evidence for a random multiverse, but I do think the big bang is itself evidence that there is a non-random multiverse, basically a multiverse of universes much like our own.

[desiresjab]

One gets the likelihood of a multiverse as soon as one accepts that our present universe had a beginning. If it happened once it probably happened many times before. Hence a multiverse.

However, that argument assumes those universes would all be rather similar, that is, a multiverse of universes able to support life.

If one also needed, because of one's metaphysical assumptions, to deny transcendent consciousness (or ultimately consciousness of any sort), then finding evidence for the beginning of our universe results in cognitive dissonance. In order to keep one's metaphysics intact, one now has to scramble to explain where all the stuff of the universe came from. One can no longer assume our universe has always been there. Did all this stuff come "from nothing"? That idea would make things even worse, but it looks as if not only did all the stuff but also space and time itself had a beginning.

One way to deal with cognitive dissonance is to find a way to explain it away. One common way this is done is to appeal to "randomness" and allow the multiverse to contain all kinds of strange universes. Why is that necessary? One has to find a way to make sure that a consciousness choice was never made.

Because of this angst that motivates an appeal to randomness, I don't accept a randomness argument at all. So, I would agree with you, desiresjab, that there is no evidence for a random multiverse, but I do think the big bang is itself evidence that there is a non-random multiverse, basically a multiverse of universes much like our own.

I accept randomness as the best tool at present to help capture certain properties of some phenomena. Consciousness is easier for me to accept as a universal constant because it can be defined so many ways.

The big bang compressed not only space and time but information as well. That which unfolded was seeded with an incredible richness of emergent properties. It is this wealth of emergent properties which pulls me toward the rule of consciousness. I probably believe in intelligent design, but I think it is a useless concept to science. It is like saying look for patterns, and science shouts back, what do you think we have been doing for all of these centuries? I think Dawkins made a doc called Take Back Intelligent Design.

I might believe that existence has infinite emergent properties enfolded within it; that these emergent properties over time stack like exponents and rapidly or slowly differentiate one emergent line from another; that evolution is only an expression of a more encompassing rule of emergent properties we have not yet realized into an equation; that without this infinite enfolding of emergent richness, randomenss and thirteen point seven billion years are too little for all that has come to be; or maybe all of that is only philosophical rationalizing of how I hope the multiverse operates.

We have already noted that mathematics has identified itself by way of proof as possessing infinite complexity but unable to store it under one roof. That's how it is. It takes infinite roofs to store infinite complexity. Unfortunately, it means there is no mathematical theory of everything--no TOE in math. I really don't know what that implies for the relationship of math and physics in the future, but I think equations will signal revolutions in the foreseeable future as they have in the recent past from Newton to Maxwell to Einstein. When the paradigm shift comes that revolutionizes thinking, an equation or mathematical structure will be close by. That is comforting.

I do not have a problem sharing with meaningless universes in addition to those packed with information and emergent properties that manage to unfold. We have to live with certain philosophical paradoxes to explore our existence. Philosophy is better at dealing with those than science is.

If the human race manages to survive without continually destroying its own knowledge, I do not believe in any limit to our increase of understanding, as our consciousness is, so far, the ultimate product of evolution under enfoldment, with infinite potential remaining.

Any God is way back there, not upfront in your face, as religions have it. The packing of infinite enfoldment means a distant, abstract intelligence to me, if any. Intelligence and consciousness are only poorly defined concepts. We will continue to refine our assessments of them.

I am not bothered that some people attribute all that exists to pure randomness and others to intelligence, for intelligence is vague and sure to be redefined to fit our philosophical needs, and even randomness might eventually be redefined as something we only partially understood in our past. Is it possible that randomness itself could be the elusive intelligence we are seeking, the engine and creator of infinite enfoldment? Yeah, that is possible too. Most of all, I would like the ultimate answer to include me. Whether the afterlife is genrated randomly or through intelligent enfoldment, is of little concern compared to my concern for my continued existence. Feelings like this are why the multiverse theory is so appealing. The suggestive science is without peer.

I see absolutely no reason for me and my stomach bacteria to be here right now other than enfoldment. If enfoldment is infinite, that means every kind of universe unfolds. I must accept the paradox that even impossible universes, then, would have to unfold. There will always be paradoxes because of our hierarchal position in the metalogical structure which is infinite. But many paradoxes which stumped both the ancients and our mere elders have been comfortably solved so that they no longer pester our reason in the least. Olbers and Zeno to name but two famous examples. This is meta science, this is meta logic in action as it unfolds, climbing its own rungs, turning paradox into understanding. We are at a higher level of meta science and meta logic than our elders, otherwise we could not solve so many of their paradoxes so truly.

[YesNo]

I accept randomness as the best tool at present to help capture certain properties of some phenomena. Consciousness is easier for me to accept as a universal constant because it can be defined so many ways.

There are at least three things that I don't accept: (1) determinism, (2) randomness and (3) physical constants. The reason is because they are all properties of mathematical models and quantum physics has undermined the first two. Within the models we can have determinism, randomness and constants. They make the models simpler to use for calculations and this is where their use value lies.



The big bang compressed not only space and time but information as well. That which unfolded was seeded with an incredible richness of emergent properties. It is this wealth of emergent properties which pulls me toward the rule of consciousness. I probably believe in intelligent design, but I think it is a useless concept to science. It is like saying look for patterns, and science shouts back, what do you think we have been doing for all of these centuries? I think Dawkins made a doc called Take Back Intelligent Design.

I actually don't believe in "intelligent design". It assumes the universe is a deterministic machine that needs a designer to build it, wind it up and let it run down. I don't see the universe as a machine. This comes from my rejection of mathematical models as proxies for reality.

This rejection of an intelligent designer does not mean that I reject "cosmic consciousness", "transcendent consciousness" or other concepts of "God". I don't think the universe can exist right here right now without such transcendent reality sustaining it, but this has nothing to do with "design".

When theists argued for a conscious designer in the 19th century they were trying to make an argument that those who believed in mathematical determinism would be able to understand. It was a mistake to go down the road of determinism as far as they did.



I might believe that existence has infinite emergent properties enfolded within it; that these emergent properties over time stack like exponents and rapidly or slowly differentiate one emergent line from another; that evolution is only an expression of a more encompassing rule of emergent properties we have not yet realized into an equation; that without this infinite enfolding of emergent richness, randomenss and thirteen point seven billion years are too little for all that has come to be; or maybe all of that is only philosophical rationalizing of how I hope the multiverse operates.


The concept of "emergent properties" is also important. At the moment, I don't believe in them. There are strong and a weak emergent property theories. The strong form would allow consciousness to emerge from unconsciousness. I think this is ridiculous, but I will leave it to those who promote ideas like panpsychism, such as Thomas Nagel, to argue against it.

I am also opposed to weak emergent properties which people who support panpsychism may not be. This means that I favor a non-reductionist view of reality (although reductionist models may have use-value in simplifying calculations leading to useful predictions).

If one believes in even a weak form of emergent properties one then needs a way for this emergence to occur. I agree with you that "randomness and thirteen point seven billion years are too little for all that has come to be". How more complicated forms arose from simpler forms needs to be explained beyond a simple faith that it must have happened that way. One of the reasons I like Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields is he tries to provide such an explanation using modern field concepts. Maybe Sheldrake will convince me that weak emergent properties are possible.



We have already noted that mathematics has identified itself by way of proof as possessing infinite complexity but unable to store it under one roof. That's how it is. It takes infinite roofs to store infinite complexity. Unfortunately, it means there is no mathematical theory of everything--no TOE in math. I really don't know what that implies for the relationship of math and physics in the future, but I think equations will signal revolutions in the foreseeable future as they have in the recent past from Newton to Maxwell to Einstein. When the paradigm shift comes that revolutionizes thinking, an equation or mathematical structure will be close by. That is comforting.

I agree.



I do not have a problem sharing with meaningless universes in addition to those packed with information and emergent properties that manage to unfold. We have to live with certain philosophical paradoxes to explore our existence. Philosophy is better at dealing with those than science is.

If the human race manages to survive without continually destroying its own knowledge, I do not believe in any limit to our increase of understanding, as our consciousness is, so far, the ultimate product of evolution under enfoldment, with infinite potential remaining.

Any God is way back there, not upfront in your face, as religions have it. The packing of infinite enfoldment means a distant, abstract intelligence to me, if any. Intelligence and consciousness are only poorly defined concepts. We will continue to refine our assessments of them.

I like the way you describe God as not currently being "upfront in your face". I have no religion to promote, and some specific religions annoy me, but if transcendent consciousness really does sustain the universe then not seeing that transcendent consciousness "upfront in your face" may be a sign that the theories one has about reality are wrong.

The reason I don't think there are meaningless universes is because I don't think a universe can exist--at all--without consciousness. In other words, there is no unconscious matter out there out of which a universe could be constructed or designed. That means there is nothing out of which one can construct a meaningless universe.



I am not bothered that some people attribute all that exists to pure randomness and others to intelligence, for intelligence is vague and sure to be redefined to fit our philosophical needs, and even randomness might eventually be redefined as something we only partially understood in our past. Is it possible that randomness itself could be the elusive intelligence we are seeking, the engine and creator of infinite enfoldment? Yeah, that is possible too. Most of all, I would like the ultimate answer to include me. Whether the afterlife is genrated randomly or through intelligent enfoldment, is of little concern compared to my concern for my continued existence. Feelings like this are why the multiverse theory is so appealing. The suggestive science is without peer.

Randomness seems to me to be one cognitive dissonance response to uncertainty. It allows one to continue pretending that things can change without consciousness being involved. However, the uncertainty of quantum physics need not have a uniform distribution. Therefore, generally that uncertainty is not random.



I see absolutely no reason for me and my stomach bacteria to be here right now other than enfoldment. If enfoldment is infinite, that means every kind of universe unfolds. I must accept the paradox that even impossible universes, then, would have to unfold. There will always be paradoxes because of our hierarchal position in the metalogical structure which is infinite. But many paradoxes which stumped both the ancients and our mere elders have been comfortably solved so that they no longer pester our reason in the least. Olbers and Zeno to name but two famous examples. This is meta science, this is meta logic in action as it unfolds, climbing its own rungs, turning paradox into understanding. We are at a higher level of meta science and meta logic than our elders, otherwise we could not solve so many of their paradoxes so truly.

Olber's paradox was confirmed with evidence supporting the big bang. What Olber's paradox reminds us today is that if the big bang did not occur and if the universe were infinite, then life could not exist.

[desiresjab]

There are at least three things that I don't accept: (1) determinism, (2) randomness and (3) physical constants. The reason is because they are all properties of mathematical models and quantum physics has undermined the first two. Within the models we can have determinism, randomness and constants. They make the models simpler to use for calculations and this is where their use value lies.



I actually don't believe in "intelligent design". It assumes the universe is a deterministic machine that needs a designer to build it, wind it up and let it run down. I don't see the universe as a machine. This comes from my rejection of mathematical models as proxies for reality.

This rejection of an intelligent designer does not mean that I reject "cosmic consciousness", "transcendent consciousness" or other concepts of "God". I don't think the universe can exist right here right now without such transcendent reality sustaining it, but this has nothing to do with "design".

When theists argued for a conscious designer in the 19th century they were trying to make an argument that those who believed in mathematical determinism would be able to understand. It was a mistake to go down the road of determinism as far as they did.



The concept of "emergent properties" is also important. At the moment, I don't believe in them. There are strong and a weak emergent property theories. The strong form would allow consciousness to emerge from unconsciousness. I think this is ridiculous, but I will leave it to those who promote ideas like panpsychism, such as Thomas Nagel, to argue against it.

I am also opposed to weak emergent properties which people who support panpsychism may not be. This means that I favor a non-reductionist view of reality (although reductionist models may have use-value in simplifying calculations leading to useful predictions).

If one believes in even a weak form of emergent properties one then needs a way for this emergence to occur. I agree with you that "randomness and thirteen point seven billion years are too little for all that has come to be". How more complicated forms arose from simpler forms needs to be explained beyond a simple faith that it must have happened that way. One of the reasons I like Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields is he tries to provide such an explanation using modern field concepts. Maybe Sheldrake will convince me that weak emergent properties are possible.



I agree.



I like the way you describe God as not currently being "upfront in your face". I have no religion to promote, and some specific religions annoy me, but if transcendent consciousness really does sustain the universe then not seeing that transcendent consciousness "upfront in your face" may be a sign that the theories one has about reality are wrong.

The reason I don't think there are meaningless universes is because I don't think a universe can exist--at all--without consciousness. In other words, there is no unconscious matter out there out of which a universe could be constructed or designed. That means there is nothing out of which one can construct a meaningless universe.



Randomness seems to me to be one cognitive dissonance response to uncertainty. It allows one to continue pretending that things can change without consciousness being involved. However, the uncertainty of quantum physics need not have a uniform distribution. Therefore, generally that uncertainty is not random.



Olber's paradox was confirmed with evidence supporting the big bang. What Olber's paradox reminds us today is that if the big bang did not occur and if the universe were infinite, then life could not exist.

I would not come on and defend God. Like I said, maybe I believe in a creator. But if I do, it is not the loudmouth of holy texts.

To me intelligent design does not mean determinism must follow. A smart enough creator could certainly build a non-deterministic machine.

I tend to feel that a less than ultimate being may be directly responsible for our super consciousness but not for the universe itself.

I do not say that the explosion of super consciousness several hundred thousand years ago in humans could not be produced in a fully natural way, with the help of natural selection and some emergent properties, of course. But it seems fully reasonable that we could have been tampered with to become super conscious.

I have been a fan of Sheldrake's morphic fields for a while. I just wish he had more to say about them. I suppose he can't because they are pure speculation and philosophy. Haven't looked at him for a while. I doubt he is within a light year of a mathematical model. You would not frown on such a model. It would signal progress. Rupert is being more of a poet than a scientist.

In spite of your distrust of mathematical models, you understand that an equation is what it takes to shake the world. Yet some of the smartest guys in the world are occultists these days. They have extreme mathematical tools. Sheldrake is an example and Brian Josephson another. Brilliant men looking for the next paradigm shift. Peering under stones their elders would not have disturbed. Neither seems to have made a dent in parapsychology, one of their chosen inquiries.

[Iain Sparrow]

I would not come on and defend God. Like I said, maybe I believe in a creator. But if I do, it is not the loudmouth of holy texts.

To me intelligent design does not mean determinism must follow. A smart enough creator could certainly build a non-deterministic machine.

I tend to feel that a less than ultimate being may be directly responsible for our super consciousness but not for the universe itself.

I do not say that the explosion of super consciousness several hundred thousand years ago in humans could not be produced in a fully natural way, with the help of natural selection and some emergent properties, of course. But it seems fully reasonable that we could have been tampered with to become super conscious.

We do not have super consciousness, merely the illusion of super consciousness.

There is research showing that the brain has an on/off switch that triggers unconsciousness. Mohamad Koubeissi at the George Washington University in Washington DC and his colleagues described a way to switch off consciousness by electrically stimulating a part of the brain called the claustrum.

The discovery came while the researchers were studying a woman who has epilepsy. During a procedure, they used deep brain electrodes to record signals from different parts of her brain in order to determine where here seizures were originating. One electrode was place next to the claustrum, a thin, sheet-like structure underneath the neocortex. Although this area has never been electrically stimulated before, it had been implicated in the past as a possible control center for consciousness by neuroscientist Francis Crick, who identified the structure of DNA, and his colleague Christof Koch of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.

Koubeissi and his team found that Crick and Koch might have been on to something. When they stimulated the area with electrical impulses from the brain electrodes, the woman stopped reading, stared blankly into space and didn’t respond to auditory or visual commands. Her breathing slowed as well. She had lost consciousness. When the scientists turned off the electrical stimuli, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of blanking out. Additional attempts were tried over two days and each time, the same thing happened.

Consciousness is a state of matter, governed by the same physical laws as everything else.
Nothing mystical about it, no need for a super being tinkering with our DNA.

[desiresjab]

We do not have super consciousness, merely the illusion of super consciousness.

There is research showing that the brain has an on/off switch that triggers unconsciousness. Mohamad Koubeissi at the George Washington University in Washington DC and his colleagues described a way to switch off consciousness by electrically stimulating a part of the brain called the claustrum.

The discovery came while the researchers were studying a woman who has epilepsy. During a procedure, they used deep brain electrodes to record signals from different parts of her brain in order to determine where here seizures were originating. One electrode was place next to the claustrum, a thin, sheet-like structure underneath the neocortex. Although this area has never been electrically stimulated before, it had been implicated in the past as a possible control center for consciousness by neuroscientist Francis Crick, who identified the structure of DNA, and his colleague Christof Koch of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.

Koubeissi and his team found that Crick and Koch might have been on to something. When they stimulated the area with electrical impulses from the brain electrodes, the woman stopped reading, stared blankly into space and didn’t respond to auditory or visual commands. Her breathing slowed as well. She had lost consciousness. When the scientists turned off the electrical stimuli, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of blanking out. Additional attempts were tried over two days and each time, the same thing happened.

Consciousness is a state of matter, governed by the same physical laws as everything else.
Nothing mystical about it, no need for a super being tinkering with our DNA.

I have merely made a demarcation in consciousness that is the ability to catch one's self thinking. That is all it takes for super consciousness, as I have defined it.

Whether anything mystical is happening is not a discussion for me. I am sure we do not know the proper meanings of natural or supernatural. My approach to cosmology is through science and math. Sometimes I like to take the ball and run for a ways toward one goal or the other with extrapolations, but in the end I always come out an agnostic on the fifty yard line. It is the only reasonable place I see. Socrates mentioned that any strong belief on these matters is presumptuous. I took that to heart long ago.

I have no problems with intelligent design or random evolution until someone makes claims of knowing the answers or of knowing certain things I do not believe are knowable. Then I need sharable proof.

[YesNo]

I would not come on and defend God. Like I said, maybe I believe in a creator. But if I do, it is not the loudmouth of holy texts.

I don't have any sacred texts. Perhaps all texts are sacred.



To me intelligent design does not mean determinism must follow. A smart enough creator could certainly build a non-deterministic machine.

I might have the history of ideas wrong, but I think intelligent design can be traced back to Paley's argument about finding a watch (a deterministic mechanism) and then assuming there must be a watchmaker. This idea probably goes back to the 18th century or earlier as well.

It seems to me that theists some centuries ago were predominately determinists and dualism was the way they handled the cognitive dissonance this ultimately deistic perspective awoke. My problem with that deistic view is the assumption that the universe is deterministic (or random). This I think comes from a belief that mathematical models ("laws") are reality. They are just models. It is like saying the road you are driving on is the picture on your GPS app and therefore must have all the software components in it that are used by the app to display the picture.

A "non-deterministic machine" would be one with unconscious randomness involved in it. Determinism and randomness are two sides of the same unconsciousness coin. Neither are real, but they do have use-value in simplifying quantitative predictions about reality.



I tend to feel that a less than ultimate being may be directly responsible for our super consciousness but not for the universe itself.

This sounds like some form of dualism. Dualism would be a belief in the existence of unconscious matter along with a belief in the existence of consciousness.

Iain Sparrow's post provides one challenge to dualism. His post is based on a belief in materialism, that is, a belief in the existence of unconscious material stuff, which I think quantum physics undermined. But then, I'm an idealist, not a materialist.

To be a materialist after quantum physics, one would have to take either some sort of superdeterminism or a many worlds approach to reality. Either of these general approaches seems more absurd to me, besides having no empirical evidence to back them up, than simply giving consciousness its due for which we do have empirical evidence.



I do not say that the explosion of super consciousness several hundred thousand years ago in humans could not be produced in a fully natural way, with the help of natural selection and some emergent properties, of course. But it seems fully reasonable that we could have been tampered with to become super conscious.

I agree that the existence of consciousness outside of its manifestation as matter is possible, just as light can exist without acquiring mass. What I don't think is possible is the existence of matter/mass without consciousness. It would be like having matter without energy.

I think evolution proceeded the way that Niles Eldredge described through the process of punctuated equilibria. That would be a natural way using natural selection. I think he is right in recognizing the existence of things like "species" characterized by their stable DNA and from which other species form through geographic isolation. I am unclear how more complicated forms emerge from less complicated forms through this process alone, unless they don't actually "emerge" but are part of some pre-existing "field" properties or a participation in consciousness all along just waiting for their opportunity to manifest.



I have been a fan of Sheldrake's morphic fields for a while. I just wish he had more to say about them. I suppose he can't because they are pure speculation and philosophy. Haven't looked at him for a while. I doubt he is within a light year of a mathematical model. You would not frown on such a model. It would signal progress. Rupert is being more of a poet than a scientist.

I don't know much about Sheldrake except for a few books I have read. It is from him that I began doubting the existence of physical constants. I don't think physical constants precise to arbitrary decimal places make much sense given that quantum energy changes are not able to be that precise. However, without those arbitrarily precise physical constants, the determinism implied in mathematical models is not supported in reality.



In spite of your distrust of mathematical models, you understand that an equation is what it takes to shake the world. Yet some of the smartest guys in the world are occultists these days. They have extreme mathematical tools. Sheldrake is an example and Brian Josephson another. Brilliant men looking for the next paradigm shift. Peering under stones their elders would not have disturbed. Neither seems to have made a dent in parapsychology, one of their chosen inquiries.

A paradigm shift is a cultural change. It is very close to the pattern of change of punctuated equilibria that Eldredge and Gould presented some decades ago. I think Dean Radin, among others, have adequately demonstrated that paranormal phenomena are real. What will shake the world? Maybe recognizing mathematics for what it is--a model, nothing more.

[Iain Sparrow]

Iain Sparrow's post provides one challenge to dualism. His post is based on a belief in materialism, that is, a belief in the existence of unconscious material stuff, which I think quantum physics undermined. But then, I'm an idealist, not a materialist.

To be a materialist after quantum physics, one would have to take either some sort of superdeterminism or a many worlds approach to reality. Either of these general approaches seems more absurd to me, besides having no empirical evidence to back them up, than simply giving consciousness its due for which we do have empirical evidence..

This all goes to the notion that we Humans are special... in fact all the evidence, from Copernicus' observations to Relativity, Quantum Theory and Cosmic Inflation suggests we are in fact Homo-Sapiens, that is we are just another beast on a planet that can support organic life orbiting an unexceptional star. Evolution has endowed us with a level of consciousness; in that, we are not alone as other beasts likewise have a level of human-like consciousness... http://us.whales.org/blog/2012/08/we-are-not-alone-scientists-conclude-whales-dolphins-and-many-other-species-are

[desiresjab]

This all goes to the notion that we Humans are special... in fact all the evidence, from Copernicus' observations to Relativity, Quantum Theory and Cosmic Inflation suggests we are in fact Homo-Sapiens, that is we are just another beast on a planet that can support organic life orbiting an unexceptional star. Evolution has endowed us with a level of consciousness; in that, we are not alone as other beasts likewise have a level of human-like consciousness... http://us.whales.org/blog/2012/08/we-are-not-alone-scientists-conclude-whales-dolphins-and-many-other-species-are

Exactly. What we might call that the standard model of cosmic evolution.

We were not special, now we are. What makes us special is that we can catch ourselves thinking and have realized our predicament. We alone have realized our predicament. Our species locates and defines problems, then attempts to solve them. As a species, we do not give up when it comes to problem solving.

Our problem since we realized it has always been our mortality. Our social problems are minor affairs. Our problem is and always has been death. Ancient monarchs declared themselves immortal in an attempt to transcend mortality. They consulted seers and soothsayers and witches--anything to live forever. Next to immediate survivial, immortal survival since the ignition of our super consciousness, has always been our main racial preoccupation.

So of course that is the prize offered to mortal man by religion. No surprise there. Most of the introspection and exploration initiated in brains too big for mere survival are attempts to transcend death. We forget the origins of why we cheer on science--how to transcend death. That is what has mainly occupied us besides survival and luxury since the ignition of super consciousness.

No one cares if there is a God or not--they care about living forever. An afterlife without any God at all is just as desirable, if not more so, than a cosmos with a God. Most religious people would be afraid to admit this. A universe with a built-in afterlife, owing its existence to no more than factors of an expanded standard model. A universe where startling emergent properties arise to create--the way they created existence out of nothing, life out of matter, consciousness out of life, super consciousness out of consciousness, and finally, perhaps, an afterlife out of super consciousness--our transcendence of death.

We do not give up. If there is no afterlife to find, we will build one, and they will come. This would fulfill the ancient promise of all religions, but no one would care at that point.

I would prefer the built-in afterlife to one we constructed ourselves, since it is more likely to include my rotting bones and be richer.

[desiresjab]

Is actual randomness operant in the universe? What is randomness? We turn to mathematical thinking again. A sequence is random when there is no shorter way to store and produce it (such as compressed in a formula) than to list it element by element. That is why we cannot program actual randomness into a computer--because if we can program it, it ain't random, since there should be no such formula or algorithm or we end by contradicting our definition. We get as close as we can with complex pantomiming formulas called psuedo-randomness. These are close enough for human sensibilities, but within the range of science and other computers to exploit. Our psuedo-random formulas would be helpless against a quantum computer playing blackjack.

Randomness is a concept. Unlike the concept of fundamental counting, randomness may not be an unassailable concept. A universe without it is not unimaginable, but easily imaginable. Leaving it out of an imagined universe fails to make it unimaginable to me, like defying two follows one does.

That is one view. Nature never produces a perfect circle either, so why do we need to insist that it manifest perfect, pure randomness? Is not the motion of excited gases close enough for us? Doesn't it make more sense at this point to attribute the chaotic 100,000 year journey of a photon from the interior of our sun to its corona to random forces of a nuclear traffic jam delaying it rather than something else?

That is the other view. I think randomness is only as unreal as pi is. And that never stopped pi. I visualize it as an asymptote of pure randomness which can be approached but never realized--Tantalus reaches for the fruit but it recedes just beyond his grasp. In some universe "nature" could get as close to random as you please like a limit in calculus without ever being purely random. I suppose that belief in a consciousness among elementary particles would have to exist in the vanishing remainder ignored by those limits.

The discussion of whether a universe can exist without consciousness, philosophicaly depends on definitions. I do not believe the human race is even close to defining consciousness properly. Indeed the best models may turn out to be those that postulate a limited form of consciousness in some elementary particles. If that is where the math points, that is where we will go. Even though consciousness-postulating models might work, that would still be, of course, only indirect evidence for the existence of consciousness in particles, since our models are artifacts of varying trustworthiness, especially in unknown waters.

Can we vanish either randomness or consciousnesss entirely away cosmologically or conceptually? I say maybe not as easily as I seemed to above. Furthermore, how unimaginable is a universe where asymptotical versions of randomness and consciousness interplay at a fundamental level we have not yet discovered? Or at least that the best models are ones that include both factors?

I predict an Einstein or Newton level transformation of scientific thinking in the next twenty years. We could be in one right now but unable to see the forest for the trees.

No matter when the discovery is made, it takes the biggest brains we have years and decades to sort out and clarify the implications and applications. The first guys were figuring out quantum physics a hundred years ago.

[desiresjab]

What Yes/No is calling the two sides of a coin with consciousness and randomness, I am trying to roughly visualize more as a simple function expressing a relationship between consciousness and randomness with reality, F(c,r)=Z, where the dependent value Z is reality and dependent on two variables which act on each other.

In his version, one imagines there might be tunneling from one side to the other, entanglement, simultaneous existence in more than one place, and other details left for the imagination.

In my model you have to imagine two vertical asymptotes. The area between these asymptotes is reality. At least one point is traveling along a curve within this area. Its position left or right represents a ratio of randomness to consciousness determined by the type of phenomenon. One expects less order in a supernova explosion than in electrons quietly entangled in a lab experiment.

How close r or c may come to their asymptotes is unknown. The world we experience with our senses seems to highly favor the left asymptote toward randomness. Entanglemet and electron "choices" might be examples of consciousness.

If we make two points traveling in the area between the asymptotes of consciousness and randomness, we might account for entanglement and existence in two complementary states at once. A complementary set is, in fact, precisely the other side of the coin. We see the two "sets" magically interplaying at the same time as the two points move inside the boundaries between asymptotes they may never touch. For if one or the other touched an asymptote, the value of the other would have to be zero at that moment, representing pure consciousness or pure randomness. But these pure states can no more exist than pi can be fully expressed.

Anyway, a lot of things Yes/No and I are saying are similar. One difference is I do not claim to believe in as much. My only belief is that there are more things under heaven and earth than your philosophy has ever dreamed of, to give Shakespeare his due again, and that mathematics is of infinite complexity which cannot, however, be housed under one roof, whatever exactly that means. The real meaning and implications of Godel's theorems are still quite up for grabs by some genius with a great insight. Chaitin is working on such matters, as are others. Yes/No believes that consciousness pervades matter at all levels, while I only happily admit it is possible.

