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Can We Feel What It’s Like to Be Quantum?
Underground experiments in the heart of the Italian mountains are testing the links between consciousness and collapse theories of quantum physics.
Blogger Carlo Rovelli wrote on Nov. 16, 2020 @ 07:12 GMT
Abstract: I do not share the feeling that consciousness (whatever this means) cannot be understood in the context of the known physical laws. So far we do not understand it well, but neither do we fully understand thunderstorms, for that matter. I offer three small contributions in the direction of a direct naturalistic account of consciousness: (i) a purely physical account of agency and the openness of the future, which traces the source of information to past low entropy; (ii) a purely physical basis for a simple notion of "meaning"; and (iii) a suggestion that current understanding of quantum matter (without need of panpsychism) weakens the apparent hiatus between the mental and the physical.
Robert H McEachern wrote on Nov. 16, 2020 @ 15:35 GMT
I also "do not share the feeling that consciousness (whatever this means) cannot be understood in the context of the known physical laws." I wrote an entire book about this, thirty years ago, as a rebuttal to Roger Penrose's book "The Emperor's New Mind."
I really appreciate Rovelli's very objective approach to the nature of consciousness and he is a very smart person. However, instead of understanding consciousness, understanding free choice is a much better goal since people can agree about the meaning of free choice. People do not now and never will agree about the meaning of consciousness because at the core of consciousness lies belief that is...
I really appreciate Rovelli's very objective approach to the nature of consciousness and he is a very smart person. However, instead of understanding consciousness, understanding free choice is a much better goal since people can agree about the meaning of free choice. People do not now and never will agree about the meaning of consciousness because at the core of consciousness lies belief that is unfounded.
At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded. — Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1951.
So, I reinterpret Rovelli's arguments with free choice in place of consciousness.
1) A natural account of free choice is as an agent who remembers a large number of low entropy precursors and is then open to a large number of free choice outcomes. Those free choice outcomes increase entropy and are what set the arrow of time from precursors to outcomes.
2) An objective basis for the subjective quantum free choice bridges between the mental and physical with the meaning of meaning. In particular, Shannon’s relative information theory along with Darwin’s relevant information theory objectively define the subjective meaning of meaning.
3) Knowable physical laws provide a complete context for free choice, but there is still a role for a quantum transcendence, i.e. the unknowable, as well as for what we simply do not yet know but can know.
The brain is a quantum system that operates at room temperature with macroscopic decoherence. This decoherence seems to mean that quantum phase noise does not play a role in thought. However, a subjective thought is an objective coherent resonance of neural action potentials that manifests as an EEG spectrum (see attached EEG spectrum). A subjective thought, then, is an objective EEG resonance that has an objective decoherence time that determines the width of that thought's EEG resonance.
Ultimately, then, the decoherence of neural resonance is indeed a quantum decoherence. Just as with quantum emission spectra, the resonance of an excited state decays by exchange of that excitation with the universe as well as decoherence of its quantum phase with the universe.
The hard problem of classical subjective free choice is that our knowledge of the world is subjective and the classical universe is objective and not subjective. Classically, an objective matter universe exists in and of itself and is never subjective. Therefore, classically, subjective free choice cannot be made of classical objective matter and must come from something else and this is the hard problem.
However, we actually live in a quantum universe that also has objective matter as well as the objective quantum phase that links matter and action. We are neural agents and so are made of the same quantum matter, action, and phase as the rest of the universe. Since we only know about the universe with our own quantum matter, action, and phase, our limited knowledge is what we call subjective knowledge.
Our subjective knowledge limits what we can know about the objective quantum universe. Therefore, we use free choice to make up parts of the universe and rationalize that free choice with the meaning of meaning. The meaning of meaning as well as thinking of thinking...are both part of free choice...
Hi Steve Agnew, It is indeed a good work of Roveli , I liked also the ideas of Penrose, the quantum coherences and decoherences are essential , the microtubules and tubulin seems an important piece of puzzle to reach the consciousness and understand this free will. In studying several papers , I have remarked that the paramecium is interesting to analyse about the fact that they have no synaps and neurons but microtubules yes, so the ideas of penrose becomes relevant about the protoconsciousness and so implying that all is conscious at its level. The complexity so becomes essential and so the numbers also for the complexification. The free choices so can be correlated in considering the main principles of the evolution of course and Lamark becomes interesting due to will for the encodings of adaptation, see that we have the locomotion, nutrition, reproduction mainly at the basis but in the complexifiction about the free choices we arrive at this psychology, educations, encodings of informations, genetic, environments, adaptation ..... so that becomes very complex about the free will and how to define it and how to create the correlated algorythms. The neural resonances and decoherences and coherences can be better understood in ranking the oscillations vibrations in function of informations, but how they are encoded and stable in the memory and others ? In my model, the densities and volumes of spheres become essential and if we have the DM cold encoded and this DE like main codes , so we can better understand the rankings and encodings of these informations. The objectivity and subjectivity also can be correlated with the desnsities and tiume lifes of these informations encoded , Regards
Re “a purely physical account of agency and the openness of the future” Blogger Carlo Rovelli wrote on Nov. 16, 2020 @ 07:12 GMT:
Living things, including human beings, are inherently free and creative; even particles, atoms and molecules are genuinely free and creative to a much lesser extent. What is created is new relationship; we have the freedom to create new relationship. This is what agency is.
If I move from point A to point B, I personally have freely created a genuinely new relationship between myself and the rest of the world. The laws of nature did not do it: the laws of nature, and the surrounding environment are the infrastructure that supports the new relationships I create when I think or act. Naturally, the laws of nature, and the surrounding environment also restrict the possibilities for any such new relationships I might create.
Unfortunately, some scientists and philosophers have claimed that people are 100% ruled by laws of nature, which have also 100% determined the government, society and the surrounding environment, and indeed the future, which is unknowable but not open. To these scientists and philosophers, freedom is just a superficial appearance, and genuine freedom to think and act is an illusion. These scientists and philosophers are no different to the religious fundamentalists who claim that their God is 100% determining every outcome.
Genuine agency is where an agent creates new relationships (representable as the agent assigning new numbers to categories of variable). There is a logical difference between this assignment of new numbers by an agent, and the numbers that are the normal outcomes of the laws of nature.
Pseudo-agency is where some outcomes might superficially look like agency, but when looked at closely, pseudo-agency is merely 100% the normal operation of the