[YesNo]

This all goes to the notion that we Humans are special... in fact all the evidence, from Copernicus' observations to Relativity, Quantum Theory and Cosmic Inflation suggests we are in fact Homo-Sapiens, that is we are just another beast on a planet that can support organic life orbiting an unexceptional star. Evolution has endowed us with a level of consciousness; in that, we are not alone as other beasts likewise have a level of human-like consciousness... http://us.whales.org/blog/2012/08/we-are-not-alone-scientists-conclude-whales-dolphins-and-many-other-species-are

I think I agree with all of that. Although we have opposite metaphysical positions regarding consciousness, I don't think we disagree when it comes to science and dualism. We both favor science and we both distrust dualism. For example, I have no problem with there being other species that have or even had human-like consciousness both on this planet or on other planets similar to ours, both in this universe or in universes similar to ours. We are not special.

Where we disagree would be on the role of consciousness in all these universes. I think consciousness is fundamental. You, I assume, believe consciousness can be derived from unconscious matter. I don't think unconscious matter exists and base that upon the uncertainty found in quantum physics. That uncertainty can be interpreted as quantum reality making a choice when it is tested by an experimenter and hence demonstrating enough consciousness to choose. I know that people will say that is crazy talk, but I think that is the underlying motivation behind many worlds and superdeterminism which are ways to explain away the uncertainty so the existence of consciousness is not a viable interpretation.

Take your example of stimulating the brain and then turning awareness (consciousness) on and off. The dualist would believe that the brain contains unconscious matter and that consciousness is separate from the unconscious brain. The dualist may even believe that only we are conscious which further traps the dualist. From my view, that brain being manipulated is conscious at many levels. Stimulating it only changes the way a conscious reality manifests itself. It does not turn consciousness on and off.

For a materialist, the existence of consciousness needs to be explained. For an idealist, the existence of what looks like unconscious matter needs to be explained. Consciousness is a problem because it leads to theism. An atheistic explanation of consciousness would allow for some form of panpsychism with weak emergent properties, that is, consciousness would be explained by reducing it to the consciousness in quantum reality. This ties consciousness to matter without implying the existence of any transcendent consciousness.

If one has transcendent consciousness, then one has theism. I will admit that I am also a panentheist. I think that panpsychism with emergent properties is not adequate to explain the universe considering that the universe had a beginning. It implies consciousness goes beyond the universe and hence is transcendent.

[YesNo]

Yes/No believes that consciousness pervades matter at all levels, while I only happily admit it is possible.

Yes, that is how I view consciousness. Matter is one way consciousness manifests itself.

[desiresjab]

Yes, that is how I view consciousness. Matter is one way consciousness manifests itself.

It is a question philosophy frames but cannot answer. Only science and math are good at answering the questions philosophers can pose but have no chance of answering. When it comes to real answers we can trust, they will work because they are repeatable in experimental form and formualtable in mathematical structures.

If I let myself stray too far from this rock, the next thing you know I am standing knee deep in philosophy. After a conjecture must come the hunt for evidence, not more extrapolation on the conjecture, or that turns into the interminable arguing of philosophers instead of science. It all comes down to getting enough evidence into a working model. That is all we can do, that is all we know, and that is about it.

The idea is immensely appealing, as many ideas are, and great for philosophical musings, a hippie paradise of Maharishi cosmic consciousness, a very loose idea that sprung to public awareness in mid 20th century. We all like it, but belief is a strong word. How do you say you can believe it? Isn't it, rather, what you would like to believe and lean towards?

[YesNo]

It is a question philosophy frames but cannot answer. Only science and math are good at answering the questions philosophers can pose but have no chance of answering. When it comes to real answers we can trust, they will work because they are repeatable in experimental form and formualtable in mathematical structures.

I was reading parts of Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman's "Quantum Mechanics The Theoretical Minimum What you need to know to start doing physics" last night. It is not easy to get repeatable answers especially if you want to know more than one thing at a time like the position and the momentum of a particle or the spin of a particle along two different axes.

They write that the statement, "The particle has position x and the particle has momentum p", is "completely meaningless (not even wrong)". (page 21)

But that is what I like about positivism. Physicists with that perspective take evidence seriously even if it is not repeatable.



If I let myself stray too far from this rock, the next thing you know I am standing knee deep in philosophy. After a conjecture must come the hunt for evidence, not more extrapolation on the conjecture, or that turns into the interminable arguing of philosophers instead of science. It all comes down to getting enough evidence into a working model. That is all we can do, that is all we know, and that is about it.

Although I tend to agree that one needs to keep evidence close at hand, none of us can stop believing (aka conjecturing, aka philosophizing). We are all knee deep in philosophy and some of us have waded into the deep end. Which I suppose means that we have lost the solid ground of evidence under our feet and have only reason to rely on.



The idea is immensely appealing, as many ideas are, and great for philosophical musings, a hippie paradise of Maharishi cosmic consciousness, a very loose idea that sprung to public awareness in mid 20th century. We all like it, but belief is a strong word. How do you say you can believe it? Isn't it, rather, what you would like to believe and lean towards?

The problem is everyone believes something. A deeper problem: some of us don't think we believe the facts we know are true.

I was thinking about the mathematical model E=mc^2.

From an engineer's perspective that model is useful and convenient in getting nuclear power plants to work.

From a philosophical perspective, (perhaps out in the deep end, but who knows?), this relationship between energy and mass suggests there may be a similarity and a non-dualistic (aka monistic) relationship between consciousness and matter. It doesn't help determine which side wins out, energy or mass, but at least the concepts of "energy" and "mass" are better defined than "consciousness" and "matter".

[desiresjab]

I was reading parts of Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman's "Quantum Mechanics The Theoretical Minimum What you need to know to start doing physics" last night. It is not easy to get repeatable answers especially if you want to know more than one thing at a time like the position and the momentum of a particle or the spin of a particle along two different axes.

They write that the statement, "The particle has position x and the particle has momentum p", is "completely meaningless (not even wrong)". (page 21)

But that is what I like about positivism. Physicists with that perspective take evidence seriously even if it is not repeatable.



Although I tend to agree that one needs to keep evidence close at hand, none of us can stop believing (aka conjecturing, aka philosophizing). We are all knee deep in philosophy and some of us have waded into the deep end. Which I suppose means that we have lost the solid ground of evidence under our feet and have only reason to rely on.



The problem is everyone believes something. A deeper problem: some of us don't think we believe the facts we know are true.

I was thinking about the mathematical model E=mc^2.

From an engineer's perspective that model is useful and convenient in getting nuclear power plants to work.

From a philosophical perspective, (perhaps out in the deep end, but who knows?), this relationship between energy and mass suggests there may be a similarity and a non-dualistic (aka monistic) relationship between consciousness and matter. It doesn't help determine which side wins out, energy or mass, but at least the concepts of "energy" and "mass" are better defined than "consciousness" and "matter".

Science keeps upping the ante. We used to study the temperature at which water boils and the rate at which an object falls near earth's surface. Look what we have done with quantum applications though we barely know our way around. We traveled to the moon without knowing what 90% of the stuff we were traveling through was. Applications and answers are farther apart in understanding than many people realize.

Paradigm shifts may have a somewhat constant period, for as our tools increase exponentially so does the difficulty of the questions we tackle. I say twenty years but a hundred and twenty or more would not be surprising if this paragraph is true.

[Dreamwoven]

I liked this End of Days item: http://www.rt.com/news/315849-mysterious-costa-rica-cloud/

[YesNo]

I liked this End of Days item: http://www.rt.com/news/315849-mysterious-costa-rica-cloud/

There is a blood moon coming up as well in about a week. I saw the last one. I hope I remember to watch this one before I get zapped by the end of time.

I understand that if the Higgs field collapsed we would all be dematerialized at the speed of light. It wouldn't be easy to give us any warning. I don't think it would hurt.

[YesNo]

Science keeps upping the ante. We used to study the temperature at which water boils and the rate at which an object falls near earth's surface. Look what we have done with quantum applications though we barely know our way around. We traveled to the moon without knowing what 90% of the stuff we were traveling through was. Applications and answers are farther apart in understanding than many people realize.

Paradigm shifts may have a somewhat constant period, for as our tools increase exponentially so does the difficulty of the questions we tackle. I say twenty years but a hundred and twenty or more would not be surprising if this paragraph is true.

Are you referring to the Apollo US space missions in the early 1970's? Some people think they were unmanned.

[desiresjab]

Are you referring to the Apollo US space missions in the early 1970's? Some people think they were unmanned.

Some people also think OJ was innocent and the world is six thousand years old.

The laughable evidence for the moon flight being a hoax was the flag that looked like it was blowing in a moon breeze, until these idiots learned it was made that way so that it would not droop straight down. Like anyone, these fools need real evidence to make their cases compelling. Not having it, however, has never stopped them, for they have Faith.

[YesNo]

You're old enough to know about OJ? I can still remember: "If the glove don't fit you must acquit."

In the movie Interstellar there is a scene where the main character is informed by school authorities that the Apollo missions were staged for political purposes. When the idea hits the movies it has become mainstream. We'll find out in a couple of decades when the classified documents go unclassified. It wouldn't surprise me if they were faked, but I can still remember when I first learned that people considered this a possibility. It took me two days to get used to the idea.

Even Newton believed the world was about 6000 years old. That mathematical model I think it is safe to say isn't true anymore.

[Dreamwoven]

It is easy to forget how threatened the US president felt when it looked very much as though the USSR was way ahead, with the first sputnik, first dog in space and first man in space, Gagarin. This was really big stuff. I remember seeing Gagarin at one of the London exhibitions shortly after this.. First to the moon became an American obsession and was a campaign promise from Kennedy, by the end of the 1960s. When did it happen? July 1969.

[YesNo]

What Yes/No is calling the two sides of a coin with consciousness and randomness, I am trying to roughly visualize more as a simple function expressing a relationship between consciousness and randomness with reality, F(c,r)=Z, where the dependent value Z is reality and dependent on two variables which act on each other.

Dualism hopes that reality is, and not only behaves like, some F(c,r)=Z machine. One might be able to build a mathematical model that provides correct predictions about the behavior of reality (such as Ptolemy's epicycles) without the model correctly describing what reality is (the earth "really" goes around the sun).

I've been an idealist for only a few years. Before that I would have thought people like George Berkeley were incredibly unrealistic. Today I still have a hard time with my intuition but I'm working on it, like any true believer, some might say, with a new theory to internalize. For example, I still like to see the world around me divided into those things able to act based on their choices (conscious agents or the "c" in your function) and those other things, the non-agents (the "r" in your function): unconscious matter out of which we design and build stuff like tables and sidewalks. But I'm working on it.

[YesNo]

It is easy to forget how threatened the US president felt when it looked very much as though the USSR was way ahead, with the first sputnik, first dog in space and first man in space, Gagarin. This was really big stuff. I remember seeing Gagarin at one of the London exhibitions shortly after this.. First to the moon became an American obsession and was a campaign promise from Kennedy, by the end of the 1960s. When did it happen? July 1969.

I vaguely remember Gagarin. Some say that mission was faked as well, but I know little about it. I remember being in elementary school and the teacher had us sitting around a TV watching the liftoff of some (probably Apollo) space mission. I had to go to the bathroom and missed seeing the actual event and was given a lecture for not being in the room.

[desiresjab]

I vaguely remember Gagarin. Some say that mission was faked as well, but I know little about it. I remember being in elementary school and the teacher had us sitting around a TV watching the liftoff of some (probably Apollo) space mission. I had to go to the bathroom and missed seeing the actual event and was given a lecture for not being in the room.

I remember standing outside with my dad and seeing Gagarin's point of light move across the sky.

Not that I would put it past ourselves or the Russians to attempt the hoax for political reasons, I just don't believe it happened, based on logic. Too many thousands would have to be involved in the coverup for too long for it to succeed. And not that I doubt the expertise of our intelligence agencies and propaganda arms at twisting exposure's wrist until it says uncle and actually turns into a benefit by discrediting the whistleblowers themselves, I just think our technological advances are real, and the 1969 moon landing was not an impractical task for 1969 technology, so our truth-bending machines were not needed to create false space flights.

There is a lot of outlandish conspiracy stuff that has gone or will go mainstream, to answer something from a prior post. Someone told me I can go on google maps and see physical space stations of aliens sitting right there on the moon. I haven't tried it, but I believe them, because they were laughing at the idea and indignant at the same time. Anyone can write goofy blogs or post doctored and edited videos that sound and look like actual in-flight, official video records of the event. That's why our guys or their guys could have done it in 1969 if they had to, because regular folks with made up theories are even capable of it these days.

[YesNo]

Just to play devil's advocate, if the only claim is that the missions were unmanned, then you could have seen Gagarin's point of light and people would have seen the liftoffs (unless they were in the bathroom) of the Apollo rockets. I can image something that could serve as a retroreflector could have been deposited and moon stuff picked up without a human being actually handling them. The photos we are shown of fancy retroflectors as evidence we really, really went to the moon could have been taken on Earth.

But I don't care either way. I don't think there are aliens on the Moon's far side. Maybe on Ceres? (Just kidding. :) ) I would like to know what those bright spots are.

[desiresjab]

Just to play devil's advocate, if the only claim is that the missions were unmanned, then you could have seen Gagarin's point of light and people would have seen the liftoffs (unless they were in the bathroom) of the Apollo rockets. I can image something that could serve as a retroreflector could have been deposited and moon stuff picked up without a human being actually handling them. The photos we are shown of fancy retroflectors as evidence we really, really went to the moon could have been taken on Earth.

But I don't care either way. I don't think there are aliens on the Moon's far side. Maybe on Ceres? (Just kidding. :) ) I would like to know what those bright spots are.

Just to respond to devil's advocacy.

It just isn't that much harder to do the manned flight than what you suggest. In fact, robot technology to gather moon samples may have been slightly beyond 1969 technology. Might as well have a man aboard. It's easier.

Also. I assume that Sally Ride and all the other supposedly dead astronauts who died in falsely manned flights, are enjoying pensions under false names in something like the witness protection program scattered across the U.S.A.

We don't know what an alien is. It is hard to completely disbelieve in something which is scientifically quite feasible in every way. There are more things under heaven and earth, Yes/No, than your philosophy has ever dreamed of.

Taking one step to the left, I would be able to assume that life as we know it is a tiny strip of life's actual possibilities and manifestations. To me, any form consciousness would be life. If it is conscious, it is alive, whether it has a body or not. Not only is anything possible, anything will be, if you take Shakespeare the way I do on this point.

You want miracles? I would have to consider it a miracle if there were no other life in the universe. I say universe because we are sure that exists, whereas we don't know yet (or maybe forever) if the multiverse does. I think infinite enfoldment of emergent properties means as much to me as it can, and needs only a single universe to be so anyway. Some of it is mere definition. If we discovered new universes, they would simply be parts of a new and larger single universe with us. The new universe might include a host of new schools of physics instead of the single one we believe in presently. Maybe I should make that the two we presently believe in. The two we believe will presently be one. Look at all that belief.

Infinite enfoldment of emergent properties outstrips the most vigorous imagination in its real output. Sensitivity to initial conditions produces infinite variety. Infinite variety of life is the possibility.

To say I believe it, would be to go too far, in fact mad. There is just something awfully curious about our being here at all, in the first place, that gives one pause to adopt almost anything at moments of deep reflection. There may as well be forms of consciousness we have no chance of ever communicating with, and others we can but barely, and others more like us somewhere in the vast reaches. There may as well be. Shakespeare says there are. There is room for everything to be true.

If there is something like infinite enfoldment of emergent properties operating in the universe. Consciousness may turn out to be an emergent property from quantum mechanics that leaks into our scale. It may turn out that consciousness is irrepressible and breaks out many places on any scale, likes leaks in the Dutch boy's dike. Consciousness might have potential at any ordinality of scale or potency, from approaching infinitesimal to approaching infinity.

Given this, even our amazing film and science fiction industries would be helpless to compete with the possibiliies for life forms that actually exist or have potential to.

It is nice to dream and speculate. That is part of the reason I love literature as much as science & math. The human mind feeds on more than abstract rumination. Knowing the difference between belief and feeling is an important discrimination for the philosopher, though it will not necessarily make a difference to the effectiveness of the poet or even the mathematician. What I believe and what I feel share territory but are not one. Damn, I am not mad enough.

[YesNo]

Just to respond to devil's advocacy.

It just isn't that much harder to do the manned flight than what you suggest. In fact, robot technology to gather moon samples may have been slightly beyond 1969 technology. Might as well have a man aboard. It's easier.

Also. I assume that Sally Ride and all the other supposedly dead astronauts who died in falsely manned flights, are enjoying pensions under false names in something like the witness protection program scattered across the U.S.A.

The skepticism that I think has some validity is only directed toward the manned missions during the space race. It does not include what Sally Ride did.



We don't know what an alien is. It is hard to completely disbelieve in something which is scientifically quite feasible in every way. There are more things under heaven and earth, Yes/No, than your philosophy has ever dreamed of.

Taking one step to the left, I would be able to assume that life as we know it is a tiny strip of life's actual possibilities and manifestations. To me, any form consciousness would be life. If it is conscious, it is alive, whether it has a body or not. Not only is anything possible, anything will be, if you take Shakespeare the way I do on this point.

I do not think consciousness needs a body either. Also I assume there are other forms of consciousness, perhaps some monitoring us right now, out there. I don't think the Ceres bright spots are an example of them, but perhaps we will find out later this year.



You want miracles? I would have to consider it a miracle if there were no other life in the universe. I say universe because we are sure that exists, whereas we don't know yet (or maybe forever) if the multiverse does. I think infinite enfoldment of emergent properties means as much to me as it can, and needs only a single universe to be so anyway. Some of it is mere definition. If we discovered new universes, they would simply be parts of a new and larger single universe with us. The new universe might include a host of new schools of physics instead of the single one we believe in presently. Maybe I should make that the two we presently believe in. The two we believe will presently be one. Look at all that belief.

Actually, I don't want miracles. A miracle assumes there is an unconscious material substance under deterministic laws. These laws are violated by the miracle implying the existence of something superior to the unconscious matter. That is dualism. I don't believe in unconscious matter nor in determinism. So I don't need miracles.

The problem with emergent properties is that it implies reductionism. That would be my objection to Thomas Nagel's panpsychism. This is not to say that reductionist theories are not useful as models, but reductionism limits our possibilities to what can be found at the quantum level. Then one adds on a mechanism by which a new form can emerge from simpler forms. That mechanism, because it is a "mechanism", I find suspect.



Infinite enfoldment of emergent properties outstrips the most vigorous imagination in its real output. Sensitivity to initial conditions produces infinite variety. Infinite variety of life is the possibility.

I don't understand this, but it may not matter.



To say I believe it, would be to go too far, in fact mad. There is just something awfully curious about our being here at all, in the first place, that gives one pause to adopt almost anything at moments of deep reflection. There may as well be forms of consciousness we have no chance of ever communicating with, and others we can but barely, and others more like us somewhere in the vast reaches. There may as well be. Shakespeare says there are. There is room for everything to be true.

I agree with this especially about there being something "awfully curious about our being here at all". We take our existences far, far too much for granted.



If there is something like infinite enfoldment of emergent properties operating in the universe. Consciousness may turn out to be an emergent property from quantum mechanics that leaks into our scale. It may turn out that consciousness is irrepressible and breaks out many places on any scale, likes leaks in the Dutch boy's dike. Consciousness might have potential at any ordinality of scale or potency, from approaching infinitesimal to approaching infinity.

I like the idea about consciousness leaking through the dike of unconscious matter. I don't believe there is a dike there at all, but it does make one sense that there is a lot more hidden than we realize.



Given this, even our amazing film and science fiction industries would be helpless to compete with the possibiliies for life forms that actually exist or have potential to.

It is nice to dream and speculate. That is part of the reason I love literature as much as science & math. The human mind feeds on more than abstract rumination. Knowing the difference between belief and feeling is an important discrimination for the philosopher, though it will not necessarily make a difference to the effectiveness of the poet or even the mathematician. What I believe and what I feel share territory but are not one. Damn, I am not mad enough.

Neither am I mad enough. Maybe some day.

[desiresjab]

The skepticism that I think has some validity is only directed toward the manned missions during the space race. It does not include what Sally Ride did.

Some ride, some don't.


I do not think consciousness needs a body either. Also I assume there are other forms of consciousness, perhaps some monitoring us right now, out there. I don't think the Ceres bright spots are an example of them, but perhaps we will find out later this year.

Since we may not be able to recognize them, they can also be very near.



Actually, I don't want miracles. A miracle assumes there is an unconscious material substance under deterministic laws. These laws are violated by the miracle implying the existence of something superior to the unconscious matter. That is dualism. I don't believe in unconscious matter nor in determinism. So I don't need miracles.

I am reminded that earlier in the discussion I used the term dualism when the term I was grasping for was pluralism. Definitely different concepts under the assignments of philosophy. My bad.

I am afraid I was using the word miracle more poetically and for its hyperbolic value (I will probably think of a more appropriate term here, too). The crossover zone of the two disciplines always gets me in trouble in the philosophy room.



The problem with emergent properties is that it implies reductionism. That would be my objection to Thomas Nagel's panpsychism. This is not to say that reductionist theories are not useful as models, but reductionism limits our possibilities to what can be found at the quantum level. Then one adds on a mechanism by which a new form can emerge from simpler forms. That mechanism, because it is a "mechanism", I find suspect.

This takes a little more thought. I don't know if I get it...."but reductionism limits our possibilities to what can be found at the quantum level." How so?



I like the idea about consciousness leaking through the dike of unconscious matter. I don't believe there is a dike there at all, but it does make one sense that there is a lot more hidden than we realize.

I believe dykes exist. I don't know about these figurative dikes, though. Is poetry or a poor cousin unfolding in the discussion out of necessity? Metaphor and formula are strange bedfellows.

[YesNo]

Since we may not be able to recognize them, they can also be very near.

Perhaps just like "many worlds", according to some interpretations of quantum mechanics. Who knows where they are? Conveniently, they can't be seen. This allows the skeptics on all sides a way out. They can always take a positivist perspective and deny meaning (or even "existence") to concepts that can't be repeatedly observed.

It is interesting that quantum experiments are not repeatable except on average when we switch between measuring observables whose operators don't commute. Ask an electron it's position and it makes a choice. Ask an electron its momentum and it makes another choice. Then ask it for its position again, just to make sure you have it right, and it changes its fickle "mind", but only within a range of possible choices. At least that is how I see it at the moment, and my own fickle mind might change tomorrow.



I am reminded that earlier in the discussion I used the term dualism when the term I was grasping for was pluralism. Definitely different concepts under the assignments of philosophy. My bad.

Generally, people believe in some sort of dualism or pluralism. Some things look like agents because you have to deal with their choices directly. Other things look like non-agents and can be manipulated without worrying about what they think about it.



I am afraid I was using the word miracle more poetically and for its hyperbolic value (I will probably think of a more appropriate term here, too). The crossover zone of the two disciplines always gets me in trouble in the philosophy room.

What I think people are looking for in a "miracle" is a sign of "love", not so much a violation of unconscious deterministic laws. The world would be very chaotic, perhaps even love-less, if those deterministic laws were too erratic.



This takes a little more thought. I don't know if I get it...."but reductionism limits our possibilities to what can be found at the quantum level." How so?

Reductionism assumes that we only need information at the smallest level and we can show how everything else follows or evolves from that. That low level could be quantum stuff, or an atom (to move further up the reductionist chain), or a gene. They are the building blocks of bigger stuff. if reductionism is all there is, then everything we observe in the bigger stuff has to be in the smaller stuff. Hence panpsychism assumes consciousness is in the smaller stuff. One still needs some "operators" to get the simpler stuff to the more complicated forms and that is where the emergent belief comes in.

An alternate view would be that the smaller stuff is derived from more complicated stuff which like the aliens may not be visible to us.

If there is only reductionism, then all the possibilities have to be in the smaller stuff. That is where the limitation comes from. Of course there are the emergent operators, but how far do they extend the possibilities of this small stuff, if they are there at all?



I believe dykes exist. I don't know about these figurative dikes, though. Is poetry or a poor cousin unfolding in the discussion out of necessity? Metaphor and formula are strange bedfellows.

I look at science as a form of literature.

[desiresjab]

There will always be another operator missing from wherever we stand. Isn't that the essence of Godel? The operator is XXX...but what operates that? There is nothing new in this game. That is why philosophy can never make progress. I am not saying philosophy could do anything else, mind you. I do not expect philosophy to become a fantasy exercise. But the transitory and purely speculative nature of its results make it a game played for fun rather than truth, and to me it is precisely a fantasy exercise with stylized constraints. I accept those stylized constraints, logic premier among them. None of us chooses a framework resembling Witgenstein's for our discussion, though. A more freewheeling approach is superior, methinks. In fact, a discovery like Godel's instructs us to reinvent philosophy. I am gald that is not my job.

[desiresjab]

In fact, a discovery like Godel's instructs us to reinvent philosophy. I am gald that is not my job.

Forum chours:

AND SO ARE WE.

[YesNo]

None of us chooses a framework resembling Witgenstein's for our discussion, though. A more freewheeling approach is superior, methinks.

What was Wittgenstein's framework? I found him mostly unintelligible.

[desiresjab]

What was Wittgenstein's framework? I found him mostly unintelligible.

Hardcore logical analysis. He is not known as a cosmologist, but a mathematics logician. I might have been unfair to him. I just wanted someone who was difficult and a logician old enough to have once desired the perfect logical framework for all mathematics envisioned by Hilbert, which was apparently destroyed once and for all by Godel. I say apparently because the world of mathematics or philosophy is not through interpreting precisely what Godel implies, and perhaps never will be.

[YesNo]

Do you mean Whitehead and Russell? They wrote the Principia Mathematica. Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus.

[desiresjab]

Do you mean Whitehead and Russell? They wrote the Principia Mathematica. Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus.

Whitehead and Russel were of the same ilk as Wittgenstein. Russel was Wittgenstein's teacher. The Principia and Tractatus had the same goal.

[YesNo]

What was that goal?

This is from the Tractatus (preface) where Wittgenstein claims the book's "whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5740/5740-pdf.pdf?session_id=6d2bfe42885ff33bb8f3f4c8962bc22 a5186441d

[desiresjab]

What was that goal?

This is from the Tractatus (preface) where Wittgenstein claims the book's "whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5740/5740-pdf.pdf?session_id=6d2bfe42885ff33bb8f3f4c8962bc22 a5186441d

That goal was to place all of mathematics on unassailable footing by correspondence with formal logic. Wittgenstein was born early enough to have partaken in the frenzy of optimism in his early period until Godel sent everyone home.

Cosmology always gets back to the question of First Cause, one of the oldest arguments in formal philosophy. One can make pretty words and pretty arguments. This is what philosophers have done.

People great and small have lain awake pondering the question. We can make such statemnts as Gauss did that All creation would be a waste without immortality. It may even be a leakage of higher metalogic into our consciousness that allows one to share this intuition with Gauss in reflective moments. I have difficulty getting past a first cause with no motive in it. I see a lot of motive packed in nature (via infinite enfolding) at all levels. Perhaps it also exists at the quantum level.

In the actual Game Of Life, from a few basic rules, staggering complexity evolved. You have to be smart to know a few basic rules will do this. Or maybe a meta-consciousness is merely letting its experiment run to see what happens, like the inventor of the game was doing. Slightly different rules lead to vastly different unfoldings in the game.

Everything coming about for nothing, is the hard part to accept. Something has to push the start button. But something had to create that something. It appears there can be no first cause. To our minds this can only mean either a type of circularity or everything existing at once without cause.

I feel everything could not come about for nothing, but our particular existence, our kind, even our minerals, did come about for nothing, without plan, without particulars. In the game of life you do not knock a piece to another postion with your finger, you simply let the game run and the complexity unfold. Any creator would be too proud to interfere, so forget divine intervention. The game runs, that's all, its simple rules managing infinitely enfolded emergent properties blindly, i.e. without intervention.

These opinions are more philosophy than cosmology, I know. I am not sure they are quite beliefs. But they are close.

[YesNo]

That goal was to place all of mathematics on unassailable footing by correspondence with formal logic. Wittgenstein was born early enough to have partaken in the frenzy of optimism in his early period until Godel sent everyone home.

I think Wittgenstein is looking more at an ideal human language rather than mathematics. Mathematics starts with assumptions. They are the closest thing mathematics has to empirical data, but they do not come from sense experience. Then reason takes over. A human language is talking about "facts" and not just assumptions which are statements.

I'm trying to read his essay to see if it makes more sense today. It made no sense to me 15 years ago.


I have difficulty getting past a first cause with no motive in it. I see a lot of motive packed in nature (via infinite enfolding) at all levels. Perhaps it also exists at the quantum level.

I see no way to have "motive" without "consciousness". What evidence is there that "infinite enfolding" exists?



In the actual Game Of Life, from a few basic rules, staggering complexity evolved. You have to be smart to know a few basic rules will do this. Or maybe a meta-consciousness is merely letting its experiment run to see what happens, like the inventor of the game was doing. Slightly different rules lead to vastly different unfoldings in the game.

This sounds too mechanistic for me.


In the game of life you do not knock a piece to another postion with your finger, you simply let the game run and the complexity unfold. Any creator would be too proud to interfere, so forget divine intervention. The game runs, that's all, its simple rules managing infinitely enfolded emergent properties blindly, i.e. without intervention.

Those pieces you might move imply a belief that unconscious matter really exists.



These opinions are more philosophy than cosmology, I know. I am not sure they are quite beliefs. But they are close.

I would say they are beliefs and on no firmer foundation than belief in a deity. What makes the foundation firm? That is where philosophy becomes valuable clarifying what is at stake so one isn't basing one's life upon assumptions one has not examined.

[desiresjab]

I think Wittgenstein is looking more at an ideal human language rather than mathematics. Mathematics starts with assumptions. They are the closest thing mathematics has to empirical data, but they do not come from sense experience. Then reason takes over. A human language is talking about "facts" and not just assumptions which are statements.


Wittgenstein was not talking about a normal everyday language to write poetry in or flirt with a girl. This is the same unassailable language Russel and Whitehead and Peano were after. It is a language of logical propositions. Wittgenstein is not teaching people how to write clearer prose. His is the language of pure mathematics in the clothing of unassailable logic. That is the ideal human language he was striving toward.

Look at it this way, Wittgenstein was not some kind of rebel, he was a principle player in logical positivism. He was not primarily at odds with the other players, but held their view of this "perfect language."

There are more things under heaven and earth, Horatio, than your philosophy has ever dreamed of.

The above is not a verifiable statement, and therefore is not cognitively meaningful and is a mere psuedostatement. I think you need to discard any notion that Wittgenstein and the others were after a normal language to accomplish their purposes. A quite limited form of English, for instance, would have carried the load. This restricted language might have been useful in the courtroom or the classroom, but not when shooting the breeze with your neighbor or demonstrating how much you love your wife.

Their axiomatic skeleton of language would never have produced great poetry. It never did, and it never would have. And the fact is, they could not make it work for their other purpose, either. Shakespeare succeeded, Wittgenstein and his allies failed in their interesting experiment. Only Godel succeeded, and he did this by proving their efforts were doomed to ultimate failure.

Leibniz, over two hundred years earlier, had dreamed of the same perfect language.

[YesNo]

I agree that Whitehead, Russell and Wittgenstein were trying to find a language that represented everything objectively. Perhaps an unconscious machine could be made to use it.

However, the subject matters of their languages were different. Whitehead and Russell started with propositions (axioms or assumptions) as the subject matter and from these initial statements derived other statements. They assumed their language was both consistent and complete. Godel showed it was not complete, assuming it was consistent. There were statements that could be formed in their language that could not be derived from it. They could not know everything about their subject matter they might think they should be able to know.

I don't think Godel addressed Wittgenstein's language whose subject matter was the world. His subject matter was not a set of propositions like Whitehead and Russell had as their subject matter, but "facts" about the world. He tried to reduce the "world" to "facts" so that his language could manipulate them.

To show they were talking about a different subject matter consider 2.0211: "If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense would depend on whether another proposition was true." Whitehead and Russell were starting with initial propositions (axioms, not "facts") that had no "substance".

Quantum physics might have done to Wittgenstein's language what Godel did to Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica. Wittgenstein cannot know all the "facts" about the world that he could formulate. He cannot know, for example, both the position and momentum of a quantum particle at any given time, but they could both be represented as facts. This seems to falsify 1.11: "The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts."

[desiresjab]

I agree that Whitehead, Russell and Wittgenstein were trying to find a language that represented everything objectively. Perhaps an unconscious machine could be made to use it.

However, the subject matters of their languages were different. Whitehead and Russell started with propositions (axioms or assumptions) as the subject matter and from these initial statements derived other statements. They assumed their language was both consistent and complete. Godel showed it was not complete, assuming it was consistent. There were statements that could be formed in their language that could not be derived from it. They could not know everything about their subject matter they might think they should be able to know.

I don't think Godel addressed Wittgenstein's language whose subject matter was the world. His subject matter was not a set of propositions like Whitehead and Russell had as their subject matter, but "facts" about the world. He tried to reduce the "world" to "facts" so that his language could manipulate them.

To show they were talking about a different subject matter consider 2.0211: "If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense would depend on whether another proposition was true." Whitehead and Russell were starting with initial propositions (axioms, not "facts") that had no "substance".

Quantum physics might have done to Wittgenstein's language what Godel did to Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica. Wittgenstein cannot know all the "facts" about the world that he could formulate. He cannot know, for example, both the position and momentum of a quantum particle at any given time, but they could both be represented as facts. This seems to falsify 1.11: "The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts."

I think it was an attack on the same fort from a different angle. A true proposition was a fact to Russel and Whitehead. Wittgenstein tried to redefine fact. He cannot get away from propositiions, though.

"If the world had no substance, then whether a proposition had sense would depend on whether another proposition was true."

That is an if/then proposition. Are we to believe it?

That whole school which quibbled over language and propositions was a batch of necessary reasoning in our historical unfolding, then the world moved on the way it moved on from Kant. Not three people a year read Principia Mathematica. Fifty might finish a work by Wittgenstein, but probably not that many. After Godel, only an end run was possible. I think that is all Witty was up to. But I am not about to delve into a year of him so I can say so for sure. I believe I know roughly what he was up to, though there were certain differences you point out, because it is what they have all been up to (philosophers) since the Greeks. They wanted to talk the universe plain. The universe is not plain, though. Shakespeare knew that before Wittgenstein was born.

[YesNo]

I don't think Wittgenstein is worth reading either, but his Tractatus keeps coming up like Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and so I pick it up to remind myself why I put it down.

[desiresjab]

I don't think Wittgenstein is worth reading either, but his Tractatus keeps coming up like Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and so I pick it up to remind myself why I put it down.

Russel and Whitehead's language might have had a chance at becoming a real tool, if it had only been what they had hoped. But Wittgenstein's language sounds like an abstract ideal rather than something that could actually come about and be useful. It would have been more intractable than legal documents, if it did come about. I am not sure who it could be useful to besides lawyers. Not science? Probably not, but maybe. Not sure what his purpose for it was.

[Dreamwoven]

I tend to agree with desiresjab on this.

[desiresjab]

Something would be amiss if I were not continually changing my views and adjusting the dial--I would be dead. But I live because I feel pity tinged with scorn for those with too much belief. An excess of belief always means this brain is closed for the business of vertical thought..

Too bad. I am old enough to have seen a few fine men fall into the maws of Jesus or Muhammad, only to emerge without their brains.

Family values and the golden rule et al--those are beliefs to keep forever. The search for ultimate truth is different. Shed views anytime the skin no longer fits.

For millennia we have had it rammed down our throats that to not believe is to suffer eternal death.

I might say, then,that belief is central to all religions because a clue is being given.

However, I have no such belief. I am merely looking things over. Aristotle said that the mark of an educated mind is the abilty to entertain a thought without accepting it. I want all my guests to be fully entertained at least once.

Why is the big entity reduced to clues? Believers scramble for an answer here. Why clues? I can hear the cries of free will now.

Maybe that keeps me free, it seems to have enslaved the big entity, though, who is unable to make a clear point without trickery and double talk.

[desiresjab]

What could such a clue even mean, entertaining for a moment the thought that all religion springs from truth? Let's see. Belief would have to be connected to some kind of quantum readiness state of our consciousness to ascend the fish ladder after death, for the clue to make any physical sense to my hillbilly mind.

Here is the mockery. The prized belief is in a God apparently worthy of no one's belief, an entity that tortures its children and makes bad excuses.

Someone tipped us off. Now I get it. God had to be sly, didn't he? For there is another entity, isn't there now? That is why God is as evil as good. The devil restrained his hand, even in his own Good Books.

So God is evil, then, but maybe slightly more positive than negative--for the clue did reach us after all...ahem!..

Even mathematics would be easier without ol' Beelzebub lurking inside God. God is eev-yil. God said so. We are in his image. The bad father loves us, though, and battles the eev-yil one who is but himself for our passage into the afterworld.

Why, sure.

[YesNo]

...some kind of quantum readiness state of our consciousness...


What is a "quantum readiness status of our consciousness" but another belief system?

[desiresjab]

What is a "quantum readiness status of our consciousness" but another belief system?

The connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics, if any, is nebulous. Now the psychology of quantum mechanics is completely theoretical, but at least reasonable. "Belief" as an important factor was speculative. A relatively clear conscience might be what is required, not belief at all. That might be the readiness state, since we know nil about this theoretical psychology.

[desiresjab]

If the universe came from nothingness, then nothingness is at least that which is capable of producing existence out of itself. It would appear even nothingness has potential, then. Nothingness+potential, but is that really nothingness? How about nothing without any potential whatsoever? Now that's nothingness.

Pure nothingness seems no more possible than pure randomness. Nothingness cannot expell its potentiality anymore than matter can expell the necessity of two following one. Is potential even more fundamental than the laws of math, or is it the other way around? If potential can precede existence, then maybe the laws of math can too? Maybe the laws of math exist as potential before existence itself, or maybe they precede and channel potential. The number of things existing before existence could start to pile up.

It is an interesting sidebar to note that Russel and Whitehead required 360 pages of Principia Mathematica to prove that two follows one. The proof was successful.

[YesNo]

Russell and Whitehead started with some assumptions, perhaps set-theoretic ones. They didn't start from nothing.

There are some problems I have with "nothing".

First, it seems to be a metaphor for a void in space, but the nothing that preceded our universe was not in space. Not only was there nothing, but there was no space either. That means there were no fields where a void could occur.

Second, focusing on nothing assumes that the universe happened in some reductionist way. That is, the only thing one had to work with was nothing.

Third, did consciousness exist during this period of nothingness? If it did then that would be the non-reductionist "something" out of which the universe could have arisen from "nothing".

[desiresjab]

Russell and Whitehead started with some assumptions, perhaps set-theoretic ones. They didn't start from nothing.

There are some problems I have with "nothing".

First, it seems to be a metaphor for a void in space, but the nothing that preceded our universe was not in space. Not only was there nothing, but there was no space either. That means there were no fields where a void could occur.

Second, focusing on nothing assumes that the universe happened in some reductionist way. That is, the only thing one had to work with was nothing.

Third, did consciousness exist during this period of nothingness? If it did then that would be the non-reductionist "something" out of which the universe could have arisen from "nothing".

I mention the proof of two following one because it has been a big part of the discussions here, not because I am trying to say something about the way the universe was formed out of nothing.

If anything existed--consciousness, potential, limits--it would qualify as something. One definite problem with nothingness is that we cannot quite get there in our imaginations. We can say the word itself, so we fall back on saying the word when imagination fails.

Existence is less problematical than nothingness, because we can self-verify the former. But nothingness is a concept only and fraught with paradox. Reductionist philosophy might require the universe to spring from nothing, my own definition of nothingness says that is impossible.

I could argue absolute nothingness cannot exist because it has not already occurred in infinite time. There is no imaginable way for nothingness to supplant existence, any more than there is for existence to supplant nothingness.

[YesNo]

If anything existed--consciousness, potential, limits--it would qualify as something. One definite problem with nothingness is that we cannot quite get there in our imaginations. We can say the word itself, so we fall back on saying the word when imagination fails.

Existence is less problematical than nothingness, because we can self-verify the former. But nothingness is a concept only and fraught with paradox. Reductionist philosophy might require the universe to spring from nothing, my own definition of nothingness says that is impossible.

I could argue absolute nothingness cannot exist because it has not already occurred in infinite time. There is no imaginable way for nothingness to supplant existence, any more than there is for existence to supplant nothingness.

Perhaps philosophically defining what "something" is should be done first. This would be the basis for scientific hypotheses that experiments could attempt to falsify. I would think "something" requires a space in which it can exist. Given that it might change, it also requires time to perform the change. So if one doesn't have space or time, then we cannot have "something". Does consciousness or potentiality require space and time?

Part of the problem is with the metaphors we use. They imply a preferred solution to a problem which may be leading us in the wrong direction.

I was reading a popular survey of quantum physics some time ago describing the wave pattern with the darker interference areas that a series of single photons made on a detection panel after going through a double slit. The article noted that if one measured which slit each photon went through then the wave pattern was destroyed. To get the wave pattern the article said that each photon split and went through both slits so it could interfere with itself. Now how would anyone know that? If they actually looked, they would only see one photon and the wave pattern would be gone. The idea of the photon splitting and going through both slits is only a kind of metaphor. It is philosophic speculation that tries to explain the evidence. Underlying that particular metaphor is a belief that "something" is nonetheless there causing the interference pattern.

[desiresjab]

Perhaps philosophically defining what "something" is should be done first. This would be the basis for scientific hypotheses that experiments could attempt to falsify. I would think "something" requires a space in which it can exist. Given that it might change, it also requires time to perform the change. So if one doesn't have space or time, then we cannot have "something". Does consciousness or potentiality require space and time?

Part of the problem is with the metaphors we use. They imply a preferred solution to a problem which may be leading us in the wrong direction.

I was reading a popular survey of quantum physics some time ago describing the wave pattern with the darker interference areas that a series of single photons made on a detection panel after going through a double slit. The article noted that if one measured which slit each photon went through then the wave pattern was destroyed. To get the wave pattern the article said that each photon split and went through both slits so it could interfere with itself. Now how would anyone know that? If they actually looked, they would only see one photon and the wave pattern would be gone. The idea of the photon splitting and going through both slits is only a kind of metaphor. It is philosophic speculation that tries to explain the evidence. Underlying that particular metaphor is a belief that "something" is nonetheless there causing the interference pattern.

I define nothingness as having no properties whatsover. It has no space, no time, no energy, no potential, and therefore could never produce anything.

An appropriate scientific definition might be a vacuum minus the cosmological constant for dark energy. That would effectively be a "vacuum within space." Vacuum is only along the road to nothingness.

We cannot well imagine nothingness, so maybe it does not really exist. Of course ancient peoples could not have well imagined curved space, no matter how they might have tried, and that did not stop it from existing.

Philosophy cannot answer scientific or mathematical questions. Whatever reality is, it is more strange than we think. Philosophically, Buddah got it right with the all is maya idea.

We are in the greatest scientific and mathematics explosion of all time. Collating it all is a gigantic problem. This why progress is traditionally slow in these fields. It takes the power of the greatest brains years or decades to decide what a new discovery even means in many cases, and to try and understand some of the implications.

Computers and instant communications sped this process up exponentially. The process will experience another exponential burst sooner rather than later, if we can hold on as a species. Cyborgs and quantum computers will lead us in directions undreamed of. You could feel confident betting on either one to begin showing up within twenty years.

I have felt lucky to have been born in an age relatively free of superstition where I can witness incredilbe discoveries. For freedom and quality of life I do not know if subsequent generations can match us, but discovery-wise the future is going to be the greatest show ever on earth, making our own progress seem quite pale and slow. Machines will be able to make the leap from theory to application exponentially faster by sorting through all discoveries. Many discoveries to make other discoveries may be lying in front of us now, unsorted, unrecognized for what they are and can do.

I predict the work of Ramanujan will play a further part yet. Some of his formulae are as magical as incantations.

[YesNo]

I define nothingness as having no properties whatsover. It has no space, no time, no energy, no potential, and therefore could never produce anything.

That is how I see it also. Our universe could not have originated from nothing. However, I don't see why consciousness requires space, time, energy or potential. It could be the only eternal reality.



An appropriate scientific definition might be a vacuum minus the cosmological constant for dark energy. That would effectively be a "vacuum within space." Vacuum is only along the road to nothingness.

Unfortunately this concept of "nothing" assumes the presence of space. The word "vacuum" is not an adequate substitute for "nothing".



We cannot well imagine nothingness, so maybe it does not really exist. Of course ancient peoples could not have well imagined curved space, no matter how they might have tried, and that did not stop it from existing.

Philosophy cannot answer scientific or mathematical questions. Whatever reality is, it is more strange than we think. Philosophically, Buddah got it right with the all is maya idea.

What we think of as "something" may well all be maya. What we are doing right now is philosophy.

[desiresjab]

First Principle is unknown. From First Principle evolved many beings. Some of them were gods to us. Heirarchies of gods in meta realities that barely intersect came into being. The gods who created us are as ingonrant as we of First Principle. We were a tabletop exercise for them. They suspect they may be the same.

If we share physics with no other beings, what could we share with their meta reality? Only the highest grade of information, perhaps. Along the nodes of the Riemann zeta function in complex numbers in multi-dimensional space, perhaps they have multi-dimensional message boxes. Fanciful.

Many famous problems were solved last century, but no paradigm shifts have come yet. Usually a physical theory causes the shift, for which the mathematics is found to already exist. An exception was calculus, which provided its own impetus for a couple of centuries.

[YesNo]

Some paradigm shifts in cosmology from the last century are the existences of galaxies other than our own and the big bang.

[desiresjab]

Some paradigm shifts in cosmology from the last century are the existences of galaxies other than our own and the big bang.

Yes. Edwin Hubble ranks with anyone for impact. His was the kind of discovery that others were brainy enough to have made, but he was there at the right time with the right instrument. Other discoveries like the invention calculus or relativity require a super genius and nothing less.

[YesNo]

I picked up Milton A. Rothman's "Discovering the Natural Laws" in a used bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin, recently. He has two points he wants to make. First, he wants to show the empirical evidence for the laws of physics in order to justify those laws which is the main reason I'm reading the book. Second, he wants to discredit his own consciousness. He doesn't put the part about consciousness in those terms, but that's how I read it.

Anyway, he writes this about how the laws of physics have not changed (and I admit, for practical purposes, it is a useful assumption we might as well make):


"Thus we know, by direct evidence, that the laws which operate here and now are the same laws that existed early in the history of the universe. They have not changed in all the time that has elapsed since very soon after the beginning." (page 209)

Because of that beginning, we can't say "we know" the laws have not changed, or rather, that the universe is actually following the laws we think it is.

[desiresjab]

I picked up Milton A. Rothman's "Discovering the Natural Laws" in a used bookstore in Door County, Wisconsin, recently. He has two points he wants to make. First, he wants to show the empirical evidence for the laws of physics in order to justify those laws which is the main reason I'm reading the book. Second, he wants to discredit his own consciousness. He doesn't put the part about consciousness in those terms, but that's how I read it.

Anyway, he writes this about how the laws of physics have not changed (and I admit, for practical purposes, it is a useful assumption we might as well make):


"Thus we know, by direct evidence, that the laws which operate here and now are the same laws that existed early in the history of the universe. They have not changed in all the time that has elapsed since very soon after the beginning." (page 209)

Because of that beginning, we can't say "we know" the laws have not changed, or rather, that the universe is actually following the laws we think it is.

Whether or not the laws have ever changed is something I have to leave to the professional physicists, for no one else can ever settle it. If the laws have changed once they can probably change again.

One interesting notion is that each black hole contains a separate universe with all the features of our own--stars, planets, galaxies and black holes. Each of these black holes also contains another universe, and so on ad infinitum... Pairs of virtual particles can be caught exactly at the border of the black hole. One particle goes in, the other stays out, which is a readable phenomenon because it is happening en masse at the border. I am intrigued but not sure what it means or implies.

Something that I do understand is the notion that we are a simulation instead of an actual life form. This only requires one assumption, and maybe not even that--that all things are happening at once, past, present and future, but we are merely unable to experience them that way. The reason I say maybe not even that is because the numbers also suggest that it is likely the past which is the present to us must have already completed itself.

Either way, our descendants have powerful ancestor simulation software and the capability to run their simulations trillions upon trillions of times. With numbers like that and only one "real" reality, it is almost statistically impossible for us to be the original real beings, but rather a sophisticated simulation of them.

These similations will be (are) so familiar among our descendants, they will probably become a common school project at some point. The equivalent of a school girl to her own society may have created our universe. This would explain its imperfections better than any junk about free will et al. A Universal Simulator would perhaps be the size of a cell phone, and surely would allow some parameters to be adjusted by the student or scientist, or it would not be interesting enough.

[YesNo]

Whether or not the laws have ever changed is something I have to leave to the professional physicists, for no one else can ever settle it. If the laws have changed once they can probably change again.

I don't leave anything to them. They have to convince me.



One interesting notion is that each black hole contains a separate universe with all the features of our own--stars, planets, galaxies and black holes. Each of these black holes also contains another universe, and so on ad infinitum... Pairs of virtual particles can be caught exactly at the border of the black hole. One particle goes in, the other stays out, which is a readable phenomenon because it is happening en masse at the border. I am intrigued but not sure what it means or implies.

Is there any empirical evidence for that? Could you post a link?



Something that I do understand is the notion that we are a simulation instead of an actual life form. This only requires one assumption, and maybe not even that--that all things are happening at once, past, present and future, but we are merely unable to experience them that way. The reason I say maybe not even that is because the numbers also suggest that it is likely the past which is the present to us must have already completed itself.

Either way, our descendants have powerful ancestor simulation software and the capability to run their simulations trillions upon trillions of times. With numbers like that and only one "real" reality, it is almost statistically impossible for us to be the original real beings, but rather a sophisticated simulation of them.

These similations will be (are) so familiar among our descendants, they will probably become a common school project at some point. The equivalent of a school girl to her own society may have created our universe. This would explain its imperfections better than any junk about free will et al. A Universal Simulator would perhaps be the size of a cell phone, and surely would allow some parameters to be adjusted by the student or scientist, or it would not be interesting enough.

Any metaphors we come up with that we think could be true should be questioned. What is the metaphor telling us about ourselves? Why do we think this metaphor is credible in the 21st century?

[Dreamwoven]

Awesome stuff, though makes my head spin. *Withdraws from discussion*

[desiresjab]

I don't leave anything to them. They have to convince me.



Is there any empirical evidence for that? Could you post a link?



Any metaphors we come up with that we think could be true should be questioned. What is the metaphor telling us about ourselves? Why do we think this metaphor is credible in the 21st century?

These fellows come up with an interesting idea then spend the rest of their careers traveling around lecturing on one idea.

If I experience myself, if I become sentient, that means there is already a vastly greater chance I am a simulation rather than the real organic phenomenon. This, of course, was also true of the first originals, where applying the notion would have yeided an incorrect conclusion. If someone cannot admit the logical weight of a proposition, I begin to suspect their objectivity. Recall: The mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it. I do not accept our simulated existence as a hardcore belief either. I accept simulation as a logical connundrum which forces itself upon us and is not easily, if at all, explained away.

Now what does it really take to entertain this idea of simulation rather than just repeating the words of the proposition? One immediately flys to probability. Unless there are many other universes, the values for some of our constants stand out glaringly, not as impossible, but as highly suspect.

You probably noticed that the supposition of an "original organism" or universe, is not necessary. The "makers" could come from a reality where space and time simply do not exist at all. Space and time could be invented concepts of the makers, who then set about creating imperfect realities where those things could exist as more than concepts.

A human should be able to locate within themselves an objection or two to any proposition. I do not present this idea as a truth, but as a "hey, look here" moment. Do I fail to accept this idea of our simulation as a truth because I can find a logical foothold against it, or simply because I do not like the idea itself. People hate ideas when they rub against the grain of what they already want to believe. I do not even know what it is I want to believe, but there could be something lurking back there I am not aware of.

<I don't leave anything to them. They have to convince me.>

That is leaving it to them, leaving it to them to convince you, which is no more than they had to do in the first place.

Along with yourself, I will continue to question about anything anyone throws up for consideration. So far, however, I do not see anyone dispatching the idea of simulation with viable refutations based on logic.

Anyone, send the idea away squalling like an injured dog, if you can, and we will move on.

[YesNo]

If I experience myself, if I become sentient, that means there is already a vastly greater chance I am a simulation rather than the real organic phenomenon. This, of course, was also true of the first originals, where applying the notion would have yeided an incorrect conclusion. If someone cannot admit the logical weight of a proposition, I begin to suspect their objectivity. Recall: The mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it. I do not accept our simulated existence as a hardcore belief either. I accept simulation as a logical connundrum which forces itself upon us and is not easily, if at all, explained away.

Now what does it really take to entertain this idea of simulation rather than just repeating the words of the proposition? One immediately flys to probability. Unless there are many other universes, the values for some of our constants stand out glaringly, not as impossible, but as highly suspect.

You probably noticed that the supposition of an "original organism" or universe, is not necessary. The "makers" could come from a reality where space and time simply do not exist at all. Space and time could be invented concepts of the makers, who then set about creating imperfect realities where those things could exist as more than concepts.

A human should be able to locate within themselves an objection or two to any proposition. I do not present this idea as a truth, but as a "hey, look here" moment. Do I fail to accept this idea of our simulation as a truth because I can find a logical foothold against it, or simply because I do not like the idea itself. People hate ideas when they rub against the grain of what they already want to believe. I do not even know what it is I want to believe, but there could be something lurking back there I am not aware of.


One could say that any delusion is a simulation, perhaps a self-simulation, hiding what is really going on. One doesn't need computers to do this. Nor does it have to get technologically fancy. Lies are simulations of reality with the intent to delude others.

If the "makers" are outside space and time, you might as well call them "gods".

I agree that the "constants" suggest that there must have been something conscious picking out the right values. I don't think these physical "constants" are actually constant, but that is a side-issue.

If you are willing to entertain the simulation idea, then one possible simulation is that the universe is only 6000 years old and the simulation just makes it look older to delude us.

[desiresjab]

One could say that any delusion is a simulation, perhaps a self-simulation, hiding what is really going on. One doesn't need computers to do this. Nor does it have to get technologically fancy. Lies are simulations of reality with the intent to delude others.

If the "makers" are outside space and time, you might as well call them "gods".

I agree that the "constants" suggest that there must have been something conscious picking out the right values. I don't think these physical "constants" are actually constant, but that is a side-issue.

If you are willing to entertain the simulation idea, then one possible simulation is that the universe is only 6000 years old and the simulation just makes it look older to delude us.

I am glad you picked up on that last idea. It would make the ultra conservative Christians right by accident. Biblical chronology wins by accident! Can such a deceptive god really be benevolent? If the bible is right about chronology, it must be wrong about god. Would a benevolent god lead us on such a goose chase as science, which its "truth" would make of science?

Oh, wait. The Jew god told us knowledge was all bull, didn't he? He told us the only thing worth doing was polishing his nards, didn't he? That's why you can't like this god, or ever agree with him.

Most Logical Summary: we ourselves or the entire universe were made by less than perfect gods. There is no reason for a perfect being to create children he cannot protect fully from the evil one he knows we are no match for on average. If he were perfect he could protect us and he would.

And of course, what forking reason was so important he had to create us in the first place, not only make us but make us spiritually helpless? Because he had to test us? Manufacturers test light bulbs that way--large scale statistics. A manufacturer only needs to do this if defects are possible.

Because he had to give us free will? Beings made right do not need free will. Make them right in the first place, instead of blaming their defects on the consumer.

He needs us pure before we join him? Make us that way, you are perfect.

It all points in one direction. The maker of this universe was one powerful sombitzen, but not all powerful. The maker of this universe, if any, may indeed have an enemy nearly as powerful as itself. It would not need us for its war, if it were all powerful. If there is a god, I would say he has implemented a military draft. Again, he would not need to do that if he were perfect.

But--Jesus crawlers scream--god needs to whip the devil once and for all, and the devil would not have been able to damage other perfect beings. Of course that is no more than an admission god is using us as bait to draw the evil one out of his hidey-hole so he can be slain. Does that seem sufficiently all powerful to you to be perfect, or vice versa?

The all powerful could have no worthy enemy on any front. Any other stance is blocked by the definition.

Conclusion: The god of all religions is an infinite, powerful liar, or a finite, powerful liar.

[YesNo]

I am glad you picked up on that last idea. It would make the ultra conservative Christians right by accident. Biblical chronology wins by accident! Can such a deceptive god really be benevolent? If the bible is right about chronology, it must be wrong about god. Would a benevolent god lead us on such a goose chase as science, which its "truth" would make of science?

It would make them right by "design", not "accident". Don't forget that by claiming the universe is a computer simulation, you are also saying that science is a goose chase.

I'm a general panentheist, but I'm not a member of any specific religion. I don't think "design" is a good way to describe what a theist's God does to create and maintain the universe. That would be more appropriate to a deist's view of god. The problem with "design" is that it is too mechanistic. It is too deterministic. If anything, considering that the universe had a beginning and considering the discovery of quantum indeterminacy, we need to look at more organic metaphors for the universe. It makes more sense to see the universe as an organism than as a machine some deist's god designed and then wound up and set in motion.



Oh, wait. The Jew god told us knowledge was all bull, didn't he? He told us the only thing worth doing was polishing his nards, didn't he? That's why you can't like this god, or ever agree with him.

What does it mean to polish someone's nards? I did look the phrase up in the search engine, but nothing came up.

When you say "Jew god", is this a rhetorical appeal to antisemitism? I don't think the dominant Christian culture is as antisemitic as it used to be. If you could get the Muslims involved somehow, that might still have a rhetorical appeal.



Most Logical Summary: we ourselves or the entire universe were made by less than perfect gods. There is no reason for a perfect being to create children he cannot protect fully from the evil one he knows we are no match for on average. If he were perfect he could protect us and he would.

And of course, what forking reason was so important he had to create us in the first place, not only make us but make us spiritually helpless? Because he had to test us? Manufacturers test light bulbs that way--large scale statistics. A manufacturer only needs to do this if defects are possible.

Because he had to give us free will? Beings made right do not need free will. Make them right in the first place, instead of blaming their defects on the consumer.

He needs us pure before we join him? Make us that way, you are perfect.

I read this recently in Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer's "The Power of Myth" (page 3--I didn't get very far): "...the only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections. The perfect human being is uninteresting..."

My suggestion is to throw away the mechanistic or manufacturing metaphors and think more in terms of biology and organisms.



It all points in one direction. The maker of this universe was one powerful sombitzen, but not all powerful. The maker of this universe, if any, may indeed have an enemy nearly as powerful as itself. It would not need us for its war, if it were all powerful. If there is a god, I would say he has implemented a military draft. Again, he would not need to do that if he were perfect.

That's an interesting idea. What's a "sombitzen"? I did try to search for the word.



But--Jesus crawlers scream--god needs to whip the devil once and for all, and the devil would not have been able to damage other perfect beings. Of course that is no more than an admission god is using us as bait to draw the evil one out of his hidey-hole so he can be slain. Does that seem sufficiently all powerful to you to be perfect, or vice versa?

Another interesting idea for a story.



The all powerful could have no worthy enemy on any front. Any other stance is blocked by the definition.

Conclusion: The god of all religions is an infinite, powerful liar, or a finite, powerful liar.

Let's get back to simulations.

People use simulations to test theories since direct observations are not always possible. But just because one can create a simulation that does not mean that reality is a computer simulation. That would be the same as saying that because we can make plastic flowers that flowers are made of plastic. Furthermore the consciousness within the universe cannot be generated from an algorithm that a human can follow. That is how I read John Searle's Chinese Room Argument against artificial intelligence.

Ultimately, I think the confusion comes down to thinking the model is reality. The model is just a way to help us understand and exploit some part of what we experience.

[desiresjab]

It would make them right by "design", not "accident". Don't forget that by claiming the universe is a computer simulation, you are also saying that science is a goose chase.

I'm a general panentheist, but I'm not a member of any specific religion. I don't think "design" is a good way to describe what a theist's God does to create and maintain the universe. That would be more appropriate to a deist's view of god. The problem with "design" is that it is too mechanistic. It is too deterministic. If anything, considering that the universe had a beginning and considering the discovery of quantum indeterminacy, we need to look at more organic metaphors for the universe. It makes more sense to see the universe as an organism than as a machine some deist's god designed and then wound up and set in motion.



What does it mean to polish someone's nards? I did look the phrase up in the search engine, but nothing came up.

When you say "Jew god", is this a rhetorical appeal to antisemitism? I don't think the dominant Christian culture is as antisemitic as it used to be. If you could get the Muslims involved somehow, that might still have a rhetorical appeal.



I read this recently in Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer's "The Power of Myth" (page 3--I didn't get very far): "...the only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections. The perfect human being is uninteresting..."

My suggestion is to throw away the mechanistic or manufacturing metaphors and think more in terms of biology and organisms.



That's an interesting idea. What's a "sombitzen"? I did try to search for the word.



Another interesting idea for a story.



Let's get back to simulations.

People use simulations to test theories since direct observations are not always possible. But just because one can create a simulation that does not mean that reality is a computer simulation. That would be the same as saying that because we can make plastic flowers that flowers are made of plastic. Furthermore the consciousness within the universe cannot be generated from an algorithm that a human can follow. That is how I read John Searle's Chinese Room Argument against artificial intelligence.

Ultimately, I think the confusion comes down to thinking the model is reality. The model is just a way to help us understand and exploit some part of what we experience.

In the end we have to use words to describe our thoughts. I don't see much difference between a mechanistic universe and an organic universe--that is mere window dressing to me. I guess people do that when they want to imply they think the universe evolves. All that really does is invoke the notion of change into the equation. What is infinite unfolding of emergent properties, if not evolution? Enfoldment means the potential for evolution to me, not the unpacking of particular properties on schedule. I do not consider a piece of metal slowly rusting as an example of evolution, though a change of state does occur. Which way evolution goes depends on which properties are already unfolded. Many lines of evolution did not unfold, which enabled us to be what we are. Those properties had only the quality of abstract potential. They were not "already there."

I hardly believe the universe is as simple as the 17th century watch paradigm. These days we prefer a more organic outlook. Yet there is also the information outlook--the universe is nothing but a big computer. It is interesting that our historical models for the universe always employ the most cutting edge technologies of their eras. Newton invented calculus, which was all about documenting change, yet the model of the universe which emerged out of his era was based on the regularity of a clock, the most sophisticated article of technology of his time, requiring far more moving parts than a telescope.

The heirs to mechanism today are those who postulate the universe is a computer or a hologram. Do we dare to guess what is next?

[desiresjab]

How people can hold hardcore beliefs based on so little, mystifies me. Some are in my own family. Perhaps a clue lies in the fact that anti-knowledge brainwashing is found throughout the Bible. How fantastic if increasing knowledge had only been the object of navigation in religions. But we got religions which are traditionally the declared enemies of earthly knowledge. In place of investigative knowledge, religion gave us faith and the belief there is a higher state of understanding they call enlightenment, salvation, wisdom, or some other manufactured name for a state of grace.

Those who turn their backs on blind faith for physics are on the holier path. Until such time that chanting or praying formulae by groups of scientists proves more effective than programming them into computers, faith mongers don't have a thing I believe I should pursue. They are on an ancient, worn out path that has never accomplished a thing that I can see and which, I believe, has thoroughly demonstrated its worthlessness in solving any problems whatsoever. Its cosmology is primitive and unsuitable for modern minds; its ethical systems are out of date, and kept up to date only by discarding large portions of the original and highlighting those parts that still may be relevant.

When churches and mosques are converted to museums instead of being demolished like giant Buddahs, we will be on the next track of our journey, unafraid to acknowledge our racial past and open to suggestions from ourselves.

If evidence turns up supporting any of the childish notions of religion, we can always go back. Even better reasons than religion for behaving ourselves are there for the taking.

One hundred years from now the world would be distinctly less religious, if a contemporary were transported forward.

Only more reasons for abandoning traditional religions will turn up in the evidence as we proceed.

[YesNo]

How people can hold hardcore beliefs based on so little, mystifies me. Some are in my own family. Perhaps a clue lies in the fact that anti-knowledge brainwashing is found throughout the Bible. How fantastic if increasing knowledge had only been the object of navigation in religions. But we got religions which are traditionally the declared enemies of earthly knowledge. In place of investigative knowledge, religion gave us faith and the belief there is a higher state of understanding they call enlightenment, salvation, wisdom, or some other manufactured name for a state of grace.

I've noticed that it's always other people's beliefs that are "hardcore" and "brainwashing".



Those who turn their backs on blind faith for physics are on the holier path. Until such time that chanting or praying formulae by groups of scientists proves more effective than programming them into computers, faith mongers don't have a thing I believe I should pursue. They are on an ancient, worn out path that has never accomplished a thing that I can see and which, I believe, has thoroughly demonstrated its worthlessness in solving any problems whatsoever. Its cosmology is primitive and unsuitable for modern minds; its ethical systems are out of date, and kept up to date only by discarding large portions of the original and highlighting those parts that still may be relevant.

I think prayer and chanting make the mind healthier. Have you ever seen the movie "Anger Management"?



When churches and mosques are converted to museums instead of being demolished like giant Buddahs, we will be on the next track of our journey, unafraid to acknowledge our racial past and open to suggestions from ourselves.

What I am hoping to see is atheists give up on anti-civil-libertarian, social construction fantasies involving the end of theism.



If evidence turns up supporting any of the childish notions of religion, we can always go back. Even better reasons than religion for behaving ourselves are there for the taking.

There is evidence already: (1) The universe had a beginning. (2) Quantum indeterminancy throws out the machine metaphors. (3) Psi phenomena have empirical evidence justifying its existence. (4) We actually are conscious: take a deep breath.



One hundred years from now the world would be distinctly less religious, if a contemporary were transported forward.

I think that has been an atheistic dream for centuries. So far it hasn't happened.



Only more reasons for abandoning traditional religions will turn up in the evidence as we proceed.

What "evidence" are you referring to? Perhaps the belief in that elusive evidence ever showing up is an example of hardcore brainwashing.

[desiresjab]

I've noticed that it's always other people's beliefs that are "hardcore" and "brainwashing".

Freedom of religion is necessary for that reason.


I think prayer and chanting make the mind healthier. Have you ever seen the movie "Anger Management"?

I have not seen anger management. I have no doubt there are marginal benefits from the activities you name. That is because the people employing them are investing effort. When humans invest effort they get results, whether its is from praying or Norman Vincent Peale. I suspect that any person diligently embarking on a Peale-inspired program of self improvement and relaxation would get the same positive results without resorting to the hocus pocus of religion or "eastern enlightenment."

Your normal MO is to now state that Norman Vincent Peale is only a belief system, too.


What I am hoping to see is atheists give up on anti-civil-libertarian, social construction fantasies involving the end of theism.

I have no idea what you are talking about with anti-civil-libertation... with atheists. That's all right. Don't try to educate me on that one. Since I am an agnostic, I do not cotton to proselytizing atheists. Should I enjoy proselytizing christians or moslems any more?


There is evidence already: (1) The universe had a beginning. (2) Quantum indeterminancy throws out the machine metaphors. (3) Psi phenomena have empirical evidence justifying its existence. (4) We actually are conscious: take a deep breath.

There is no evidence for religion in any of that, only to those who insist on interpretations fitting their predisposed agendas. I believe there is not a single instance of a psychic phenomenon in the history of mankind that stands up to the scrutiny of logic and scientific inspection. Name it if you have it. If you say the resurrectiuon of Jesus, we must be done here. There is only a theory that the universe had a beginning, my friend. This is evidently not the universe at all, but a tiny instance of it. There is another theory, and there goes god again.

I have nothing against more complex and relevant models of reality employing higher P/NP standards. Even machines can exceed our standards, though. There can be non-polynomial machines, perhaps. Would not a quantum computer itself be non-polynomial in its operations? At least it seems so. We do not know if any questions are truly hard, though. That is exactly what P/NP is trying to determine. One can have intuitive opinions, however. Mine is that some questions are truly hard.


I think that has been an atheistic dream for centuries. So far it hasn't happened.

This format is not allowing me to look back to see what you are replying to. I am quite unhappy with certain mechanics of this forum, such as its insistence on multiple log-ins just to make a post.

At any rate, religion is slowly disappearing. Donations to the collection plates have been falling steadily for more than a century. More significantly, the influence of the church in peoples' daily lives has declined almost out of existence. Almost no one allows church doctrine to decide their actions on any issue today, except as a last resort fallback or political position. A few hundred years ago the church ruled the daily lives of people in every detail. And no fair poll of our antecedents would have shown a mere 63% of them to be believers.

Of our 63% of professed believers, almost none of them do anything about it, or act in accordance with church doctrine when the going gets opportunistic. 99.9%+ of the 63% are lip servers only. Believe me, this is way down form medieval times. Please do not ask me how I know Russian peasants and fishwives were more sincere in their religious beliefs than Wall Street executives or rapping shoe clerks who might respond as believers.

Our own country started out Puritan, but it is far from those roots now. It has not broken them yet, because they are useful tools for political unity in the minds of politicians.


What "evidence" are you referring to? Perhaps the belief in that elusive evidence ever showing up is an example of hardcore brainwashing.

How do I know, please, what future evidence might look like? No one has ever proved very good at predictiing the future.

[YesNo]

Your normal MO is to now state that Norman Vincent Peale is only a belief system, too.

I have no problem with belief systems.



I have no idea what you are talking about with anti-civil-libertation... with atheists. That's all right. Don't try to educate me on that one. Since I am an agnostic, I do not cotton to proselytizing atheists. Should I enjoy proselytizing christians or moslems any more?

I am referring to things like the Khmer Rouge, Maoism and Naziism.



I believe there is not a single instance of a psychic phenomenon in the history of mankind that stands up to the scrutiny of logic and scientific inspection. Name it if you have it.

Check out Dean Radin's "Supernormal" or "Entangled Minds".


If you say the resurrectiuon of Jesus, we must be done here.

What strikes me about those resurrection accounts are the similarities to modern shared death experiences.


There is only a theory that the universe had a beginning, my friend. This is evidently not the universe at all, but a tiny instance of it. There is another theory, and there goes god again.

The only way atheists can remove God is if they can explain away our consciousness by reducing it to something non-conscious. That is why I said to take a deep breath. The evidence of your own awareness contradicts your atheism.



I have nothing against more complex and relevant models of reality employing higher P/NP standards. Even machines can exceed our standards, though. There can be non-polynomial machines, perhaps. Would not a quantum computer itself be non-polynomial in its operations? At least it seems so. We do not know if any questions are truly hard, though. That is exactly what P/NP is trying to determine. One can have intuitive opinions, however. Mine is that some questions are truly hard.

These concepts relate only to the speed at which algorithms can find a solution. However, John Searle's critique doesn't depend on the speed of computation nor whether you use a quantum computer. Consciousness cannot be generated by these algorithms.



At any rate, religion is slowly disappearing. Donations to the collection plates have been falling steadily for more than a century. More significantly, the influence of the church in peoples' daily lives has declined almost out of existence. Almost no one allows church doctrine to decide their actions on any issue today, except as a last resort fallback or political position. A few hundred years ago the church ruled the daily lives of people in every detail. And no fair poll of our antecedents would have shown a mere 63% of them to be believers.

Of our 63% of professed believers, almost none of them do anything about it, or act in accordance with church doctrine when the going gets opportunistic. 99.9%+ of the 63% are lip servers only. Believe me, this is way down form medieval times. Please do not ask me how I know Russian peasants and fishwives were more sincere in their religious beliefs than Wall Street executives or rapping shoe clerks who might respond as believers.

Our own country started out Puritan, but it is far from those roots now. It has not broken them yet, because they are useful tools for political unity in the minds of politicians.

Particular religions come and go, but the motivation for religion is rooted in our biology, not our culture. That is why atheistic (or "agnostic") efforts to legislate against, educate away or purge religious groups will ultimately fail. See Justin Barrett's "Born Believers: the science of children's religious belief" for a summary of the data supporting that position.



How do I know, please, what future evidence might look like? No one has ever proved very good at predictiing the future.

I am looking for current evidence from science, not science fiction, not wishful thinking, that you rely on to support your views.

[desiresjab]

I have no problem with belief systems.



I am referring to things like the Khmer Rouge, Maoism and Naziism.



Check out Dean Radin's "Supernormal" or "Entangled Minds".



What strikes me about those resurrection accounts are the similarities to modern shared death experiences.



The only way atheists can remove God is if they can explain away our consciousness by reducing it to something non-conscious. That is why I said to take a deep breath. The evidence of your own awareness contradicts your atheism.



These concepts relate only to the speed at which algorithms can find a solution. However, John Searle's critique doesn't depend on the speed of computation nor whether you use a quantum computer. Consciousness cannot be generated by these algorithms.



Particular religions come and go, but the motivation for religion is rooted in our biology, not our culture. That is why atheistic (or "agnostic") efforts to legislate against, educate away or purge religious groups will ultimately fail. See Justin Barrett's "Born Believers: the science of children's religious belief" for a summary of the data supporting that position.



I am looking for current evidence from science, not science fiction, not wishful thinking, that you rely on to support your views.

You are the one who asked me about future evidence, my boy, like I can see into the distant future. I cannot name possible future evidence, so that makes you right on a whole host of things apparently.

You keep making statements, such as our own consciousnesss proves the existence of Gog. Tsk, tsk...I don't think so. Yes, in your mind it does exactly that, but not in anyone else's. A dog's consciousness must also prove the existence of Gog.

To me in these deep matters everything is an open question, but you have settled on a belief in Jesus which you now must find justification for in every facet of any new discovery. Everything must be reinterpreted in terms of Jesus being real and mystical. What you are getting at are your own preconceptions, but you interpret them to support your own dearly held beliefs about Jesus, not even seeing that they come from yourself and not a body of reliable evidence.

There is no good reason yet for me to state positively that the universe even had a beginning or did not, that there is a gog or there is not, or that Jesus is my saviour. Instead of multiverse, how about one big universe which we are either all of or not all of? No one can state for sure that what we call the universe is anything more than a local anomaly in a bigger picture.

If you want to get touchy about Jesus, that is up to you. But expect me to call it as I see it, friend. You are all touchy about Jesus, but the powers of Jesus are merely a theory, too. Truthfully, Jesus has not proven himself as a theory. But heck, maybe he will be back yet. I mean, the aether came back, in a way, with dark energy pervading all of space instead, so there is still hope for Jesus to come back under another interpretation, I guess.

Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Brahama--these are concepts to let go of as they slip into the stream of history, not embrace and cherish. You can believe this: Jesus and the rest of them are on their way out for good. They will not be any more important to a space-faring race than Zeus is to us now. This is an easy extrapolation. That is the way it is in every science fiction novel, and those novels are the real prophecies of our civilization.

Biblical prophecies did a hellaciously poor job. Other than the return of the Jews to Israel--a biased, self-fulfillied phenomenon brought about by the powers of the west--they got nothing right. There is no Icarus in the bible presaging human flight. What a dead book for knowledge and understanding the bible is! The book of the dead. The bible gives a value to pi of 3. What an insight for an all powerful gog! God only missed it by a little. Believers claim the bible is the very word of god. Why didn't god say 3 1/7, then, since it is closer? Apparently God had not learned his fractions yet.

I have no problem with anyone believing in a very deep, vague God which is the underlying order of the universe as we know it, something like that. When they start getting specific with Jesus or Mohammad and little kid mythologies, then I consider them basket cases. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke has it all in the title. Traditional religions and gods are not worthy of us. We are now better than or as good as the gods of our so called holy books. We have been told we are not worthy of god, but it is these gods who are not worthy of us.

You really want to be one with a tyrant like Jehovah, eh? Not me. My hope is for an afterlife with no gods at all.

[desiresjab]

I believe the influence of religion on mankind has been slightly positive or neutral, when summed up. Only a civilization devoid of religion based on both pure reasoning and humanitarian ideals, could have possibly done better.

Religion has been a weight for a while. Religion is almost down exclusively to its political usefulness. I feel we do not need religion anymore. It is holding us back by infecting too many people with nonsensical beliefs. All we need are the best humanitarian principles our race has come up with. Some of those are found in religions, and many are not.

This cannot be legislated effectively. You cannot force people not to believe something. We simply have to outgrow the delusions of our caveman infancy. The danger is in replacing religious authority with that of a police state to dictate right and wrong. Our best humanitarian ideals must always be the guide of our institutions. That is a very difficult state to maintain.

When our current religions are in believability to our descendants as Zeus is to us, I think we will have advanced sufficiently to show that we can be survivors without religion.

[desiresjab]

This is fascinating. Back to basics.

http://www.bookpump.com/bwp/pdf-b/9424134b.pdf

[YesNo]

I am also interested in cosmological models that do not rely on a big bang the way it is normally presented as Crawford does in the link you provided.

These models sometimes call into question dark matter, dark energy and the constancy of physical "constants" such as the speed of light and gravitation.

Here is another paper by Wun-Yi Shu http://arxiv.org/vc/arxiv/papers/1007/1007.1750v1.pdf. I have only read the introduction.

[desiresjab]

I am also interested in cosmological models that do not rely on a big bang the way it is normally presented as Crawford does in the link you provided.

These models sometimes call into question dark matter, dark energy and the constancy of physical "constants" such as the speed of light and gravitation.

Here is another paper by Wun-Yi Shu http://arxiv.org/vc/arxiv/papers/1007/1007.1750v1.pdf. I have only read the introduction.

I lost another long post because of the idiotic setup of this forum. I am about done with this goat hole. It does not matter if I login first or not, it always tells me I do not have permission to post when I try to send my post, and I have to go through some other crap. Sometimes I have lost the post in the process. The people who run this outfit need to explain themselves.

Anyway, that was a great link. Right now I do not feel like trying to recreate my detailed post, so I will let it go for now.

[Dreamwoven]

desiresjab you should take this up with someone. You should not need to log in every time: I never "log in" here. Your post are clearly expressed and valuable. And in an interesting way this thread touches on a similar discussion in the astronomy thread.

[desiresjab]

desiresjab you should take this up with someone. You should not need to log in every time: I never "log in" here. Your post are clearly expressed and valuable. And in an interesting way this thread touches on a similar discussion in the astronomy thread.

It doesn't seem like I used to have this irritating and sometimes destructive problem. Putting a lot of thought, time and effort into a post only to have it lost because of a consistent complication is unnerving. It could have with something to do with how long the post takes me to write. This one is fast. I will try iot and see if it goes through without the rigmarole.

[desiresjab]

It doesn't seem like I used to have this irritating and sometimes destructive problem. Putting a lot of thought, time and effort into a post only to have it lost because of a consistent complication is unnerving. It could have with something to do with how long the post takes me to write. This one is fast. I will try iot and see if it goes through without the rigmarole.

That went through without complications. Something is timing me out, apparently, making it necessary for me to login again too quickly.

[desiresjab]

I can read some higher mathematics decently, kind of like some people might be able to read a Portugese newspaper but are unable to speak or understand it fluently at ground level where it is spoken. The gentleman in the link takes great pains to show that under his model we live in a spherical universe in 3-space with both radiation and dust.

Since I am not intimately familiar with the notation of this exact subject, it is like skipping over a word you don't know in the Portugese newspaper and filling it in from context. You never know what a bracket instead of regular parentheses might mean, for it has different meanings in different areas of mathematics, and of course what is in this paper is not pure math but mathematical physics, which has some notation conventions of its own.

The universe is expanding in Shu's model, but had no beginning and has no end, and the rate of expansion accelerates and de-accelerates by an unknown mechanism, vaguely described (to me) as curvature pressure and radiation pressure.

Time is not constant in this model but a conversion factor which varies with the evolution of the universe, so other things like Plank's constant are also not constants. It is dazzling and I can only grasp some elemnts of it.

It appears even redshift is explained away as some kind of curvature pressure on photons. I am not sure if this means we are not really expanding but only appear to be doing so to ourselves, or if it actually matters to the model.

Powerful stuff, though. They are using the tools.

[YesNo]

I only vaguely understand these papers. What they provide are prompts for ideas and if the ideas lead back to the papers a closer reading is warranted.

What I find interesting is Shu's willingness to consider that the speed of light and Big G are not constants. What does that mean? It means that there has not been adequate empirical evidence collected to establish that these two "constants" should be considered constant.

Shu's paper requires these to change. We now need empirical evidence to show that they actually do change. I think that data may be easy to come by. Rupert Sheldrake has been arguing that these are not constant for some time, especially Big G. Then we can ask if they are changing the way Shu predicts they should change.

However, I don't think replacing c and big G with functions of time is adequate. They are already constant functions of time and their values are determined in an ad hoc data fitting manner.

[desiresjab]

I only vaguely understand these papers. What they provide are prompts for ideas and if the ideas lead back to the papers a closer reading is warranted.

What I find interesting is Shu's willingness to consider that the speed of light and Big G are not constants. What does that mean? It means that there has not been adequate empirical evidence collected to establish that these two "constants" should be considered constant.

Shu's paper requires these to change. We now need empirical evidence to show that they actually do change. I think that data may be easy to come by. Rupert Sheldrake has been arguing that these are not constant for some time, especially Big G. Then we can ask if they are changing the way Shu predicts they should change.

However, I don't think replacing c and big G with functions of time is adequate. They are already constant functions of time and their values are determined in an ad hoc data fitting manner.

The only opinion I have is that guys like Shu live and work in a rarified atmosphere. Let's assume he is right. How many people on earth would be able to see his work and judge it fairly in minute detail? A mere handful. That is why these changes take so long--it still takes the few human beings who are capable to peer review the work. Then the dscovery has to be brought into play. This can take decades.

This awful lag will be no more once cyborgs come on the scene. They will be able to evaluate discoveries with their immense computing power, and make human like judgements on their merits. Next, they will help get these discoveries into play in days rather than years. Humans are great, but it takes them too long to evaluate their own work and put their discoveries in play. Like many other aspects of human life, this lag is going to change and shorten to almost nothing in the near future.

Everything depends on us not wiping ourselves out, though. The whole structure is standing, with the greatest researchers at the top. The structure is a house of cards. It has been brought down partially many times, and mankind had to start building its research structure again. We have had it up for six hundred years. When it comes down, the highest research stops for the most part.

[YesNo]

Probably the only thing a cyborg could do is validate is a mathematical proof.

I think you are right that it takes a few decades for knowledge to reach people like us unless it is our specialty field, but it has to reach our minds, not just our computers (or cyborgs).

One way to improve the flow of knowledge is to facilitate our networks which the internet helps to do. There is a book by Nicholas A. Christokas called "Connected: the surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives". He talks of three degrees of influence. To use this thread as an example, what we write influences each of us as well as anyone who happens to read it. That's level one. Each of us is connected to others. They are influenced even though they haven't read the thread. That's level two. Each of them are connected to others and those others are influenced even though they have never heard of Lit Net. That's level three. The influence gets weaker as one progresses to each level. The only way I can see cyborgs helping is if they improve the social networks in our lives.

[desiresjab]

Probably the only thing a cyborg could do is validate is a mathematical proof.

I think you are right that it takes a few decades for knowledge to reach people like us unless it is our specialty field, but it has to reach our minds, not just our computers (or cyborgs).

One way to improve the flow of knowledge is to facilitate our networks which the internet helps to do. There is a book by Nicholas A. Christokas called "Connected: the surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives". He talks of three degrees of influence. To use this thread as an example, what we write influences each of us as well as anyone who happens to read it. That's level one. Each of us is connected to others. They are influenced even though they haven't read the thread. That's level two. Each of them are connected to others and those others are influenced even though they have never heard of Lit Net. That's level three. The influence gets weaker as one progresses to each level. The only way I can see cyborgs helping is if they improve the social networks in our lives.

I believe your first sentence is wrong, and I believe your second sentence is looking in the wrong direction.

Here's what I mean. The cyborg with quantum computing abilities could not only validate proofs, but quickly use them to search for further proofs. This is only the tip of the iceberg. With a top-down approach, it could almost instantly relate any new results in math to every field in science where they applied. No one but other cyborgs would have any chance at all of keeping up with the progress. At such a pace, the human mind by itself would lag exponmentially further behind.

Your second sentence looks in the wrong direction because the knowledge will never reach minions like you and me, only the results of it will, if we manage to stay in control of our cyborgs.

The ramifications are scary, because I do not see how it is possible for plain old human beings to stay in control for very long of machines that can out think them by an exponentially increasing margin.

For comfort, one could always imagine these powerful entities will forever remain subservient to their complacent human masters who are pale and fat and so not-very-smart. We can imagine they also will write the magazine articles which keep us up to date on recent progress in science and mathematics, we who will be no more than observers in this process. We had better hope our cyborgs desire fat, useless witnesses to their activities.

[YesNo]

I agree that they could do more than validate proofs. Our computers currently provide us with similar aids. We do have to tell them what to do and when to start. However, I don't think they would have any more likelihood of taking over than the computers that provide climate control for our buildings would.

So, I'm not scared by any of this. Why? Because they are not conscious and so cannot make a choice to dominate us or not. How do I know they are not conscious? Because they follow algorithms and so their unconsciousness follows from Searle's Chinese Room argument.

[desiresjab]

I agree that they could do more than validate proofs. Our computers currently provide us with similar aids. We do have to tell them what to do and when to start. However, I don't think they would have any more likelihood of taking over than the computers that provide climate control for our buildings would.

So, I'm not scared by any of this. Why? Because they are not conscious and so cannot make a choice to dominate us or not. How do I know they are not conscious? Because they follow algorithms and so their unconsciousness follows from Searle's Chinese Room argument.

True they are not conscious, but we can expect something in the not too distant future that acts like consciousness and can pass the Turing test. Once we lose our ability to distingusih their simulated consciousness from the real thing, then for all practical purposes, they are conscious, or at least we cannot prove otherwise.

Entities on the battlefield of mixed meat and silicon, with enhanced sensory and computing capabilities, will make humans obsolete fast on the battlefield. Similarly, they will make us obsolete everywhere in normal life, useless in war, research and technology, good for only politics and religion.

Do not overlook the key--that the new beings of meat and metal may not have true consciousness, but will have such sophisticated software that telling the difference will become impossible. Even their software is written by other cyborg specialists. They act just like humans and seem to have the same motivations, the can get inspired apparently. They do the same things we do--breed, eat, think--they are better than us. Why would they keep us around, and how would we actually control entities like this without becoming one ourselves?

The global elite have set it up that our future we will be as a chemical society of pill takers for every ailment, imagined and real. Right out of Orwell. How these interests will conflict or meld with the machine interests, is yet to be played out. But I imagine the cyborgs will need plenty of chemical assistance to keep their chimerical systems functioning properly. They will be writing their own software and developing their own medicine. What is hard to grasp is how fast the human world can transform. Once the exponentiation sets in, they will develop so fast we will have no control. They will be indispensable in every walk of life, and humans will be quite dispensable, in fact useless.

[YesNo]

True they are not conscious, but we can expect something in the not too distant future that acts like consciousness and can pass the Turing test. Once we lose our ability to distingusih their simulated consciousness from the real thing, then for all practical purposes, they are conscious, or at least we cannot prove otherwise.

I thought there already existed computers that passed the Turing test. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/09/a-computer-just-passed-the-turing-test-in-landmark-trial/

If they are not actually conscious they cannot make a choice to dominate us to not. However, humans, who are conscious, can make choices to use them in ways that may not be ethical.



Entities on the battlefield of mixed meat and silicon, with enhanced sensory and computing capabilities, will make humans obsolete fast on the battlefield. Similarly, they will make us obsolete everywhere in normal life, useless in war, research and technology, good for only politics and religion.

Do not overlook the key--that the new beings of meat and metal may not have true consciousness, but will have such sophisticated software that telling the difference will become impossible. Even their software is written by other cyborg specialists. They act just like humans and seem to have the same motivations, the can get inspired apparently. They do the same things we do--breed, eat, think--they are better than us. Why would they keep us around, and how would we actually control entities like this without becoming one ourselves?

The global elite have set it up that our future we will be as a chemical society of pill takers for every ailment, imagined and real. Right out of Orwell. How these interests will conflict or meld with the machine interests, is yet to be played out. But I imagine the cyborgs will need plenty of chemical assistance to keep their chimerical systems functioning properly. They will be writing their own software and developing their own medicine. What is hard to grasp is how fast the human world can transform. Once the exponentiation sets in, they will develop so fast we will have no control. They will be indispensable in every walk of life, and humans will be quite dispensable, in fact useless.

Perhaps those of us who have smart phones today are already cyborgs.

[desiresjab]

I thought there already existed computers that passed the Turing test. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/09/a-computer-just-passed-the-turing-test-in-landmark-trial/

There you go. We can already not keep up with it. This was about a year ago.

Fooled into friendship with a computer would be something like being fooled into sex by a transvestite. The government could end up creating "friends" for us all, who counsel us and slyly steer us toward good citizenship and productivity.

[YesNo]

Being fooled by one's government is nothing new.

[RogersSaaed]

I can read some higher mathematics decently, kind of like some people might be able to read a Portugese newspaper but are unable to speak or understand it fluently at ground level where it is spoken. The gentleman in the link takes great pains to show that under his model we live in a spherical universe in 3-space with both radiation and dust.

[RogersSaaed]

I am just trying on ideas here.

[YesNo]

I can read some higher mathematics decently, kind of like some people might be able to read a Portugese newspaper but are unable to speak or understand it fluently at ground level where it is spoken. The gentleman in the link takes great pains to show that under his model we live in a spherical universe in 3-space with both radiation and dust.

I agree with that. Two questions come to my mind whenever a cosmology is being presented: (1) What evidence exists for it? (2) What metaphysical assumptions are at stake?

For example, Hawking, if I understood it from David Berlinski's "The Devil's Delusion" (pages 100 and following), presented a view of the Big Bang where the beginning of the universe does not have a beginning but has linear time circling around itself in some complex number space. Is there empirical evidence for it? No, because it is conveniently hidden behind the cosmic microwave background. Why would he be presenting something like this? Well, he has to avoid the universe having a beginning otherwise he needs a cause for that beginning and that leads to theism of some sort.

A metaphysical materialist has very little to work with. Everything including consciousness has to come from unconscious matter. This is bad enough in a universe that can be assumed to be eternal, but when the universe is shown to be expanding implying a beginning in the past the challenge to materialism is severe.

I am assuming both Shu and Crawford have similar materialist assumptions they are trying to protect, but I may be wrong since I haven't studied them enough.

My main problem with the artificial intelligence position that desiresjab promotes is the attempt to reduce consciousness to unconscious algorithms. The Turing test depends on fooling people with the assumption that none of us are really conscious to begin with and we are all fooling each other. So the AI might as well be considered conscious since consciousness does not exist anyway.

I think people like John Searle have shown that there is a difference between what we experience as a human being and what the algorithms might allow a machine to experience. This means the Turing test is a waste of time.

[desiresjab]

My main problem with the artificial intelligence position that desiresjab promotes is the attempt to reduce consciousness to unconscious algorithms. The Turing test depends on fooling people with the assumption that none of us are really conscious to begin with and we are all fooling each other.

This means the Turing test is a waste of time.

Nowhere has anyone said that. There are no parameters to the Turing test which assume none of us is really conscious. Turing never mentioned it. I mentioned it. How does that suddenly mean the Turing test depends on none of us being conscious to begin with? It doesn't. Why are you tying the Turing test to a wild idea of mine?

What I have said is that the simulations for consciousness will become so good we will no longer be able to tell the difference by naked judgement. More extensive tests would have to be devised at some point. I am not sure how this came to mean in your mind anything about the quality of consciousness. My arguments are not concerned with the "actual" quality of future computers' consciousness, only that they possess a semblance of it good enough to perform certain threshhold actions.

Here is what you are overlooking in my ideas anyway. The cyborgs do not have to become conscious, man, they start out that way, as meat with a little metal added. There will be no question but that they are conscious, as they begin to outrun us in every human domain at an exponential pace.

[desiresjab]

Yes/No, I speculate that you are clutching certain ideas I have partially let go of. One of these is that the pooping organism known as human has a special relationship with God. I think you want to believe very badly that this relationship will carry us through to an afterlife. Who doesn't want that? I have to know that is why you are so intent on believing everything is full of consciousness, for instance. You also have a need to protect human consciousness as something unapproachable from below. What would it mean if you were wrong--if consciousness is approachable form below and our poop chutes have no special relationship with God?

Every bit of it with me is speculation, but with you some of it is belief. I cannot knock anyone for that. Maybe I even like it. Sometimes I may sound like I believe one way or another, but that is not really so. Leaning is possible when you are in the middle.

Of the four or five things I would call beliefs, most of them have been dug out and admitted right in this thread.

1 There are more things under heaven and earth than your philsophy has ever dreamed of.

2 A universe where two does not "follow" one is not possible.

3 Both racial and personal memory is woefully sparse for a race of history buffs.

4 Science has more chance of saving us than religion.

5 There is not enough evidence to be a believer or a disbeliever.

[YesNo]

Nowhere has anyone said that. There are no parameters to the Turing test which assume none of us is really conscious. Turing never mentioned it. I mentioned it. How does that suddenly mean the Turing test depends on none of us being conscious to begin with? It doesn't. Why are you tying the Turing test to a wild idea of mine?

It's is not your idea that I am thinking of but why the Turing test should be considered of much importance. This test is passed if a certain percentage of those interacting with the machine are fooled and think the machine is human. Why should that imply that the machine is conscious unless consciousness is equated with fooling others that something is conscious?

Again, I refer you back to Searle's Chinese room critique of the Turing test. Our consciousness is different from that obtained by following an algorithm which is all these machines are able to do. Based on Searle's critique Turning tests are obsolete with regards to issues of consciousness. They are at most scores robot manufacturers can use to brag about the quality of their products.



What I have said is that the simulations for consciousness will become so good we will no longer be able to tell the difference by naked judgement. More extensive tests would have to be devised at some point. I am not sure how this came to mean in your mind anything about the quality of consciousness. My arguments are not concerned with the "actual" quality of future computers' consciousness, only that they possess a semblance of it good enough to perform certain threshhold actions.

Here is what you are overlooking in my ideas anyway. The cyborgs do not have to become conscious, man, they start out that way, as meat with a little metal added. There will be no question but that they are conscious, as they begin to outrun us in every human domain at an exponential pace.

If the cyborg's "meat" that allows him or her to remain alive contains human DNA then the cyborg is a member of the human species and is one of us. It is like someone who has his or her smart phone more physically attached to the body.

[YesNo]

You also have a need to protect human consciousness as something unapproachable from below.

It is more a difference between metaphysical idealism and metaphysical materialism. You seem to have a need to destroy human consciousness by reducing it to an algorithm that an unconscious machine follows.

I, on the other hand, have no problem with subatomic particles being conscious in their own way. After all, when asked about their positions or momenta they seem to make a choice within the constraints of their dispositions to respond. All we can expect to know, ever, is the probability distribution of their choices (wave function).

That might be our difference in perspective. You see a machine following an algorithm as conscious, but you likely don't see the atoms making up the machine as conscious. I see the subatomic particles making up the machine as conscious in their own way, but I don't think the machine itself is conscious.

[desiresjab]

I will try to respond to both posts in one.

If artificial intelligence became good enough to fool humans consistently, it would then be up to other "slave" machines, to determine for us if certain individuals were real or artificial. Once a machine could fool other machines, what then? There would be no easy way of determining if it was conscious or not. They would not conceal themselves behind screens, they would walk among us openly. The only way to know for sure would then be invasive surgery.

You are right, these meat machines will be human. They may even be able to mate with humans. Some of their "metallic" qualities may even be passed on. "Mixed" individuals might turn out to be superior to either article.

Or the meat machines might inaugurate a new species unable to mix with natural humans but able to breed among themselves.

In the first case the human species gradually becomes meat machines because of the advantages. In the second scenario we might have the type of problem a million sci-fi movies have already depicted for us.

For a moment lay aside the question of whether these machine intelligences have real consciousness. If they could stand face to face and talk to a human undetected, they would become confidants at the least.

Even if they are nothing more than highly sophisticated self-programmable machines, that moment in their program history could easily come where the existence of humans seems to them to interfere with their prime directive. This is another idea out of pulp science fiction.

I think these beings are coming, and in the not too distant future. We will struggle with all the definitions and ethics when they get here. I imagine the debates will continue for some time among our descendants as to how they should classify their machines, much as we have done here.

But relaistically, do you want one of these guys in the foxhole with you, or would you prefer a normal human? Your chance of survival will be better with the borg and he commiserates, too. The same goes for any dangerous activity from mountain climbing to piloting airplanes. None of this requires true consciousness, but only the ability to fit in.

We have no doubt that our machines today are not conscious. Our descendants will likewise have no doubt their cyborgs are conscious. It is merely a matter of getting used to them, depending on them, taking their sympathy. Definitions of consciousness will continue to change and adapt until machine consciousness is fit somewhere into the scheme we are comfortable with.

A scary moment to consider is when these machines might start debating how to reclassify us.

[YesNo]

You are right, these meat machines will be human. They may even be able to mate with humans. Some of their "metallic" qualities may even be passed on. "Mixed" individuals might turn out to be superior to either article.

If their metallic qualities are passed on then that would violate neo-Darwinism. I don't think neo-Darwinism is correct, but I suspect you might. That is why I am bringing it up.

If they can mate with humans, then they are human. I am going by a definition of "species" that I think Niles Eldredge would support based on his theory of punctuated equilibria which is a theory of evolution that makes sense.



In the first case the human species gradually becomes meat machines because of the advantages. In the second scenario we might have the type of problem a million sci-fi movies have already depicted for us.

What advantages are there with having technology physically attached to your body? It seems that would make upgrades difficult. I certainly wouldn't want my smart phone embedded inside my body.



For a moment lay aside the question of whether these machine intelligences have real consciousness. If they could stand face to face and talk to a human undetected, they would become confidants at the least.

If you are referring to the human "cyborgs", then they would have consciousness. If you are referring to machines driven by algorithms, then they do not.



Even if they are nothing more than highly sophisticated self-programmable machines, that moment in their program history could easily come where the existence of humans seems to them to interfere with their prime directive. This is another idea out of pulp science fiction.

I think these beings are coming, and in the not too distant future. We will struggle with all the definitions and ethics when they get here. I imagine the debates will continue for some time among our descendants as to how they should classify their machines, much as we have done here.

But relaistically, do you want one of these guys in the foxhole with you, or would you prefer a normal human? Your chance of survival will be better with the borg and he commiserates, too. The same goes for any dangerous activity from mountain climbing to piloting airplanes. None of this requires true consciousness, but only the ability to fit in.

We have no doubt that our machines today are not conscious. Our descendants will likewise have no doubt their cyborgs are conscious. It is merely a matter of getting used to them, depending on them, taking their sympathy. Definitions of consciousness will continue to change and adapt until machine consciousness is fit somewhere into the scheme we are comfortable with.

A scary moment to consider is when these machines might start debating how to reclassify us.

From the definition of "cyborg" that I am picking up from this discussion, we don't need to wait for our descendants to pass judgment: they would be conscious because they are humans with technology physically attached to them.

I am curious what you think about quantum particles. Are they conscious or not in your metaphysics? If not, how do you make sense out of the choices they make when asked their positions or momenta?

Also, I would be curious to know what scientific or philosophical references you have to back up your metaphysics. I don't mean science fiction, speculations, belief systems or other forms of modern mythology, but real science or philosophy, the kind that can be cited and then examined critically.

I think we need some external reference to ground and further the discussion. For my part I have offered Searle as an antidote to belief in the value Turing tests. Eldredge comes to mind for evolution. There are various surveys of quantum physics that might help. I have referenced Dean Radin for psi phenomena and I could add Raymond Moody for accounts of near and shared death experiences. You did offer an article by Crawford. How does that relate to your ideas? Why is he of interest to you?

[desiresjab]

If their metallic qualities are passed on then that would violate neo-Darwinism. I don't think neo-Darwinism is correct, but I suspect you might. That is why I am bringing it up.

If they can mate with humans, then they are human. I am going by a definition of "species" that I think Niles Eldredge would support based on his theory of punctuated equilibria which is a theory of evolution that makes sense.



What advantages are there with having technology physically attached to your body? It seems that would make upgrades difficult. I certainly wouldn't want my smart phone embedded inside my body.



If you are referring to the human "cyborgs", then they would have consciousness. If you are referring to machines driven by algorithms, then they do not.



From the definition of "cyborg" that I am picking up from this discussion, we don't need to wait for our descendants to pass judgment: they would be conscious because they are humans with technology physically attached to them.

I am curious what you think about quantum particles. Are they conscious or not in your metaphysics? If not, how do you make sense out of the choices they make when asked their positions or momenta?

Also, I would be curious to know what scientific or philosophical references you have to back up your metaphysics. I don't mean science fiction, speculations, belief systems or other forms of modern mythology, but real science or philosophy, the kind that can be cited and then examined critically.

I think we need some external reference to ground and further the discussion. For my part I have offered Searle as an antidote to belief in the value Turing tests. Eldredge comes to mind for evolution. There are various surveys of quantum physics that might help. I have referenced Dean Radin for psi phenomena and I could add Raymond Moody for accounts of near and shared death experiences. You did offer an article by Crawford. How does that relate to your ideas? Why is he of interest to you?

You keep making authoritative statements I cannot accept.

"If you are referring to the human "cyborgs", then they would have consciousness. If you are referring to machines driven by algorithms, then they do not."

Just like that. It is impressive you know that our own consciousness is not algorithm driven. How did you find that out?

[desiresjab]

I suppose I would want to know exactly what you think my metaphysics is. I stated all my beliefs a few posts ago. I do not have an opinion on whether electrons are conscious. Remember, it is you who need this opinion. Why are you willing to grant consciousness to an electron, but ready for a death match when it comes to merely considering it for a futuristic machine which only operates on algorithms? Electrons, apparently operate from a more lofty paradigm than mere machine algorithms.

You need to insist there is some kind of magical, mystical threshhold to consciousness, unapproachable, uncreatable by all but god. I do not share this obsession. To you consciousness seems now vested with what is holy about the universe. You have that disguised need for what is holy. I think we all have that need. I try not to let it interfere with my process.

I know what it does, it clears the way for now saying consciousness had no beginning. That consciousness is at the heart of operations in the universe and always has been. That is another supposition I am not pressed to make.

I do not say electrons do not have consciousness, either. But on our thin knowledge of quantum operators I cannot jump out there simply because I would like for something to be true. I only take a stance when there is no other logical choice. Do I have a preference all of the time? Yeah. But not a stance. My stance is that there isn't very good evidence for a firm stance.

[desiresjab]

I can't wait for replies.

Consider a mosquito. What is its consciousness? I must add another belief to my stated arsenal and say I do not believe it is self conscious. The mosquito is not aware that it is conscious. It does not catch itself thinking. How do I know? I know where a bear makes duty, too.

Is the mosquito really conscious at all, would probably be a reasonable question? If reacting to temperature and hunger pangs and a host of pre-programmed instincts is all that is required, I feel superbly confident those criteria can already be met by our machines. Such are the "decisions" of a mosquito.

Does a dog catch itself thinking? Can't claim to know. But there must be some threshhold more significant than ordinary consciousness, if indeed the mosquito is conscious. That threshhold must be self consciousness.

But will a machine not know when it has been turned on? There you go--self-consciousness. Perhaps we are closer than we choose to accept.

[YesNo]

I suppose I would want to know exactly what you think my metaphysics is.

I don't know what it is. That's what I am trying to find out. For example, I assume you are an atheist. That's fine, but there are different kinds of atheists. I don't know to what extent you are a materialist.

Some atheists believe consciousness can be reduced to unconscious matter. I think this position given quantum physics has been discredited. It is no longer scientific. There are others who promote panpsychism such as Thomas Nagel. They admit that consciousness cannot be reduced to unconscious matter but in order for reductionist thinking to be valid, they must have consciousness at all levels including the quantum level. Then consciousness would not be completely emergent from unconscious matter. I see this as a form of dualism.

My view is idealism: unconscious matter does not exist. Everything is conscious. So panpsychism seems to make sense to me, however, I am not a reductionist. Consciousness not only goes down to the lowest forms of reality we are aware of, but also above beyond what we are aware of. The reason I am interested in this thread is I don't really know what I think is the case until I talk it out with someone who disagrees with me.



I stated all my beliefs a few posts ago. I do not have an opinion on whether electrons are conscious. Remember, it is you who need this opinion. Why are you willing to grant consciousness to an electron, but ready for a death match when it comes to merely considering it for a futuristic machine which only operates on algorithms? Electrons, apparently operate from a more lofty paradigm than mere machine algorithms.

I don't need quantum reality to be conscious. It just seems that they are making choices and they might as well be considered conscious. However, I think Nagel's atheism would need something like this. He has to get consciousness at all the lower layers of reality. I just need it at the higher levels, but it could be everywhere.



You need to insist there is some kind of magical, mystical threshhold to consciousness, unapproachable, uncreatable by all but god. I do not share this obsession. To you consciousness seems now vested with what is holy about the universe. You have that disguised need for what is holy. I think we all have that need. I try not to let it interfere with my process.

I am not trying to disguise anything. I have admitted being a generic panentheist although I don't profess any specific religion. I do yoga, meditate, recite mantras, but that is about it for religious practice. The need is real. Why? Because we wouldn't be here otherwise.



I know what it does, it clears the way for now saying consciousness had no beginning. That consciousness is at the heart of operations in the universe and always has been. That is another supposition I am not pressed to make.

Right. Consciousness had no beginning. The universe did. Consciousness is why the universe is here. That is why I am interested in the Big Bang. The Big Bang attempts to show without using consciousness that the universe could have been created from nothing. I want to see to what extent that "without using consciousness" part is necessary. It is a challenge to my idealist position. That would be my interest in papers such as the one you cited by Crawford.



I do not say electrons do not have consciousness, either. But on our thin knowledge of quantum operators I cannot jump out there simply because I would like for something to be true. I only take a stance when there is no other logical choice. Do I have a preference all of the time? Yeah. But not a stance. My stance is that there isn't very good evidence for a firm stance.

The only reason I think an electron could be conscious in its limited way is that its behavior can be modeled as a choice. It looks conscious more so than a machine that passes the Turing test does. Sure, that machine might fool me, but once I know it is a machine and operating under deterministic or even random algorithms, then I know it is not conscious based on Searle's Chinese room argument. With the electron I can't reduce its behavior to either deterministic or random processes. There are no hidden variables at that level of reality. So, I can't invoke Searle's argument against its consciousness.

[YesNo]

Consider a mosquito. What is its consciousness? I must add another belief to my stated arsenal and say I do not believe it is self conscious. The mosquito is not aware that it is conscious. It does not catch itself thinking. How do I know? I know where a bear makes duty, too.

I don't know what it's consciousness might be. It moves around and avoids my hand when I try to brush it away. The only criteria I have for saying that something that is initiating changes is not conscious is whether those changes are determined by an algorithm. I don't think a mosquito or even a virus is so determined. Why? Because a quantum particle is not so determined and they are much smaller.



Is the mosquito really conscious at all, would probably be a reasonable question? If reacting to temperature and hunger pangs and a host of pre-programmed instincts is all that is required, I feel superbly confident those criteria can already be met by our machines. Such are the "decisions" of a mosquito.

Does a dog catch itself thinking? Can't claim to know. But there must be some threshhold more significant than ordinary consciousness, if indeed the mosquito is conscious. That threshhold must be self consciousness.

But will a machine not know when it has been turned on? There you go--self-consciousness. Perhaps we are closer than we choose to accept.

Thomas Nagel considered similar questions in an essay "What is it like to be a bat?" http://organizations.utep.edu/Portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf I have not read it with enough care, but his essay "Panpsychism" in "Mortal questions" I have paid more attention to.

[desiresjab]

Let me state for the nth time I consider myself an agnostic. That's okay, it probably seems hard to believe at times. I can lean both ways, which gives me the flexibility to play devil's advocate in either direction. If you were not advocating some of these ideas I would have to be doing it myself. I think they are great ideas.

What I want out of this is sight. Such a journey is made almost entirely alone in the company of others. I want a picture to believe in. Strangely, people find such pictures for themselves all the time. The mind can make almost anything it wants. I don't ask for much--I just want the picture. I view much lovely art, but I do not think I have seen the picture yet.

We can go far without the right picture. I do not actually need to find the right picture, I only need to be allowed to search for it forever.

If we knew these things that drive our curiosity we would no longer be curious.

To say electrons have consciousness "of a type," is a lot of wobble room.

I go back to my mosquito friend. It may be conscious but it is not self conscious. What is consciousness without self consciousness but a bunch of programmable instincts entered as parameters which determine behavior? We could easily model that, and I believe the machine would be every bit as conscious as the mosquito, if not a little more. The mosquito, always starting anew, has no concept of yesterday or time past, but the computer does.

Our machines already have primitive consciousness, what they lack are actual emotions we would construe as genuine. Concepts like willfulness and awareness are pretty abstract and vague anyway, not to mention consciousness itself. Words we used forever without bothering to define them precisely. What is consciousness to you?

I doubt that the mosquito is even conscious. It has an on and off state. It reacts, it tries to preserve itself--but does it need consciousness for that? It does not think of itself, it does not reflect on its thoughts. I do not believe the mosquito is making willful choices, but following its programming, so of course I find reason to doubt the electron too. Making a choice really is a matter of definition.

Some people do not find it appealing that consciousness could arise from lump matter. I find it immensely appealing that so much could be enfolded that would never be suspected.

[YesNo]

Let me state for the nth time I consider myself an agnostic. That's okay, it probably seems hard to believe at times. I can lean both ways, which gives me the flexibility to play devil's advocate in either direction. If you were not advocating some of these ideas I would have to be doing it myself. I think they are great ideas.

What I want out of this is sight. Such a journey is made almost entirely alone in the company of others. I want a picture to believe in. Strangely, people find such pictures for themselves all the time. The mind can make almost anything it wants. I don't ask for much--I just want the picture. I view much lovely art, but I do not think I have seen the picture yet.

We can go far without the right picture. I do not actually need to find the right picture, I only need to be allowed to search for it forever.

If we knew these things that drive our curiosity we would no longer be curious.

I will assume you are agnostic rather than atheistic. I don't have the picture either and what I understand now will likely change.



To say electrons have consciousness "of a type," is a lot of wobble room.

Yes. It is very vague. I don't know what consciousness is. An electron is not conscious or aware the way I am.



I go back to my mosquito friend. It may be conscious but it is not self conscious. What is consciousness without self consciousness but a bunch of programmable instincts entered as parameters which determine behavior? We could easily model that, and I believe the machine would be every bit as conscious as the mosquito, if not a little more. The mosquito, always starting anew, has no concept of yesterday or time past, but the computer does.

Our machines already have primitive consciousness, what they lack are actual emotions we would construe as genuine. Concepts like willfulness and awareness are pretty abstract and vague anyway, not to mention consciousness itself. Words we used forever without bothering to define them precisely. What is consciousness to you?

I doubt that the mosquito is even conscious. It has an on and off state. It reacts, it tries to preserve itself--but does it need consciousness for that? It does not think of itself, it does not reflect on its thoughts. I do not believe the mosquito is making willful choices, but following its programming, so of course I find reason to doubt the electron too. Making a choice really is a matter of definition.

Some people do not find it appealing that consciousness could arise from lump matter. I find it immensely appealing that so much could be enfolded that would never be suspected.

I don't know how the words "consciousness", "self-consciousness", "willfulness" and "awareness" serve to differentiate something. I can only experience my own awareness, willfulness, consciousness and self-consciousness and they are all filtered through my being a member of the human species.

Every species has its own set of constraints on how it can interact with the world. We have different constraints than a mosquito but that doesn't mean the mosquito is any less able to make a choice within its own species constraints. All individuals within species, including humans, have dispositions to act in certain ways, but that doesn't mean there is no choice available. I choose between chocolate or vanilla ice cream perhaps disposed today to pick chocolate 60% of the time. The wave function for that choice would imply those probabilities today if one bothered creating it. But I still make a choice. The mosquito is disposed to move in multiple directions when my hand approaches. I have no reason to claim it has no choice in the matter except to support a metaphysical belief that it can be reduced to a machine.

However, I don't think a machine has any choice. And I can say that with more certainty than I can say anything about the mosquito because I can trace back the machine's programming to a real programmer. I disagree with using this programming metaphor when talking about reality that someone has not actually programmed. Programming implies the existence of a programmer or an "intelligent designer". If I cannot identify a programmer through some historical records, there is no justification to say something was programmed.

I know some theists like how the programming metaphor implies the existence of an intelligent designer, but I think accepting that metaphor comes at too great a cost. I am not a 19th century Christian apologist facing a scientific view that is totally deterministic with an underlying reduction to unconscious matter. That scientific view changed within science almost a hundred years ago. With determinism undermined there is no need to continue with intelligent design. Whatever God is real, He or She is far more interesting.

[desiresjab]

The mosquito weighed the options carefully, then went right instead of left.

[desiresjab]

I do not see water charging from a dam's gateway into a divided sluice-way having any more choice about where it goes than it had on its own composition. But give me all the weights, angles and forces involved, and I will give you back a probability wave for a particular molecule's likely "choice" of sluices.

What constitutes a choice and what constitutes consciousness appear to be mere definitions, when one peers behind Oz's curtain.

If it is left up to me, then, I will make the line of demarcation at self consciousness--the ability to reflect on what one is thinking about. Anything else would be defined as pre-consciousness. The worm and the mosquito are pre-conscious, but other life forms have varying degrees of consciousness. Saying just which ones, though, turns out to be difficult.

[YesNo]

I do not see water charging from a dam's gateway into a divided sluice-way having any more choice about where it goes than it had on its own composition. But give me all the weights, angles and forces involved, and I will give you back a probability wave for a particular molecule's likely "choice" of sluices.

Probability is useful in two different contexts. One is where we do not have all the information we theoretically could have and so make a prediction based on what we do know. That is the kind associated with the water example you mentioned above.

The other is the kind where there is no additional information to obtain, no hidden variable is left to consider. We have all the information and the results are still indeterminate. That is the kind associated with quantum uncertainty. Some say this is "random", but that is a misleading metaphor. The distributions also are not uniform such as the flip of a coin. This makes it difficult to work with the uncertainty and why speculations such as many worlds have a hard time establishing themselves as consistent. That is, they could be modeled as choices and not reduced to mere chance.

At the quantum level it is easy to know that we have all the information. At the level of our species or any other species it is not clear whether a choice was made (inherent indeterminacy) or whether additional information could have predicted the results accurately. I assume any living organism can make a choice within the constraints set up by its species. Others don't make that assumption. I think the assumption is justified based on the fact that at an even lower level, quantum indeterminacy exists.



What constitutes a choice and what constitutes consciousness appear to be mere definitions, when one peers behind Oz's curtain.

I agree.



If it is left up to me, then, I will make the line of demarcation at self consciousness--the ability to reflect on what one is thinking about. Anything else would be defined as pre-consciousness. The worm and the mosquito are pre-conscious, but other life forms have varying degrees of consciousness. Saying just which ones, though, turns out to be difficult.

I think that might be too restrictive.

Some changes do not involve consciousness. I grant that. The changes that a machine or computer make are not conscious. We really don't want our machines making independent choices. They can be explained by their design or programming. As Nagel would put it when he asked what is it like to be a bat, it would be like nothing to be a computer. That means the computer is not conscious. What this goes against is a behaviorism which tries to reduce consciousness to objective forms of behavior. Consciousness is subjective, not objective.

Rather than behavior, I would place the line of demarcation at the ability to make a choice. I will define a choice as a behavioral change for which indeterminacy has to be accepted. A choice is something that cannot be completely determined given all the information. The most we can construct is a probability distribution. This would exclude the flow of water through the dam's gateway. It would exclude a computer passing the Turing test. It would exclude weather patterns. However, it would include any living creature until we get more information to prove that they can be reduced to machines. It would also include quantum reality.

I think Descartes put the demarcation where you would like to put it, but I can't remember exactly.

[desiresjab]

Probability is useful in two different contexts. One is where we do not have all the information we theoretically could have and so make a prediction based on what we do know. That is the kind associated with the water example you mentioned above.

The other is the kind where there is no additional information to obtain, no hidden variable is left to consider. We have all the information and the results are still indeterminate. That is the kind associated with quantum uncertainty. Some say this is "random", but that is a misleading metaphor. The distributions also are not uniform such as the flip of a coin. This makes it difficult to work with the uncertainty and why speculations such as many worlds have a hard time establishing themselves as consistent. That is, they could be modeled as choices and not reduced to mere chance.

At the quantum level it is easy to know that we have all the information. At the level of our species or any other species it is not clear whether a choice was made (inherent indeterminacy) or whether additional information could have predicted the results accurately. I assume any living organism can make a choice within the constraints set up by its species. Others don't make that assumption. I think the assumption is justified based on the fact that at an even lower level, quantum indeterminacy exists.



I agree.



I think that might be too restrictive.

Some changes do not involve consciousness. I grant that. The changes that a machine or computer make are not conscious. We really don't want our machines making independent choices. They can be explained by their design or programming. As Nagel would put it when he asked what is it like to be a bat, it would be like nothing to be a computer. That means the computer is not conscious. What this goes against is a behaviorism which tries to reduce consciousness to objective forms of behavior. Consciousness is subjective, not objective.

Rather than behavior, I would place the line of demarcation at the ability to make a choice. I will define a choice as a behavioral change for which indeterminacy has to be accepted. A choice is something that cannot be completely determined given all the information. The most we can construct is a probability distribution. This would exclude the flow of water through the dam's gateway. It would exclude a computer passing the Turing test. It would exclude weather patterns. However, it would include any living creature until we get more information to prove that they can be reduced to machines. It would also include quantum reality.

I think Descartes put the demarcation where you would like to put it, but I can't remember exactly.

If something cannot recognize it is making a choice, I don't think it did. I do not accept gobbledy-gook language such as "it makes a choice within the constraints of its species."

A choice is something that cannot be completely determined given all the information, is another one, that bothers me. Which information? All information? I don't have to accept that behavior is indeterminate at all, just very complex.

[YesNo]

If something cannot recognize it is making a choice, I don't think it did. I do not accept gobbledy-gook language such as "it makes a choice within the constraints of its species."

By constraints of a species I am just pointing out that we are limited by the species we belong to. We can't hear, for example, all the sounds that members of other species can hear, nor see the same range of the electromagnetic spectrum as members of other species. Those are constraints that are specific to a species. Bats for instance hang by their feet and fly. We don't.

So the choices we can make are limited by these constraints.

That is all I am trying to say.



A choice is something that cannot be completely determined given all the information, is another one, that bothers me. Which information? All information? I don't have to accept that behavior is indeterminate at all, just very complex.

This goes back to uncertainty in quantum physics. It depends on having all the information that is available to us and still we cannot determine what the quantum particle will do exactly. In other words, we can't repeat the experiment expecting to confirm the result. We can only assign a probability to what might happen. For example, measure the position of an electron. Then measure the momentum. Then go back and measure the position. That second measurement of position cannot be predicted exactly.

I define situations like that as having enough freedom to make a choice. It is just a definition based on my ability to determine the outcome of a measurement. I don't know if the electron has a subjective state, but based on this definition of choice, I will then assume the electron has a subjective state. Having a subjective state based on Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" is just the claim that it is like something to be an electron, but I don't know if that is the case or not. It is only what I could derive logically from the definition of choice and assumption of subjectivity. If I keep deriving statements hopefully I will be able to come up with a statement that I can test empirically. At that point I could claim that this budding theory is falsifiable.

[desiresjab]

If I thought for sure there was a God, I would be mighty angry at that entity for leaving me so ignorant, for expecting me to believe garbage like the Koran on faith.

God owes me an explanation, and not the phony one in holy books. C'mon, almighty, you can do a little better than that, or are you just a two-bit, limited God who gets your jollies torturing those you call your children? Explain yourself, rat!

The rat God, that is who we worship. The rat God who expects more than is reasonable. It seems to me the devil and God are the same entity.

God is so wicked that those old books that try to put a good face on him fail miserabley. He still comes out Joseph Stalin. It is time for God to declare himself openly or GTFO of our universe.

Oh, I must be very angry today.

[YesNo]

Oh, I must be very angry today.

Walks and slow breathing sometimes help.



Regarding cosmology, I recently found out that black holes might not exist.

On the one hand there are theoretical objections to their existence.

Here is one claiming that Hawking does not believe in them around January, 2014: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140127-black-hole-stephen-hawking-firewall-space-astronomy/

In September, 2014, there was also a report from Mersini-Houghton that they cannot exist: http://phys.org/news/2014-09-black-holes.html

On the other hand there is one failed prediction assuming the radio source at the center of our galaxy, Sgr A*, is a black hole:

In early 2014 a cloud called G2 was supposed to head into Sgr A* and calculations based on black hole theory claimed the black hole would absorb the cloud. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*#Discovery_of_G2_gas_cloud_on_an_acc retion_course) described the event and reports that the gas cloud survived the encounter. Of course, Sgr A* may still be a black hole and the theory or calculations used in the prediction just need some modifications.

But all of this makes me wonder if Sgr A* is really a black hole and whether black holes are even possible.

[desiresjab]

Walks and slow breathing sometimes help.



Regarding cosmology, I recently found out that black holes might not exist.

On the one hand there are theoretical objections to their existence.

Here is one claiming that Hawking does not believe in them around January, 2014: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140127-black-hole-stephen-hawking-firewall-space-astronomy/

In September, 2014, there was also a report from Mersini-Houghton that they cannot exist: http://phys.org/news/2014-09-black-holes.html

On the other hand there is one failed prediction assuming the radio source at the center of our galaxy, Sgr A*, is a black hole:

In early 2014 a cloud called G2 was supposed to head into Sgr A* and calculations based on black hole theory claimed the black hole would absorb the cloud. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A*#Discovery_of_G2_gas_cloud_on_an_acc retion_course) described the event and reports that the gas cloud survived the encounter. Of course, Sgr A* may still be a black hole and the theory or calculations used in the prediction just need some modifications.

But all of this makes me wonder if Sgr A* is really a black hole and whether black holes are even possible.

I will have to get back to you after I have read the links. (I actually do read them). I have very similar doubts about black holes. They were a possibility found in the field equations for the first time by Billy Sidis, I believe, when he was a fourteen year old at Harvard.

As we know, the mathematical existence of something does not prove something physically exists.

[desiresjab]

After all, infinite mass at a singularity is a mathematical convenience or extrapolation. No one can really believe in infinite mass, but maybe in something we say mathematically approaches it.

Black holes are one of our most beloved cultural icons by now. Let's see how easily we can shake them.

When one author says he has proven mathematically the impossibility of black holes, that was under a particular model under a particular system of constraints. I truly doubt it is as final as a universal proof yet.

The abstracts below some of the papers point out the tools they are using. No surprise that all the tools were named after great mathematicians. Because that is the only way we make progress, after all the talking. Hamilton quaternions, Hilbert spaces and Abelian groups and matrices in a framework of Lie algebra. It does not get more clear than that what the tools are.

Science will take an awful public flogging when it needs to change its paradigm again. Many powerful people believe cosmological research is a waste of time and money anyway. They would like strictly practical research with no long range vision. Do we really care about better and better cellphones if we cannot search for our origins?

[desiresjab]

You have to admit, this subject is more interesting than social philosophy, which is now PC from top to bottom. I sure hope there are not too many suicides by marginalized people unable to cross the George Washington Bridge one more time. You know, them danged monuments is going to have to come down too.

I took a recent peer at Einstein's field equations. They are not as daunting as some mathematics I have looked at. I see partial differential equations. Anyone familiar with differential equations and what the variables stood for would basically understand the mechanics of the math. Of course understanding those variables well would require a lot of advanced physics. There are powerful ideas relating to many fields of mathematics and physics embedded in those innocent looking equations. Somewhere within the manipulations all the tools I mentioned in the last post are likely to come into play along with many more. Unfamiliarity with any of these individual elements dooms deep understanding of the subject. That is why almost all of us will remain railbirds to the real action, including myself, of course...

[YesNo]

One doesn't have to understand these equations at more than a superficial level. As I see them they are just maps of some objective part of reality.

I'm looking through a few books to try to understand the link between black holes, dark matter and the singularity at the big bang. My suspicion at the moment is that there is only circumstantial evidence for black holes and the encounter of G2 with Sag A* would have been the only direct evidence regarding them so far. Also I think dark matter comes from missing matter assumed to be there from the big bang, but does not seem to be needed for gravitation within our own galaxy. What I am trying to find out is how much of all of this is speculation and how much is based on real observations.

[Dreamwoven]

Some links from EarthSky.com on all this about black holes, dark matter and the big bang. The last is about a nearby Dark Matter Galaxy: go figure.
http://earthsky.org/space/dark-matter-hairs-filaments-streams-gary-prezeau?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=8a04a4c77b-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-8a04a4c77b-394044013
http://earthsky.org/space/the-cheshire-cat-group-of-galaxies?
http://earthsky.org/space/a-nearby-dark-matter-galaxy-triangulum-ii?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=8a04a4c77b-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-8a04a4c77b-394044013

[desiresjab]

Some links from EarthSky.com on all this about black holes, dark matter and the big bang. The last is about a nearby Dark Matter Galaxy: go figure.
http://earthsky.org/space/dark-matter-hairs-filaments-streams-gary-prezeau?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=8a04a4c77b-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-8a04a4c77b-394044013
http://earthsky.org/space/the-cheshire-cat-group-of-galaxies?
http://earthsky.org/space/a-nearby-dark-matter-galaxy-triangulum-ii?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=8a04a4c77b-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-8a04a4c77b-394044013

With so many results in hand and people pushing different models, the real job is in sifting through what we already have and running the appropriate experiments where possible.

Filaments of dark matter emerging from the earth might be a testable idea, since the highest concentration of the hair roots lies only 600,000 miles out in space from us.

[YesNo]

As I understand it, one of the difficulties of finding dark matter, which I doubt exists, is that although there is more of it than regular matter it is more smoothly distributed through space. It doesn't collect since it can't stick together not reacting to electromagnetic forces. Without those forces, it goes through everything. So it is diffuse, but the Sun which is relatively close to us is locally so massive the amount of dark matter is too small compared to it to be picked up by our measurements. However, I think that should be still the case at the galactic level.

It occurred to me that dark matter is like a field. One should be able to replace it with a variable G value and not have to worry about supposing there is a form of matter out there.

[desiresjab]

Given our record with less advanced cultures, a cosmic speed limit at the speed of light imposed on our kind makes sense from the point of view of beings advanced enough to actually live up to the Star Trek prime directive.

I think I should point out again that Curvature Cosmology eliminates the need for dark matter and dark energy. As one of Dream Woven's links pointed out, black holes are not a reality in some workable models.

The possibility that vastly distant celestial objects might be equally well expressible under dual and opposite exclusive interpretations raises the possibility again that there may be no further reality than our models. Whatever we think of as "out there" is only a matter of interpretation and which model we use, and either model is eqaully valid, like waves and particles are in the study of light. There is something vaguely scary about that.

[desiresjab]

We are animated postulates.

[YesNo]

Here is Stephen J. Crothers explaining why there aren't any black holes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jINHHXaPrWA It's a little long, but I found it entertaining. It looks like the only way to bring theoretical physicists down to earth when they start dividing by zero is satire.

I don't know if all of the competing models are equally valid, but until one gets some experimental data there is only the model's internal logic and one's personal metaphysics to justify it. I understand the Planck data has not provided for example any evidence of a multiverse and the lambda CDM standard cosmology model is still standard from this lecture by Charles Lawrence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCZdrfDHwgU This one is also long.

[desiresjab]

Good stuff. Only viewed the first one so far. Crothers is someone at the spear point of research. Great to hear him speak with such authority. Much of his talk inadvertantly illustrates another idea I have been talking about. He and his fellows are still hashing out the details of papers published in 1916. They are translating overlooked Russian papers from the 1940's. You see what I mean? See how long it takes humans to hash out truth in these difficult matters. With cyborg researchers, everything we are painstakingly piecing together would be accomplished in a matter of days or even hours.

[YesNo]

I like Crothers also. As I see it, we are the cyborgs.

The belief in dark matter can be traced to big bang nucleosynthesis, BBN, (distinct from later stellar nucleosynthesis) and the discrepancy between the baryon-photon ratio observed in the microwave background and the way galaxies appear to behave now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis It is interesting that the standard BBN theory matches the data for hydrogen, helium, but not for lithium, however, the non-standard models apparently mess things up even more. It is good to see data putting limits on speculation.

[desiresjab]

I have to reply before I have properly viewed everything. But I must say I wish Crothers had gone even longer. He taught me some things about the tensor calculus supercripts and subscripts. As I inch my way along, I can get closer to the mathematical ideas that inspire these guys. There are some gaps in my understanding so confusing I cannot even point out what they consist of yet. But as I creep along, unexpected tiny parts of the cavern are suddenly illuminated from various investigations. Maker of collages, I take what I can to patch my understanding of existence into a coherent picture. I am sure that is what we all do.

I feel the cynic coming on. Contemplation of diverse models which each offers a reasonable view of the universe can do that, methinks. It's enough to make one go religious!

The thing is, most of those models got one or more things wrong. They each have flaws. There may be no such thing as truth. Can't define existence, can't define consciousness, can't define intelligence--we have a ways to go. The search itself is what is exciting, and I am disappointed that the vast majority of people miss out on all of the excitement and anticipation that goes with cosmology watching.

[Dreamwoven]

I'm following the cosmology debate, and enjoying it!

[Dreamwoven]

Here is a collection of conundrums for your interest: http://www.space.com/topics/expert-voices-robert-lawrence-kuhn/

[desiresjab]

Here is a collection of conundrums for your interest: http://www.space.com/topics/expert-voices-robert-lawrence-kuhn/

I took some interesting rides there. At the moment I list slightly toward our being a type of simulation or auxillary consciousness.

[YesNo]

Here is a collection of conundrums for your interest: http://www.space.com/topics/expert-voices-robert-lawrence-kuhn/

I looked at Kuhn's video about information in this link: http://www.space.com/29477-did-information-create-the-cosmos.html

I liked the way he presented the issue about what is fundamental and that there should be something that is fundamental. Also the title was interesting: "Does Information Create the Cosmos". That's the challenge. What is the most fundamental reality that creates what we experience right now?

Rather than "information", I would say the fundamental reality is "consciousness", in a general sense, not our human example of it, that is the fundamental reality. However, that would require finding a way to get electrons and photons from consciousness. This is not simply that they are "conscious" themselves in some way, but that they are a manifestation to us of consciousness. I don't know how that happens, but I don't think information works as the fundamental reality because of Searle's Chinese room argument and Nagel's discussion of what it is "like" to be something subjectively.

[YesNo]

Another one of Kuhn's topics is consciousness: http://www.space.com/30937-when-robots-colonize-cosmos-will-they-be-conscious.html

This is a good overview containing video interviews with some of the key people involved. What I found most interesting was Kuhn's separating the different positions into five categories. This is how I understand those categories.

1) Materialism. The only fundamental reality is unconscious matter. Consciousness emerges from unconscious matter.

2) Qualia Fields. Consciousness is not reducible to unconscious matter, but it is a separate field interacting with physical fields.

3) Panpsychism. Consciousness is not reducible to unconscious matter. Matter contains consciousness as a property at the smallest levels. There is some emergence involved to get from primitive to more complicated forms of consciousness.

4) Dualism. Unconscious matter and conscious souls exist interdependently. Both unconscious matter and consciousness are fundamental.

5) Idealism. Consciousness is the only fundamental reality. Unconscious matter does not exist but what appears to be unconscious emerges from an underlying consciousness.

Most people would agree with either 1 or 4. They are either materialists or dualists. I would agree with 5.

As I see the idealist position, not everything that we have a name for is conscious as that object, but the object emerges from simpler reality that is conscious. Consciousness is characterized by an ability to make a choice, no matter how constrained that choice would be. For example, a table is not conscious as a table, but the physical reality making up the atoms of the table are conscious or emerge from a deeper consciousness. Similarly the brain is not conscious as an objectively functioning brain although the cells within the brain would be conscious as cells. Nor is a robot conscious as a robot. If the object can be identified with a programmer who determined its behavior, then it is not conscious.

Positions 1, 2 and 3 are reductionist positions while 4 and 5 are not.

[YesNo]

I went to Kuhn's "Closer to Truth" site for more interviews: http://www.closertotruth.com/ The interviews are short and give me a better understanding of the key people involved by listening to them speak.

[desiresjab]

I went to Kuhn's "Closer to Truth" site for more interviews: http://www.closertotruth.com/ The interviews are short and give me a better understanding of the key people involved by listening to them speak.

I used to watch the Kuhn show every chance I got.

[YesNo]

We got rid of cable some years ago. I never heard of Kuhn before this thread.

One of the psi experiments reminded me of the Turing test. Unfortunately I can't remember which person was being interviewed. The experiment used two people in different rooms. One was talking about whatever came to his mind. The other was just thinking about something he was viewing and tried to influence what the other was saying by using his thoughts. He could hear what the other was saying, but the speaking person could not see him.

Also it looks like Ray Kurzweil didn't think that recent Turing test success met his standards: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-response-to-announcement-of-chatbot-eugene-goostman-passing-the-turing-test

[desiresjab]

We got rid of cable some years ago. I never heard of Kuhn before this thread.

One of the psi experiments reminded me of the Turing test. Unfortunately I can't remember which person was being interviewed. The experiment used two people in different rooms. One was talking about whatever came to his mind. The other was just thinking about something he was viewing and tried to influence what the other was saying by using his thoughts. He could hear what the other was saying, but the speaking person could not see him.

Also it looks like Ray Kurzweil didn't think that recent Turing test success met his standards: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-response-to-announcement-of-chatbot-eugene-goostman-passing-the-turing-test

Yikes! Look at this. I do not think I have posted it before.

http://www.tony5m17h.net/SiragMcKayE8ID.pdf

There are some prose sections to this long paper that are readable. This is the Lie alghebra they are using to try to connect consciousness to quantum mechanics. At first I was under the impression that they were using seven and a half billion dimensions. But, ah, no worry. These are regular square matrices. Do not be discouraged that one of the matrices would be seven miles wide if each entry position were given one inch of room. Get your pencil out and start calculating!

I have no idea exactly how difficult this Lie algebra might be, because it is hard to even get an inroad. But I do know that p-adic theory may be the toughest I have looked at in terms of mastery. In p-adic theory (which is used within Lie Algebra), 48 and 1000048 are exteremely close numbers when p=10. Not sure how close 47 and 1000048 are, but I believe they are not considered close at all.

Lie Algebra evolved out of differential geometry. It is simply amazing how closely Gauss is tied to all these advanced maths that developed, some long after his death. The hand of Gauss is still all over conteporary research.

[YesNo]

I didn't understand the paper. Since it referenced many worlds multiple times I assume it is false. Or possibly even a prank.

Edit: Looking more at the paper, I don't think it is a prank, but I don't trust it because of the many worlds references.

Here is a link to a more readable account of Frank Dodd (Tony) Smith, Jr's theory: http://www.soebooks.com/11/240-of-256-elements-of-the-E8-Physics-Unified-Theory-of.html

[desiresjab]

I presented that link as a look-see at what the top dogs are using mathematically. To say they are wrong would be the height of presumption for me, since I understand the math slightly better than a third grader understands algebra.

I actually could not tell you what the author believes, after perusing the article, only that some very sophisticated tools are at work. I have wanted to get a look at the how researchers were approaching unraveling any connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness. I was curious as to what kind of tool the great researchers would feel had some kind of chance at discovering these truths. Now I know. That is all. I do not side with anyone because I do not know enough to side with anyone.

[YesNo]

This article summarizes quantum mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind

Smith's theory seems to be related to the Penrose-Hameroff position which I assume is still being pursued although its original version has encountered some falsification.

My gut feeling suggests that the brain is itself not conscious nor does it allow for consciousness to emerge from it. I don't think this is a quantum mind position, but I don't understand the quantum mind well. Regarding the brain, I suspect I would be closer to Chalmers on the issue. No physical theory, quantum or classical, can reduce consciousness to something objective and unconscious.

[YesNo]

I was looking for more information on quantum whatever and found this interview with Amit Goswami which made some sense to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnQ63AOrs6s

It is about an hour. Some of the notes I took were:

1) Objects are possibilities.

2) Consciousness chooses without any signals.

3) There was some research done by someone called Greenberg (?) in 1993 that I would like to look up showing that human brains interact non-locally. EDIT: I think I found the paper: http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/Grinberg1994.pdf

4) I didn't understand his reference to Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach", but I will have to look further into that regarding "tangled hierarchies" which has to do with perceiving and memory both being necessary for each other to exist.

5) Nothing becomes something.

6) Sheldrake's morphogenic fields allow for something I was unclear about although I have heard about this concept before.

Anyway, just something else that is hopefully related to the topic.

[desiresjab]

These gentlemen all have a lot of pretty ideas. If consciousness cannot unfold from the brain, then it seems clear you do not believe in a creator. For the creator itself would have had a schematic in mind from which it created us.

[YesNo]

What do you mean by a "schematic"? I was just thinking how sexual reproduction is almost anti-machine-like. It is also communal. Machines are individualistic and isolated.

Even quantum particles seem to behave as a group. Push them individually through a double slit and the final result forms the familiar wave pattern on the detection screen. Their choices seem to be based not only on their individual choices but on an overall group choice.

I also found reference to a neuroscientist, Mario Beauregard. His book, "Brain Wars", was in the library and I'm reading about placebos now.

[desiresjab]

I was looking for more information on quantum whatever and found this interview with Amit Goswami which made some sense to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnQ63AOrs6s

It is about an hour. Some of the notes I took were:

1) Objects are possibilities.

2) Consciousness chooses without any signals.

3) There was some research done by someone called Greenberg (?) in 1993 that I would like to look up showing that human brains interact non-locally. EDIT: I think I found the paper: http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/Grinberg1994.pdf

4) I didn't understand his reference to Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach", but I will have to look further into that regarding "tangled hierarchies" which has to do with perceiving and memory both being necessary for each other to exist.

5) Nothing becomes something.

6) Sheldrake's morphogenic fields allow for something I was unclear about although I have heard about this concept before.

Anyway, just something else that is hopefully related to the topic.

I have only read the paper so far. Tough to emerge from it with any detail. Fortunately, the authors present word pictures to help dummys like me. Pretty impressive. I wish I were doing some of that research. To really understasnd it, I believe that would be necessary for me.

The experiments speak volumes in support of swamis and gurus who meditate. It seems the actual effecs are minimal, however. No one has meditated strongly enough to lift a battleship from the water and place it a mile inland. I do not see that as possible with any amount of "mind power."

I do not believe the Global Consciousness Project has any results to brag up. Whatever the effects of meditation and concentration are, it seems they are small and unable to affect the larger scale of the world directly. Not surprising.

Can minds throw objects from a distance without touching like superheros? Not so far. Will it ever happen? I will not say it is impossible. There are no superheros yet.

[YesNo]

If materialism were true, there should be no effects at all. Not even small ones. It is probably a good thing they can't lift battleships out of the water.

Beauregard's "Brain Waves" is an interesting summary of placebo/nocebo effects, neurofeedback, neuroplasticity, hypnosis, psi, out-of-body experiences and mystical experiences. If materialism were true, none of these should even be reported.

I also found a copy of Goswami's "The Self-Aware Universe". His views in the video I linked to earlier have made me wonder just what he promotes. He seems to be a monistic idealist, that is, someone who maintains that consciousness is the only fundamental reality. That is my position. I am hoping he has a better support for that position than I do.

[YesNo]

I just read in Goswami's book (page 21) that Turing himself admitted that psi would be a way for a machine to fail the Turing test. The following quote is from "COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE" http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html where Turing addresses the "Argument from Estrasensory Perception":


I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extrasensory perception, and the meaning of the four items of it, viz., telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis. These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one's ideas so as to fit these new facts in.

Turing wrote, "If telepathy is admitted it will be necessary to tighten our test up." He would have to devise some "telepathy-proof room" assuming that were possible. Perhaps the best way would be to not allow any questioning that tested for psi ability.

Since we discussed the Turing test earlier, I think this argument by Turing himself is better than Searle's Chinese room argument I used earlier.

[desiresjab]

I just read in Goswami's book (page 21) that Turing himself admitted that psi would be a way for a machine to fail the Turing test. The following quote is from "COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE" http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html where Turing addresses the "Argument from Estrasensory Perception":


I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extrasensory perception, and the meaning of the four items of it, viz., telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis. These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one's ideas so as to fit these new facts in.

Turing wrote, "If telepathy is admitted it will be necessary to tighten our test up." He would have to devise some "telepathy-proof room" assuming that were possible. Perhaps the best way would be to not allow any questioning that tested for psi ability.

Since we discussed the Turing test earlier, I think this argument by Turing himself is better than Searle's Chinese room argument I used earlier.

Have not had time to listen to everything yet. Been busy elsewhere.

Just some passing thoughts.

For something to have no coding implies...

It means it would have that in common with randomness...

If consciousness has no coding, is it possible nevertheless with approximation techniques to get as close as any epsilon one can name to true conscious behavior, the way we get very close to randomness with psuedo random techniques?

I think perhaps so, but I realize in your view there must always remain an impassable gulf.

Psuedo random techniques fool people all the time, in sort of an analogy of the Turing Test. Psuedo randomness is the bread and butter of casinos.

[YesNo]

Have not had time to listen to everything yet. Been busy elsewhere.

Just some passing thoughts.

For something to have no coding implies...

It means it would have that in common with randomness...

If consciousness has no coding, is it possible nevertheless with approximation techniques to get as close as any epsilon one can name to true conscious behavior, the way we get very close to randomness with psuedo random techniques?

I think perhaps so, but I realize in your view there must always remain an impassable gulf.

Psuedo random techniques fool people all the time, in sort of an analogy of the Turing Test. Psuedo randomness is the bread and butter of casinos.

There is also something called a "reverse Turing test" that has more practical importance than the Turing test itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Turing_test

This is when you want to be able to tell if you are talking to a human being or some computer or program especially with an internet exchange of information. This is why you have to type in those characters distorted in an image when entering information on some web sites. So the practical problem may be how to tell with a reasonable probability that a human being is on the other side of the communication.

In the future one might be able to use psi as a test as well. This assumes that we all have some psi ability and that a test can be formulated that would be able to detect this with the probability of false positives being low enough to be acceptable.

[desiresjab]

There is also something called a "reverse Turing test" that has more practical importance than the Turing test itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Turing_test

This is when you want to be able to tell if you are talking to a human being or some computer or program especially with an internet exchange of information. This is why you have to type in those characters distorted in an image when entering information on some web sites. So the practical problem may be how to tell with a reasonable probability that a human being is on the other side of the communication.

In the future one might be able to use psi as a test as well. This assumes that we all have some psi ability and that a test can be formulated that would be able to detect this with the probability of false positives being low enough to be acceptable.

If there is anything to quantum consciousness, I have to assume that traditional methods of meditation, prayer et al, must have reached the human limit of what is naturally attainable. As in other fields of investigation and endeavor, I would expect science to now take over, determine if there is anything to it, codify it and learn to considerably increase human psi under labratory conditions under the right stimuli. Such "techniques" would not be for the common man, at least not at first. Later they might be installed in a parlor game, some kind of futuristic analogy of the ouija board.

[desiresjab]

I just found the link below. This is a gateway video. It begins with a simple counting function defined by Ramanujan and clearly explains how this leads to the intricate math of modular equations. Along the way stand by for the uniting of many objects from diverse fields of higher math into a coherent and understandable picture. Such objects as p-adic and l-adic numbers find their applicability in successive scales of the Mandlebrot set. We talked earlier about how mysterious the function of p-adic numbers was. For anyone with enough understanding who gets through this video, the practicality of that metric system will not remain a mystery. I think there is even a reference to Lie or Clifford algebras.

Earlier in the discussion we referenced Kronecker, by noting he belonged to a by now minor school of mathematical philosophy that insists real numbers, and in particular whole numbers, are the basis of reality. As he famously said: God invented the whole numbers, man invented all the rest.

The progress of the problem of counting the additive partitions of a whole number as outlined in the video, definitely moves in a direction Kronecker would have applauded, from approximations to exact numbers as solutions. Of course this is precisely the direction mathematicians always aim to move in the first place.

Many of these tools are the same ones being used by modern physicists and cosmologists in their investigations. Group theory is another field that is brought into focus briefly by the video. It is one of those averarching concepts that unites phenomena as diverse as the numerical and the physical into common systems. Groups are critical in the study of elementary particles. The way many things can behave are explained by permutation groups, which essentially manipulate and map symmetries, putting every symmetry through its paces, so to speak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj4FozCSg8g

[YesNo]

It was interesting seeing research on partition numbers in the video you cited.

[Dreamwoven]

There is an article in Space.com that suggests that half the identified planets by Kepler are false positives: http://www.space.com/31320-kepler-giant-exoplanets-false-positives.html.

[YesNo]

They were expecting there to be false positives, but not so many. It looks like we need a new and better telescope anyway since Kepler had a malfunction a couple of years ago. There are over 1000 that passed the test.

[Dreamwoven]

Do you know if one is being built and if so when it will be ready?

[Dreamwoven]

The Spitzer is operating, but I have no idea what it does: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu

[Dreamwoven]

http://jwst.nasa.gov/about.htmlThe James Webb Space Telescope is another, but due to be launched in late 2018. Uses Infra-red detection.

[YesNo]

Here is a list of space telescopes. Some of them I hadn't heard of before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_telescopes

[Dreamwoven]

That's a mind-blowing list. I had no idea...

I was enjoying your debate with desiresjab so now I will go quiet and study the list of telescopes to try to get a new perspective on telescopy.

[YesNo]

This is fascinating. Back to basics.

http://www.bookpump.com/bwp/pdf-b/9424134b.pdf

I was wondering what Crawford claimed Hubble's constant was. At the end of the paper he has this (page 83, I reformatted the numeric values):


Results for the topics of the Hubble redshift, X-ray background radiation, the cosmic background radiation and dark matter show strong support for curvature cosmology. In particular CC predicts that the Hubble constant is 64.4 +/- 0.2kms^-1 Mpc^-1 whereas the value estimated from the type 1a supernova data is 63.8 +/-0.5 kms^-1 Mpc^-1 and the result from the Coma cluster (Section 5.15) is 65.7 kms^-1 Mpc^-1.

The data from Planck (Feb 5, 2015) show the result as: http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.01589


These data are consistent with the six-parameter inflationary LCDM cosmology. From the Planck temperature and lensing data, for this cosmology we find a Hubble constant, H0= (67.8 +/- 0.9) km/s/Mpc, a matter density parameter Omega_m = 0.308 +/- 0.012 and a scalar spectral index with n_s = 0.968 +/- 0.006.

I don't know if the disagreement is critical to Crawford's theory. It looks like the Hubble constant derived from the Planck data assumes the lamda CDM standard model is true. Given this newer data I wonder what the Curvature Cosmology would derive the constant to be?

[desiresjab]

I was wondering what Crawford claimed Hubble's constant was. At the end of the paper he has this (page 83, I reformatted the numeric values):


Results for the topics of the Hubble redshift, X-ray background radiation, the cosmic background radiation and dark matter show strong support for curvature cosmology. In particular CC predicts that the Hubble constant is 64.4 +/- 0.2kms^-1 Mpc^-1 whereas the value estimated from the type 1a supernova data is 63.8 +/-0.5 kms^-1 Mpc^-1 and the result from the Coma cluster (Section 5.15) is 65.7 kms^-1 Mpc^-1.

The data from Planck (Feb 5, 2015) show the result as: http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.01589


These data are consistent with the six-parameter inflationary LCDM cosmology. From the Planck temperature and lensing data, for this cosmology we find a Hubble constant, H0= (67.8 +/- 0.9) km/s/Mpc, a matter density parameter Omega_m = 0.308 +/- 0.012 and a scalar spectral index with n_s = 0.968 +/- 0.006.

I don't know if the disagreement is critical to Crawford's theory. It looks like the Hubble constant derived from the Planck data assumes the lamda CDM standard model is true. Given this newer data I wonder what the Curvature Cosmology would derive the constant to be?

Good pick up. In the first instance, the diagreement is about 1% either way. 1% is pretty monsterous. Trying to adjust for interstellar dust and gravitational lensing, all the while screening out background "noise" of various types, one wonders why there is not even more discrepancy between the systems. It is playing soccer where the goal is hidden.

Somehow one doubts that all figures for each system were derived independently. I think that is mentioned in the paper. Ahem, doesn't one use the rival's best measurements as fuel to prime their own engines?

It is a multi-dimensional, multi-player chess game of unknown infinitude or finitude. A clear winner is not in sight, I believe. All players already have strengths and weaknesses in their formations.

Right about here, Yessy boy, is a big gate where most mathematicians say, wait a minute, I'm a poet.

Unless one goes in and crunches differential equations, goes in and manipulates in tensor calculus, goes in and calculates in multi-dimensional Lie matrices, all in a coordinated manner and to a purpose, with all constants and variables applied correctly, the force, angle or mass of every one of them understood in the overall context, one does not get much closer, but just crowds the gate, methinks. This requires a great deal of advanced physics, in addition to the advanced math.

I am happy to be a gate crowder. Like many, though, I still plot a way inside. I doubt I will ever get through that gate, but things nearly as strange have already happened in my intellectual life. At this gate are some very interesting discussions. This or that crowder might have enough information to quibble on arbitrary points, to the enlightenment of all. Many can ask interesting questions.

Spinoza ..thought determines action, desire determines thought, instinct determines desire...therefore there is no free will, seems distant and quaint to us now, but worth reciting as one pole of the argument in time.

I get caught in recreations of depth. There are the recreations of depth I have gotten to and the ones I hope to get to.

One recreation is unsolved problems in number theory. It is one field of mathematics where everyone is allowed to play. Anything advanced you know is just gravy, because there is analytical number theory, too (meaning using calculus in addition to algebra).

I write articles of discovery to myself all the time, to keep this a little bit about writing. For instance, I have an original proof of Fermat's little theorem. Someone else probably proved this simple theorem before me in this way, but the point is I didn't know about it and was able to do it myself. I demanded absolute lucidity and got it, a visulization of irreproachable, irrefutable clarity.

I demand this same clarity of quadratic reciprocity in modular arithmetic, but have not yet acheived it. I am close. I have what I would call a good understanding. I know the theorem from diverse angles, can follow standard proofs. I have a multi-layered point of view. The visulaization is beginning to stir. Do I have such a visualization within me, or will it remain a shadowy thing that seems to stir on the ground and never stands?

It is my highest immediate goal in math, I frankly admit. Until I can see right through it the way I can see right through Fermat's little theorem in a visualization, I will never be through with it. It is as central to number theory as the Pythagorean theorem is to geometry and trig, but a lot more difficult. Even Euler was not up to hashing out all its difficulties, which is really saying something, since this guy in math is up there with Bach and Monet, if you will. Only the foremost of all mathematicians Gauss was able to bring this problem to rest, proving it eight different ways in his lifetime. Gauss made a little mini-career of crushing problems that had crushed the greatest mathematicians before him, sometimes for thousands of years. Gauss is what Ramanujan would have been, lucky enough to be born right in time and space. Those two were born to it, we know for certain. We know Mozart was born into music, and most likely for it, though one feels a mathematical rearing instead of a musical one in the case of mozart might have produced a superb mathematician rather than a superb musician and composer. He displayed exactly the same ability to "calculate" in his head, composing multiple pieces in various mediums before bothering to write them down.

Shakespeare is the tough one. Was the universally consensus greatest poet/dramatist of all time born to it? That does not mean he did not have to work ceaselessly at his art.

[YesNo]

About Spinoza's determinism it seems that instinct only provides constraints and dispositions rather than determining anything. For example, sexual desire is like a carrot disposing us to say yes to pleasure rather than forcing us to do so.

Do you have a link to your proof of Fermat's little theorem? I would be interested in reading it.

There are people who can visualize numbers. I remember seeing someone who could recite pi to many decimal places by visualizing what the number should be. I will see if I can find that youtube video again.

Edit: Danial Tammet comes to mind as a savant with abilities to calculate and visualize numbers. There is also Jason Padgett: http://www.livescience.com/45349-brain-injury-turns-man-into-math-genius.html

[desiresjab]

About Spinoza's determinism it seems that instinct only provides constraints and dispositions rather than determining anything. For example, sexual desire is like a carrot disposing us to say yes to pleasure rather than forcing us to do so.

Do you have a link to your proof of Fermat's little theorem? I would be interested in reading it.

There are people who can visualize numbers. I remember seeing someone who could recite pi to many decimal places by visualizing what the number should be. I will see if I can find that youtube video again.

Edit: Danial Tammet comes to mind as a savant with abilities to calculate and visualize numbers. There is also Jason Padgett: http://www.livescience.com/45349-brain-injury-turns-man-into-math-genius.html

Tammet must have irregularities in his corpus colosum, which separates the brain's two hemispheres. Some people have an unnatural correspondence between the two hemispheres, synesthetes being notable.

Tammet is a savant, not a genius in the traditional sense. No one has figured out a way to make his astounding abilities work for humanity in a large way. If we ourselves were a bit smarter--say two hundred years smarter--I think it a fair assumption that Tammet would have much more to tell us. How do you talk to a dolphin, though? We are not yet smart enough to do that in their own language, either. Fran Peak, on the other hand, was a classic idiot savant. For all his abilities you could not get much out of him because he does not comprehend or apprehend the world in conventional terms whatsoever.

Do you know the brain preserves in an identifiable marking on the frontal lobe the learning of a stringed instrument early in life? Einstein had this marking from early violin lessons. It looks something like a horseshoe, and I myself will have it from learning guitar early. If you learned a stringed instrument early in life, you will have this marking!

Now get ready for something eerie. If you learned piano instead of a stringed instrument, the same marking is there all right, but on the other hemisphere. I do not know what happens if you learned both simultaneously, or what kind of marking there is for wind instruments or other groups. Piano is actually classified as a percussive instrument, I believe. Somehow I doubt a snare drummer has the same marking, but who knows?

Okay, a(p-1)=1 (mod p) is the standard form of Fermat's little theorem, and the equals sign is a congruence symbol, which is three parallel lines instead of two. Congruence means two numbers belong to the same congruence class.

Roughly, you can say two numbers are congruent if they give the same remainder when divided by another particular number, usually called p because it is a prime. Instead of mod, think of the word divisor, for that is exactly what a modulus is.

A more beautiful and insightful form comes from the preceding step in the usual modern proof, and is ap=a (mod p). Take a picture of that. This is a very intriguing congruence. You can always think of what is in front of the mod symbol as the remainder in a division which has already taken place, or that is going to take place. In our case it was when ap was divided by p. This left a remainder of a, which is enough to hear heavenly choirs sing as one instinctively asks why?

Now a does not have to be prime, but for illustrative purposes, choosing from among the smallest primes has obvious advantages. The theorem says it is only true when p, the exponent, is a prime, though, and a is not a multiple or a factor of p. This is called being relatively prime. But two primes are always relatively prime to each other. Another reason to choose them.

To envision what ap=a (divisor p) means, lay down three tiles of length 5. Next to them, lay down tiles of length 3. Proceed until you have laid down six of the 3 length tiles. If you had stopped at five of the latter, the two strips of tiles would be of equal length, but as it now stands we have one tile of length 3 sticking out. Because we are dealing with two primes, we could have done our operations in either order. In other words, in our example either 3 or 5 can serve as the modulus (divisor), as you choose, and it does not matter which tiles we lay down first or think of as the divisor. We could have a 5 "sticking out" if we had gone the other way, is the only difference, and it makes no difference.

3·3·3·3·3/5 is the division we have going on, by the way.

The points along the number line which have 3 and 5 (a and p) as a common factor can be marked mentally. Why ap always leaves an a sticking out (the remainder) when divided by p, is the question illustrated above with tiles, but not yet proven. To prove that ap always leaves an a sticking out, try:

Factoring 35-3, as a concrete example. The first one, 3(34-1), is easy enough. But as you continue to factor, fractions come into play. 3·3(33-1/3) (mod 5) , means the logic of the proof relies on modular inverses and a few other tricky concepts. I leave the final steps as an exercise.

(Hint): The object is to show that the expression 35-3, more generally known as ap-a, belongs to the zero class. No more is necessary.

P.S. Going with the visualization for a proof turns a simple proof into one more difficult, but we had to stay with the illustration because it makes the concept so clear.

P.S.S. I made a mistake with the factorization and corrected it. I marked that part in red. Formerly, I had 9 as the denominator of the fraction. That would occur on the next factorization. I have also included the mod operator there, to make things even more clear.

[desiresjab]

What does my last post have to do with cosmology? Well, plenty, perhaps.

Earlier in the discussion we sort of determined that as far as man's imagination goes, even God is limited in the kind of universe which that entity could create. Specifically, that entity could not create a universe where two is not the sucessor of one. If we settle for that, and I have, then just how far does that idea extend into mathematics? Does it mean God would also be incapable of creating a universe where Fermat's little theorem is not true?

Huge question. I don't know how to answer it.

[desiresjab]

It is an astounding thought. God could only make universes which obey our mathematics. God cannot make a physical universe which does not obey some mathematics, cannot make a universe where alternative algebraic structures are not possible, could not make a universe where any of the notions of our mathematics are false, other than twiddling with basic axioms as we ourselves have already done.

Well, someone must have a thought on that. A God constrained by mathematics. Actually, that is, constrained by the leap from mathematics to matter. Or is it just mathematics that constrains God? That one is tough. Help me out, somebody.

[YesNo]

Do you know the brain preserves in an identifiable marking on the frontal lobe the learning of a stringed instrument early in life? Einstein had this marking from early violin lessons. It looks something like a horseshoe, and I myself will have it from learning guitar early. If you learned a stringed instrument early in life, you will have this marking!

Now get ready for something eerie. If you learned piano instead of a stringed instrument, the same marking is there all right, but on the other hemisphere. I do not know what happens if you learned both simultaneously, or what kind of marking there is for wind instruments or other groups. Piano is actually classified as a percussive instrument, I believe. Somehow I doubt a snare drummer has the same marking, but who knows?

I didn't know about these markings, but it supports the idea of neuroplasticity which is part of a recent kind of evidence of how the mind affects the brain rather than the other way around.



Okay, a(p-1)=1 (mod p) is the standard form of Fermat's little theorem, and the equals sign is a congruence symbol, which is three parallel lines instead of two. Congruence means two numbers belong to the same congruence class.

Roughly, you can say two numbers are congruent if they give the same remainder when divided by another particular number, usually called p because it is a prime. Instead of mod, think of the word divisor, for that is exactly what a modulus is.

A more beautiful and insightful form comes from the preceding step in the usual modern proof, and is ap=a (mod p). Take a picture of that. This is a very intriguing congruence. You can always think of what is in front of the mod symbol as the remainder in a division which has already taken place, or that is going to take place. In our case it was when ap was divided by p. This left a remainder of a, which is enough to hear heavenly choirs sing as one instinctively asks why?

Now a does not have to be prime, but for illustrative purposes, choosing from among the smallest primes has obvious advantages. The theorem says it is only true when p, the exponent, is a prime, though, and a is not a multiple or a factor of p. This is called being relatively prime. But two primes are always relatively prime to each other. Another reason to choose them.

To envision what ap=a (divisor p) means, lay down three tiles of length 5. Next to them, lay down tiles of length 3. Proceed until you have laid down six of the 3 length tiles. If you had stopped at five of the latter, the two strips of tiles would be of equal length, but as it now stands we have one tile of length 3 sticking out. Because we are dealing with two primes, we could have done our operations in either order. In other words, in our example either 3 or 5 can serve as the modulus (divisor), as you choose, and it does not matter which tiles we lay down first or think of as the divisor. We could have a 5 "sticking out" if we had gone the other way, is the only difference, and it makes no difference.

3·3·3·3·3/5 is the division we have going on, by the way.

The points along the number line which have 3 and 5 (a and p) as a common factor can be marked mentally. Why ap always leaves an a sticking out (the remainder) when divided by p, is the question illustrated above with tiles, but not yet proven. To prove that ap always leaves an a sticking out, try:

Factoring 35-3, as a concrete example. The first one, 3(34-1), is easy enough. But as you continue to factor, fractions come into play. 3·3(33-1/3) (mod 5) , means the logic of the proof relies on modular inverses and a few other tricky concepts. I leave the final steps as an exercise.

(Hint): The object is to show that the expression 35-3, more generally known as ap-a, belongs to the zero class. No more is necessary.

P.S. Going with the visualization for a proof turns a simple proof into one more difficult, but we had to stay with the illustration because it makes the concept so clear.

P.S.S. I made a mistake with the factorization and corrected it. I marked that part in red. Formerly, I had 9 as the denominator of the fraction. That would occur on the next factorization. I have also included the mod operator there, to make things even more clear.

Here is a link to a variety of proofs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_of_Fermat%27s_little_theorem

I am familiar with the ones for modular arithmetic and the proof using the binomial theorem. I was unaware of Golomb's combinatorial proof: http://www.cimat.mx/~mmoreno/teaching/spring08/Fermats_Little_Thm.pdf. One thing Golomb asks which is important for these proofs to make sure they are correct is where do they use the hypothesis that p is prime since the result is not in general true for all integers.

I am still trying to understand your proof about tiling as well as the dynamical system proof mentioned in the link of proofs above.

[YesNo]

It is an astounding thought. God could only make universes which obey our mathematics. God cannot make a physical universe which does not obey some mathematics, cannot make a universe where alternative algebraic structures are not possible, could not make a universe where any of the notions of our mathematics are false, other than twiddling with basic axioms as we ourselves have already done.

Well, someone must have a thought on that. A God constrained by mathematics. Actually, that is, constrained by the leap from mathematics to matter. Or is it just mathematics that constrains God? That one is tough. Help me out, somebody.

I subscribe to Robert Prechter's Elliott Wave reports. This seems to me to be a similar view of how markets behave. They are not the result of rational activity on the part of market participants but rather "social mood" which is a sort of unconscious herding even when people are apparently making individual decisions to take on risk by buying equities and bonds. What causes social mood? It would be based on Fibonacci (mathematical) constraints on impulsive and corrective waves and not fundamental events.

I find this a little too deterministic at times and there must be multiple herds in place since for each buyer following some herd there is a seller following another herd and apparently Prechter thinks he can think outside this herding box. But it seems to work and I keep wondering what herd I am in. What I like about it is the idea that we are constrained by systems (or consciousness) above our own rather than by something unconscious below us. It is similar to Niles Eldredge's punctuated equilibria where the biological species are considered to be real and above our individual existences providing us with additional constraints such as pair bonding.

Unlike your perspective about God's constraints, these are systems providing dynamic constraints. I suspect God is also constrained as to how hydrogen behaves, but I don't know that it matters if consciousness is fundamental.

[desiresjab]

I subscribe to Robert Prechter's Elliott Wave reports. This seems to me to be a similar view of how markets behave. They are not the result of rational activity on the part of market participants but rather "social mood" which is a sort of unconscious herding even when people are apparently making individual decisions to take on risk by buying equities and bonds. What causes social mood? It would be based on Fibonacci (mathematical) constraints on impulsive and corrective waves and not fundamental events.

I find this a little too deterministic at times and there must be multiple herds in place since for each buyer following some herd there is a seller following another herd and apparently Prechter thinks he can think outside this herding box. But it seems to work and I keep wondering what herd I am in. What I like about it is the idea that we are constrained by systems (or consciousness) above our own rather than by something unconscious below us. It is similar to Niles Eldredge's punctuated equilibria where the biological species are considered to be real and above our individual existences providing us with additional constraints such as pair bonding.

Unlike your perspective about God's constraints, these are systems providing dynamic constraints. I suspect God is also constrained as to how hydrogen behaves, but I don't know that it matters if consciousness is fundamental.

Fortunately, these thoughts are interesting in themselves, for I don't see how they connect with what I said about Godly constraints. No matter.

We might be able to apply a certain stimulus to a mosquito or a dolphin, and cause a certain behavior in them. We might make them herd, for instance. We said something, we just don't know exactly what it is, we only know it causes this behavior.

The people can be gathered by a signal to the town square. A variety of meanings could be attached to their coming there, and we do not know which is correct necessarily, just as in the case with animal communications. It takes an even more well designed experiment to know what we ourselves have said in their terms. At face value, we do not know if the people showed up in the square to pray, for a town meeting, to dance, for an emergency announcement or for something else. We gave the signal, but what does it mean to those who responded?

[desiresjab]

I didn't know about these markings, but it supports the idea of neuroplasticity which is part of a recent kind of evidence of how the mind affects the brain rather than the other way around.



Here is a link to a variety of proofs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_of_Fermat%27s_little_theorem

I am familiar with the ones for modular arithmetic and the proof using the binomial theorem. I was unaware of Golomb's combinatorial proof: http://www.cimat.mx/~mmoreno/teaching/spring08/Fermats_Little_Thm.pdf. One thing Golomb asks which is important for these proofs to make sure they are correct is where do they use the hypothesis that p is prime since the result is not in general true for all integers.

I am still trying to understand your proof about tiling as well as the dynamical system proof mentioned in the link of proofs above.

I have looked at all these proofs before, in keeping with my many perspectives philosophy. The combinatorial proof is not bad, but the simplest proof is the first proof given by way of modular arithmetic. All you have to know beforehand is that when you multiply the elements of the set {1, 2, 3, 4,....n} by a constant a, the original set is merely reproduced in a different order by the multiplication. This is where you get to Wilson's theorem from, as well.

[YesNo]

I have looked at all these proofs before, in keeping with my many perspectives philosophy. The combinatorial proof is not bad, but the simplest proof is the first proof given by way of modular arithmetic. All you have to know beforehand is that when you multiply the elements of the set {1, 2, 3, 4,....n} by a constant a, the original set is merely reproduced in a different order by the multiplication. This is where you get to Wilson's theorem from, as well.

That different order is what leads me to have doubts about the proof although I know the result is correct. It does use the hypothesis that p is prime.


Fortunately, these thoughts are interesting in themselves, for I don't see how they connect with what I said about Godly constraints. No matter.


What I thought was similar was that both of you use mathematics more than I would. I would like to see something more conscious involved.

[desiresjab]

That different order is what leads me to have doubts about the proof although I know the result is correct. It does use the hypothesis that p is prime.

I lost a long reply because my computer froze up. Just as well. It was probably too pedantic and meandering.

The question is whether the set {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,...n} will actually reproduce itself in its entirety when each member is multiplied by the same constant. Remember that under a modulus numbers have nowhere to go when multiplied, except to one or another residue class of the reisdue system. They are trapped, they do nothing but cycle.

For modulus 7, 94827165103984648126484356, is in one or another of the 7 seven residue classes. That much is gauranteed, because all integers are. That huge number above can always be reduced to one of the reside classes and its most basic, i.e. smallest representative of the class.

{49, 1, 2, 38, 4, 705, 6}, is also a complete residue system of 7, because each class is represented once, even though some of the representatives are not fully reduced. That makes no difference. All numbers in a residue class are exactly equivalent, and may be substituted for one another at any point in calculations.

Below is the real key, the short expo.

If x and y are already congruent, then ax and ay will still be congruent, i.e. belong to the same residue class as each other after the multiplication, though it may now be a different class they are in together. This is one of the fundamental properties of conguences.

The property works in reverse, as well. The members of the set were all mutually incongruent to each other to begin with, because they belonged to different residue classes. Multiplied by the same constant a, they must all remain incongruent, as each cycles around the clock face according to the multiplier, to its eventaul slot.

Since they must all remain mutually incongruent after the multiplication, they are trapped again, the seven different products have no choice but to represent each residue class, lest two of them be congruent, which members of different residue classes cannot be, by definition.

I enjoyed that. I really had to think it through. I am lucky my computer crashed three times, as it turns out.

Everything that needs to be understood with regards to "a different order" is contained in the last three paragraphs of my last post.

[YesNo]

I lost a long reply because my computer froze up. Just as well. It was probably too pedantic and meandering.

The question is whether the set {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,...n} will actually reproduce itself in its entirety when each member is multiplied by the same constant. Remember that under a modulus numbers have nowhere to go when multiplied, except to one or another residue class of the reisdue system. They are trapped, they do nothing but cycle.

For modulus 7, 94827165103984648126484356, is in one or another of the 7 seven residue classes. That much is gauranteed, because all integers are. That huge number above can always be reduced to one of the reside classes and its most basic, i.e. smallest representative of the class.

{49, 2, 38, 4, 505, 6}, is also a complete residue system of 7, because each class is represented once, even though some of the representatives are not fully reduced. That makes no difference. All numbers in a residue class are exactly equivalent, and may be substituted for one another at any point in calculations.

Shouldn't there be 7 elements in the set making the elements congruent to {0,1,2,3,4,5,6}?



Below is the real key, the short expo.

If x and y are already congruent, then ax and ay will still be congruent, i.e. belong to the same residue class as each other after the multiplication, though it may now be a different class they are in together. This is one of the fundamental properties of conguences.

That makes sense because given a prime p and x = y mod p then given an integer a, ax = ay mod p. In this case a could equal 0.



The property works in reverse, as well. The members of the set were all mutually incongruent to each other to begin with, because they belonged to different residue classes. Multiplied by the same constant a, they must all remain incongruent, as each cycles around the clock face according to the multiplier, to its eventaul slot.

Going in the other direction if x is not congruent to y mod a prime p then multiplying x and y by a = 0 would make them congruent. The proof in the link avoids a = 0 for ap-1 = 1 mod p by making sure 0 < a < p. However ap = a mod p works for a = 0 since one can factor out the a.

So my question would be given any prime p, how do we know there aren't other residues that act like 0 in the set of residues mod p besides 0?

Now I know there is only one element that acts as a zero as well as only one element that acts as a unit (1), but I wonder if this requires some sort of proof or can it be assumed at this point?

Edit: This does seem to be where we need the hypothesis that p is a prime. If p were 4, then 2*2 = 0 mod 4. These residue classes mod a prime form finite fields: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_field



Since they must all remain mutually incongruent after the multiplication, they are trapped again, the seven different products have no choice but to represent each residue class, lest two of them be congruent, which members of different residue classes cannot be, by definition.

[desiresjab]

You are right. I did miss an element in a set I listed. Sorry about that. I went back and corrected it.

The zero class of residues is generally left out of many procedures in the business, I believe, because it has no inverse and some other reasons. I did not leave the zero class out, though, because 49≡0 (mod 7). I left out one of the other classes by oversight.

I may have made other mistakes.

The fundamental property that if a≡b (mod p), then ax≡bx (mod p), has an analogue with addition, for it is also fundamental that if a≡b (mod p), then a+x≡b+x (mod p).

It is also true with exponents. If a≡b (mod p), then an≡bn (mod p)

Being able to accept with clarity just these three properties, is essential. They are powerful tools and lead many places.

I have satisfied myself with respect to Fermat's little theorem. I feel I have seen to the bottom of the well on that one. It has been reduced to a compact visualization.

Seeing to the bottom of the well on quadratic reciprocity may not be possible for me. The kind of visualization I seek may not be a realistic possibility. I think such understanding may involve seeing to the bottom of the well on Eisenstein's geometric proof, for he has probably already reduced it to its simplest representation. The innocent eye will not even detect a relation between Eisenstein's lattice points in a rectangular array and the law of QR, that is how far he has gone. To understand his proof, an understanding of other proofs and a familiarity with their notations is essential. I am pretty sure you have to have this intimate familiarity to see to the bottom of the well, even with Eisenstein's deceptively simple proof. When I can do that, or have devised my own representation, only then may I be able to say I have seen to the bottom of the well with respect to QR. That would be a nice feeling to experience, and I wonder if I am going to have it.

Think how powerful the mind of Artin had to be, to finally conquer general reciprocity, when even little ol' quadratic reciprocity is so tangled and tough. How monumental was that task?

[YesNo]

I have satisfied myself with respect to Fermat's little theorem. I feel I have seen to the bottom of the well on that one. It has been reduced to a compact visualization.

Seeing to the bottom of the well on quadratic reciprocity may not be possible for me. The kind of visualization I seek may not be a realistic possibility. I think such understanding may involve seeing to the bottom of the well on Eisenstein's geometric proof, for he has probably already reduced it to its simplest representation. The innocent eye will not even detect a relation between Eisenstein's lattice points in a rectangular array and the law of QR, that is how far he has gone. To understand his proof, an understanding of other proofs and a familiarity with their notations is essential. I am pretty sure you have to have this intimate familiarity to see to the bottom of the well, even with Eisenstein's deceptively simple proof. When I can do that, or have devised my own representation, only then may I be able to say I have seen to the bottom of the well with respect to QR. That would be a nice feeling to experience, and I wonder if I am going to have it.

Don't give up hope. However, if you wanted to see to the bottom of the well of Joyce's "Finnegans Wake", I would recommend despair. The bottom may be a lot shallower than quadratic reciprocity.

I checked this on quadratic reciprocity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_reciprocity

It looks like it starts with Fermat's little theorem relating ap-1 = 1 mod p and then asks what one can say about a(p-1)/2 = +/- 1 mod p. I don't understand it. Nor do I understand Artin's generalization, but perhaps we can try to clarify that for each other.

[desiresjab]

Don't give up hope. However, if you wanted to see to the bottom of the well of Joyce's "Finnegans Wake", I would recommend despair. The bottom may be a lot shallower than quadratic reciprocity.

I checked this on quadratic reciprocity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_reciprocity

It looks like it starts with Fermat's little theorem relating ap-1 = 1 mod p and then asks what one can say about a(p-1)/2 = +/- 1 mod p. I don't understand it. Nor do I understand Artin's generalization, but perhaps we can try to clarify that for each other.

The theory of primitive roots is another interesting study in number theory. Fermat's little theorem does not say whether a(p-1) is the first power that equals one under the modulus. There could have been earlier powers that are equal to 1. Primitive roots are equal to 1 for the first time at (p-1). So primitve roots are special and a whole theory is built around them.

I cannot even see beneath the water in Finnegan's Wake. Two or three hundred years from now people will still feel the same about that book. Every human being on earth with a clear understanding of Relativty would be more likely than everyone with an understanding of Finnegan's Wake. Now that book is opaque.

The first to fully understand that book will probably be a meatie with integrated implants.

You are right about the multiplication by zero. My own proof relied on a factorization which allowed me to show that some of the factors belonged to the zero class of residues (remainders).

General reciprocity means all of them, the cubic, the quatric, the quintric... What are the laws of general reciprocity, not just quadratic, you see? Artin manged to untangle that. He is one of the great math men of all time that you never hear about. General reciprocity was a problem from Hilbert's original famous list. Finding the solution of any one of those problems guarantees one immortality. Many of those problems have now been solved. In one article Artin is referred to as the preemminent algebraist of the 20th century.

There are many angles to view QR from. They are all correct but they all illustrate different aspects of it. It has many different equivalent statements.

Basically, it compares two primes to find out if either is in the other's quadratic residue set. I know that is a mouthful. Let us compare 3 and 5, for the sake of simplicity. Are there any numbers in the baisc residue set of 3 which when squared are equal to 5 (mod 3)? But 5 is equal to 2 (mod 3). Are there any numbers under three which equal 2 when squared, then? There are only 1 squared and 2 squared, which both equal 1 (mod 3).

Now we ask the reverse question--can the number 3 be found when the numbers less than 5 are squared (mod 5)? Let us look. 12=1, 22=4, 32=4, 42=1 all mod (5).

These numbers (3 and 5) are not quadratic residues of each other, since neither can be found in the other's quadratic residue set. This gives them, when multipled together, as in the Legendre symbol, a value of 1, because (-1)(-1)=1.

Another way of stating the general law is that if either of the primes being compared is a 4n+1 type prime, then both primes are either in the other's set, or both are not.

In one species of case, where we have two primes of 4n+3 variety, one will be in the other's quadratic residue set, and the other will not be in the other's. In this case we have a kind of quadratic irreciprocty, as I like to call it, and the value of the Legendre will be -1, since (-1)(1)=-1. Only in the case of two 4n+3 primes will the Legendre symbol ever equal -1.

two 4n+3 types=-1
one of each type=1
two 4n+1 types=1

When we compared 3 and 5, we had one of each type. We only need to find one value, in this case, because the other is guaranteed to have the same "character" as its companion when the two primes are of different types. One calculation is always easier than the opposite way. The easy calculation always implies the answer to the other prime.

The same reasoning applies when comparing two 4n+3 type primes. Do the easy calculation, and the other value is automatically known to be of opposite "character" to that one.

There is a strong concept of periods involved in reciprocity, which I do not have a full grip on yet. Once, I thought I had it rassled down and pinned, but my hold was illegal. Modulus rings are all about periods. They have torsion, which means multiplying by a larger number can make them smaller sometimes. Normal arithmetic is not entirely applicable in modulus rings, obviously. A firmer understanding of which periods affect reciprocity and how, would clean things up a bit for myself, methinks. Actually, QR has me tired for the moment, but I will cycle back in a few days refreshed. Repeated seiges must win a war of attrition.

The fact that prolonged seiges are necessary, means I am dumb, neither a first class nor a second class mathematician, when one considers, my God, that Gauss gave as criterion for a first class mathematician an immediate understanding of Euler's formula eiπ+1=0, where that exponent that comes out looking like a weird M is actually the Greek letter pi, and i is the imaginary number the square root of -1. Also, e is the constant found universally in nature. Mathematically, e is a function which is its own derivative and integral, which makes it really cool, and it is also a transcendental number!

There is more to the complexity of QR, though the 4n+1 and 4n+3 rules stand fast through all.

[YesNo]

The theory of primitive roots is another interesting study in number theory. Fermat's little theorem does not say whether a(p-1) is the first power that equals one under the modulus. There could have been earlier powers that are equal to 1. Primitive roots are equal to 1 for the first time at (p-1). So primitve roots are special and a whole theory is built around them.

I noticed there is a conjecture Artin made about primitive roots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artin%27s_conjecture_on_primitive_roots

Maybe we can try to prove it for a = 3. I hear it hasn't been shown even for one value.



I cannot even see beneath the water in Finnegan's Wake. Two or three hundred years from now people will still feel the same about that book. Every human being on earth with a clear understanding of Relativty would be more likely than everyone with an understanding of Finnegan's Wake. Now that book is opaque.

The first to fully understand that book will probably be a meatie with integrated implants.

Or someone with a computer with nothing better to do.

Here's a site with a lot of integer sequences: https://oeis.org/A005596



General reciprocity means all of them, the cubic, the quatric, the quintric... What are the laws of general reciprocity, not just quadratic, you see? Artin manged to untangle that. He is one of the great math men of all time that you never hear about. General reciprocity was a problem from Hilbert's original famous list. Finding the solution of any one of those problems guarantees one immortality. Many of those problems have now been solved. In one article Artin is referred to as the preemminent algebraist of the 20th century.

There are many angles to view QR from. They are all correct but they all illustrate different aspects of it. It has many different equivalent statements.

Basically, it compares two primes to find out if either is in the other's quadratic residue set. I know that is a mouthful. Let us compare 3 and 5, for the sake of simplicity. Are there any numbers in the baisc residue set of 3 which when squared are equal to 5 (mod 3)? But 5 is equal to 2 (mod 3). Are there any numbers under three which equal 2 when squared, then? There are only 1 squared and 2 squared, which both equal 1 (mod 3).

Now we ask the reverse question--can the number 3 be found when the numbers less than 5 are squared (mod 5)? Let us look. 12=1, 22=4, 32=4, 42=1 all mod (5).

These numbers (3 and 5) are not quadratic residues of each other, since neither can be found in the other's quadratic residue set. This gives them, when multipled together, as in the Legendre symbol, a value of 1, because (-1)(-1)=1.

Another way of stating the general law is that if either of the primes being compared is a 4n+1 type prime, then both primes are either in the other's set, or both are not.

In one species of case, where we have two primes of 4n+3 variety, one will be in the other's quadratic residue set, and the other will not be in the other's. In this case we have a kind of quadratic irreciprocty, as I like to call it, and the value of the Legendre will be -1, since (-1)(1)=-1. Only in the case of two 4n+3 primes will the Legendre symbol ever equal -1.

two 4n+3 types=-1
one of each type=1
two 4n+1 types=1

When we compared 3 and 5, we had one of each type. We only need to find one value, in this case, because the other is guaranteed to have the same "character" as its companion when the two primes are of different types. One calculation is always easier than the opposite way. The easy calculation always implies the answer to the other prime.

The same reasoning applies when comparing two 4n+3 type primes. Do the easy calculation, and the other value is automatically known to be of opposite "character" to that one.

There is a strong concept of periods involved in reciprocity, which I do not have a full grip on yet. Once, I thought I had it rassled down and pinned, but my hold was illegal. Modulus rings are all about periods. They have torsion, which means multiplying by a larger number can make them smaller sometimes. Normal arithmetic is not entirely applicable in modulus rings, obviously. A firmer understanding of which periods affect reciprocity and how, would clean things up a bit for myself, methinks. Actually, QR has me tired for the moment, but I will cycle back in a few days refreshed. Repeated seiges must win a war of attrition.

The fact that prolonged seiges are necessary, means I am dumb, neither a first class nor a second class mathematician, when one considers, my God, that Gauss gave as criterion for a first class mathematician an immediate understanding of Euler's formula eiπ+1=0, where that exponent that comes out looking like a weird M is actually the Greek letter pi, and i is the imaginary number the square root of -1. Also, e is the constant found universally in nature. Mathematically, e is a function which is its own derivative and integral, which makes it really cool, and it is also a transcendental number!

There is more to the complexity of QR, though the 4n+1 and 4n+3 rules stand fast through all.

So why do people care about these reciprocity relationships?

Regarding eiπ+1=0 wouldn't this be just (-1,0) on the unit circle? With eix = cos x + i sin x? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_formula

[desiresjab]

I noticed there is a conjecture Artin made about primitive roots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artin%27s_conjecture_on_primitive_roots

Maybe we can try to prove it for a = 3. I hear it hasn't been shown even for one value.

So why do people care about these reciprocity relationships?

Regarding eiπ+1=0 wouldn't this be just (-1,0) on the unit circle? With eix = cos x + i sin x? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_formula

I have not read about Artin's conjecture yet. I do not think I want to try solving anything even for 3 that the greats have failed to answer. One such problem on a man's calendar is quite enough, and I already have such a problem. It is called Brocard's problem, and I have been working on it for years. Investigating it has caused me to study in detail the classical elements of number theory, so the project, though hopeless, has not been fruitless.

As for the Euler equation, that is what it represents all right. If you saw that immediately, and then exactly what the trig function means, you will be a first rate mathematician, son. Congratulations.

It is now evident I am a thorough amateur. By thorough I must mean strictly. But I am an assiduous one, perhaps too dumb to relent.

Now I need a new project all right. Seeing to the bottom of the well on something as complex as QR requires some projects in between, otherwise you are just stuck in one place and are not learning anything. My method has been to study those areas I think might yield fruit on my Brocard project. Since I can never reasonably hope to solve Brocard's problem, what I can get out of the pursuit is whatever I can pick up that might relate to understanding it better. This leads a man far afield into pleasurable pursuits of learning, and at least partially justifies the obsession with an unsolved problem which some of the ATG's of mathematics have looked at without success.

Next I will take a look at your Artin link. I am well travelled on the other site. Sequences and series is one of my favorite aspects of math. The historical importance of series cannot be over valued. Studying series is one of the most fun things a human can do, at least this silly human finds it exhilerating.

Now I must hunt for something which I do not understand and which looks aesthetically appealing and relevant. In between, I write poetry, stories and novels, just like the other folks on the forum do. I seldom try to get anything published because I am too busy sorting everything at once. Dang it! Math is my hobby. A slow individual has to think a long time on these difficult matters to get them even semi-sorted out. The payoff is in ecstasy, though, man. I don't know why that is. I write better than I cipher, but ciphering will just not go away. I like performing certain acts, such as writing novels and going to the well with equations. Promoting them is boring as hell.

You could write something you knew was world class and have no success at all convincing editors and publishers of this. But if one ever did crack an unsolved problem, no editor or publisher could deny the acheivement with the flick of his wrist toward the waste basket.

That is one great difference: Initially cracking through to the world of literature depends soley upon the opinions of a few important people, whereas cracking the world of math depends soley upon fact which others may not even dispute. In math you cannot be shut out. Even if you are killed tomorrow like Galois, your acheivement lives on as long as your proof was written down. How many great pieces of literature were thrown irretrievably into the dust bin of time, ignored and lost? More than a few, I personally suspect.

[desiresjab]

I looked at the Artin conjecture. A couple of things to notice:

2. Under the conditions that a is not a perfect power and that a0 is not congruent to 1 modulo 4, this density is independent of a and equals Artin's constant which can be expressed as an infinite product...

Is the same thing as saying that a must be a 4n+3 type prime (with the apparent exception of 2, of course), a subject we just discussed. It is surprisng how much this idea crops up in high powered research. This may be an instance of the wide ranging influence of QR in other areas. You just asked why mathematicans were so concerned with QR. QR is centrally placed in number theory, just like the Pythagorean theorem is to normal algebra, geometry and trig--really important! It touches almost everything, but its hand is often concealed.

The other thing to notice in the article is the importance again of the Riemann hypothesis to eventual solutions. The Riemann conjecture has to be by far the most important unsolved problem in all of mathematics. If it fell, many famous unsolved problems would fall right behind it, for all they need to be complete is that the Riemann hypotheis be true.

Fermat's last theorem was the most famous mathematics problem ever, probably, and solving it justifiably grants Wiles immortality, but a host of other important solutions did not fall right behind it, as they will when the Riemann hypothesis is proven.

[desiresjab]

I don't want to hog the airwaves here, but I wanted to try and answer Yes/No's question as to the importance of QR. Besides the generalized answer that it is centrally located in number theory, I should state that it relates directly to the solution of quadratic equations in the algebraic structure of the ring of integers under a modulus.

When, why and why not, do quadratic equations have solutions in this algebraic structure, and what are those solutions?

Whether x2≡7 (mod 11), for instance, is souluble depends on QR in this algebra. This child of Gauss is as close as one can get to something like the quadratic formula of normal algebra.

Quadratic research is an ongoing thing. Many a Phd dissertation covers some aspect of it.

Quadratic equations are one of those mathematical objects we can clutch and cling to as sure things--we can get solutions. No wonder they are so important in the history of math and retain their importance. Galois told us two centuries ago there were no sure things beyond degree four in equations, no general method to extract solutions to equations of degree five and higher. We got what we got.

Whether God could have built a universe where general methods for equations of degree five and beyond are as plain and simple as quadratic issues--even that is an open question.

[YesNo]

I have not read about Artin's conjecture yet. I do not think I want to try solving anything even for 3 that the greats have failed to answer. One such problem on a man's calendar is quite enough, and I already have such a problem. It is called Brocard's problem, and I have been working on it for years. Investigating it has caused me to study in detail the classical elements of number theory, so the project, though hopeless, has not been fruitless.

It's not hopeless. Understanding Finnegans Wake is hopeless.

You might also try hypnosis.

I haven't heard of Brocard's problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocard%27s_problem I assume the challenge is to find values of n such that n! + 1 is a perfect square. I see there are only 3 solutions. Is the goal to find a fourth or prove that they have all been found?



As for the Euler equation, that is what it represents all right. If you saw that immediately, and then exactly what the trig function means, you will be a first rate mathematician, son. Congratulations.

It is now evident I am a thorough amateur. By thorough I must mean strictly. But I am an assiduous one, perhaps too dumb to relent.

All I know is what I remember from first year calculus. What these things mean over the complex numbers is not something I can visualize.



Now I need a new project all right. Seeing to the bottom of the well on something as complex as QR requires some projects in between, otherwise you are just stuck in one place and are not learning anything. My method has been to study those areas I think might yield fruit on my Brocard project. Since I can never reasonably hope to solve Brocard's problem, what I can get out of the pursuit is whatever I can pick up that might relate to understanding it better. This leads a man far afield into pleasurable pursuits of learning, and at least partially justifies the obsession with an unsolved problem which some of the ATG's of mathematics have looked at without success.

Next I will take a look at your Artin link. I am well travelled on the other site. Sequences and series is one of my favorite aspects of math. The historical importance of series cannot be over valued. Studying series is one of the most fun things a human can do, at least this silly human finds it exhilerating.

Now I must hunt for something which I do not understand and which looks aesthetically appealing and relevant. In between, I write poetry, stories and novels, just like the other folks on the forum do. I seldom try to get anything published because I am too busy sorting everything at once. Dang it! Math is my hobby. A slow individual has to think a long time on these difficult matters to get them even semi-sorted out. The payoff is in ecstasy, though, man. I don't know why that is. I write better than I cipher, but ciphering will just not go away. I like performing certain acts, such as writing novels and going to the well with equations. Promoting them is boring as hell.

We are similar. You should try the poetry contests. You can always put what you post here in your blog or a book of poems later if you want.



You could write something you knew was world class and have no success at all convincing editors and publishers of this. But if one ever did crack an unsolved problem, no editor or publisher could deny the acheivement with the flick of his wrist toward the waste basket.

That is one great difference: Initially cracking through to the world of literature depends soley upon the opinions of a few important people, whereas cracking the world of math depends soley upon fact which others may not even dispute. In math you cannot be shut out. Even if you are killed tomorrow like Galois, your acheivement lives on as long as your proof was written down. How many great pieces of literature were thrown irretrievably into the dust bin of time, ignored and lost? More than a few, I personally suspect.

You still need someone to recognize that your proof was correct. Or someone else will have to re-create it.

[YesNo]

I looked at the Artin conjecture. A couple of things to notice:

2. Under the conditions that a is not a perfect power and that a0 is not congruent to 1 modulo 4, this density is independent of a and equals Artin's constant which can be expressed as an infinite product...

Is the same thing as saying that a must be a 4n+3 type prime (with the apparent exception of 2, of course), a subject we just discussed. It is surprisng how much this idea crops up in high powered research. This may be an instance of the wide ranging influence of QR in other areas. You just asked why mathematicans were so concerned with QR. QR is centrally placed in number theory, just like the Pythagorean theorem is to normal algebra, geometry and trig--really important! It touches almost everything, but its hand is often concealed.

The other thing to notice in the article is the importance again of the Riemann hypothesis to eventual solutions. The Riemann conjecture has to be by far the most important unsolved problem in all of mathematics. If it fell, many famous unsolved problems would fall right behind it, for all they need to be complete is that the Riemann hypotheis be true.

Fermat's last theorem was the most famous mathematics problem ever, probably, and solving it justifiably grants Wiles immortality, but a host of other important solutions did not fall right behind it, as they will when the Riemann hypothesis is proven.

It seems like the conjecture has been almost completely proved except for identifying the one or two exceptions that do not work. They would be either 3, 5, or 7.

It seems that -1 would not work since it could be the primitive root for only Z3x since it flips from -1 to 1 and back again giving only two distinct units. Also squares would not work since the most they could generate are half of the units and their square root would be the primitive root. So I can see why -1 and the squares are excluded. One already knows there can be only finitely many primes, if any, having them as a primitive root.

So, to proceed we would have to get the proofs by Roger Heath-Brown and R. Gupta and M. Ram Murty.

Then the challenge would be to actually construct the S(a) sets.

Edit: After looking at some of the other papers besides the Wikipedia one there might be more than a couple numbers which do not follow the conjecture. I think all that has been shown are that infinitely many numbers do, but which ones do not is not known. It is possible that the set of numbers that do not have infinitely many primes for which they are primitive roots is the set eliminated in Artin's hypothesis namely -1 or squares.

Of course, I might be totally confused about all of this. I am still putting the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle on the table.

[desiresjab]

It seems like the conjecture has been almost completely proved except for identifying the one or two exceptions that do not work. They would be either 3, 5, or 7.

It seems that -1 would not work since it could be the primitive root for only Z3x since it flips from -1 to 1 and back again giving only two distinct units. Also squares would not work since the most they could generate are half of the units and their square root would be the primitive root. So I can see why -1 and the squares are excluded. One already knows there can be only finitely many primes, if any, having them as a primitive root.

So, to proceed we would have to get the proofs by Roger Heath-Brown and R. Gupta and M. Ram Murty.

Then the challenge would be to actually construct the S(a) sets.

Edit: After looking at some of the other papers besides the Wikipedia one there might be more than a couple numbers which do not follow the conjecture. I think all that has been shown are that infinitely many numbers do, but which ones do not is not known. It is possible that the set of numbers that do not have infinitely many primes for which they are primitive roots is the set eliminated in Artin's hypothesis namely -1 or squares.

Of course, I might be totally confused about all of this. I am still putting the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle on the table.

Something to stay cognizant of is that (p-1) and -1 are the same thing, they represent the same class, therefore are identical. I can only delve deeply into problems that attract me strongly. Many problems are quite interesting. But a problem has to have a certain form, a certain look before I devote myself to it. For one thing, I would not look seriously at general reciprocity until I was thoroughly comfortable with QR. I am better off plugging through number theory textbooks, I believe, than taking on multiple unsolved problems. But all unsloved problems are of general interest to me.

And by the way, Merry Christmas to you and everyone on the forum. Simulations can be merry, can't we?

[YesNo]

Merry Christmas! Even if you aren't a simulation!

[desiresjab]

Gauss believed in the afterlife because he considered it wasteful for there not to be one. People come up with every kind of rationalization. For that belief you would have to believe in a God to begin with, because there is no injunction against nature for being wasteful. Indifferent nature has no motive. One could say God was merely a personification of indifferent nature by humans in an attempt to give it some human qualities of mercy and justice for those we love, and the power to destroy those we do not love. The destruction of one's enemies has been an important role for God throughout history. It made him a star.

I like Christmas. I even love Christmas. Jesus has a lot more to recommend him than Mohammed. Our modern vision of Christmas was created by Johnny Marks and Montgomery Wards, but still I like it. It is a beautiful fairytale. The core of it could even be true.

From one point of view modern Christmas is an ugly capitalist scheme to get people into stores. A pretty package for greed. On the other hand it is a beautiful tradition filled with merriment and good cheer.

I feel sorry for kids today that they cannot experience Christmas the way kids fifty years ago did. Most of the charm is now gone from the tradition. I see kids, I am with them, I know it is not the same for them now. Parents and grandparents try to keep the tradition alive as they knew it, but it is a losing battle against multi-cultural political correctness instituted by an army of diverse activists whose ridiculous college educations prepared them for nothing else. They majored in baloney like "public policy" and "gender studies," then they were loosed upon society. Since they now know nothing useful, they become activists, they start a board, a foundation, an institute. The world, especially our country, is so filled with useless activists I am confident I could find someone advocating for people with two rectums, if I tried hard enough. The toilets we use show how little we care after all.

* * * * *

The rest of this post was so controversial I decided not to publish it during Christmas season. There is still enough to gnaw on.

[YesNo]

It occurred to me today that the idea of our being simulations has some similarities to my own idealist viewpoint. Consciousness is behind both of them.

[desiresjab]

It occurred to me today that the idea of our being simulations has some similarities to my own idealist viewpoint. Consciousness is behind both of them.

If we are simulations, what the heck are we simulations of? Maybe we are simulations of beings with free will. If we are simulations, why were we only given sensitivity to small bands of light and sound? Our makers considered that enough-- but for what? And just where are these makers carting our dead off to? No one makes something they do not use in some way, even if it is only art to view. We could be the makers' art form.

Be assured of one thing, God is not going to answer any questions. We will get the answers for ourselves, or not at all. That is what we are up to and have been up to.

Why all the injunctions against "earthly" knowledge, though? What did God have against us wising up? Those parts of the Bible sound very humanly inspired to me, as in keeping your subjects kowtowing to the emperor, sultan, king.

I have to say that I believe 0% of the Bible and Koran were divinely inspired. Whatever God did was done with the creation of a universe with infinitely unfolding emergent properties. Want hints about God?--study the universe. Mathematicans and physicists--all sciences--try to study its architecture.

[YesNo]

I am reminded of a glass being half full or half empty. It is a matter of perspective. When you say that the Bible or the Koran are 0% divinely inspired in contrast I view all texts as being divinely inspired. That would include the Bible and the Koran as well as our posts on this thread.

Simulations with free will are even closer to my view of what we are than deterministic simulations. Underlying the simulation idea is some consciousness creating and maintaining the simulation.

When you talk about "earthly knowledge", what are you referring to? Is there some Bible or Koran verse you are referring to? I have read only about 10% of these texts. If that. I am not familiar with them.

[desiresjab]

I am reminded of a glass being half full or half empty. It is a matter of perspective. When you say that the Bible or the Koran are 0% divinely inspired in contrast I view all texts as being divinely inspired. That would include the Bible and the Koran as well as our posts on this thread.

Simulations with free will are even closer to my view of what we are than deterministic simulations. Underlying the simulation idea is some consciousness creating and maintaining the simulation.

When you talk about "earthly knowledge", what are you referring to? Is there some Bible or Koran verse you are referring to? I have read only about 10% of these texts. If that. I am not familiar with them.

By your definition Mein Kamph was divinely inspired.

1 Corinthians 3:19

For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness."

1 Corinthians 19-20

For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

James 3:15

This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

Colossians 3:2

Set minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

Isaiah 44;25

Who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish?


Over and over in the Bible, thousands of times, the message is the same, one of pure control: Seek no wisdom but that found in God. Any earthly knowlege is evil and demonic.

Remember, the mighty Koran is only the size of a first book of poetry published by a typical independent press. There are not as many injunctions, but they are there. You will find them.

[YesNo]

By your definition Mein Kamph was divinely inspired.

As well as the anti-Mein Kampf texts. Someone conscious wrote them and got inspiration from somewhere. Being inspired doesn't mean the texts are infallible.



1 Corinthians 3:19

For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness."


That sort of makes sense actually. A lot of people who think they are wise are not.



1 Corinthians 19-20

For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?


That one also makes sense. Do we really think we know what is going on?



James 3:15

This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.


I assume this is referring to superior wisdom. Some of us are brighter than others. God should be brighter than all the rest. It makes sense to focus on what is best.



Colossians 3:2

Set minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.


Superior wisdom again.



Isaiah 44;25

Who frustrates the signs of liars and makes fools of diviners, who turns wise men back and makes their knowledge foolish?


I could come up with a similar justification for that.



Over and over in the Bible, thousands of times, the message is the same, one of pure control: Seek no wisdom but that found in God. Any earthly knowlege is evil and demonic.

Remember, the mighty Koran is only the size of a first book of poetry published by a typical independent press. There are not as many injunctions, but they are there. You will find them.

I think the point of these passages is to avoid delusion and focus on what is true.

[desiresjab]

The language in all so-called wisdom literature is general enough to take in a wide sweep. I could find wise passages in Nostradamus or just about anyone else.

The point of controlling knowledge and the very definition of what knowledge is, is to control society, and the passages I quoted are examples of religion in action doing just that. People still use such Biblical injunctions to perpetuate all sorts of nonsensical beliefs not fit for modern minds.

You may interpret these texts with a liberal modern hand and think how beautiful they are, just as believers do, picking and choosing what you like and sweeping under the rug what you do not care for, but the intent of the authors had nothing to do with symbolism. You pay loyalty only to God through the temple, that was the big message. In the meantime jews are omnipresent in western academia, so they are not taking it too seriously. They are gathering up earthly knowledge. A hoard heaped by the roadside... [Joyce].

[YesNo]

Generally it is hard to find someone who is completely wrong. There is wisdom all over the place. Some is just harder to find.

[desiresjab]

Generally it is hard to find someone who is completely wrong. There is wisdom all over the place. Some is just harder to find.

I am peering at every detail of Eisenstein's proof of QR, and making headway. Every detail must be accounted for and understood. More pieces are falling into place every time I focus.

My bet has changed. I now beleive I will see to the bottom of the well on QR from the Eisenstein perspective. After that, I would like to add some other perspectives, such as combinatorial and group theory approaches. But Eisenstein is not fully transparent yet.

[desiresjab]

Tiny snags.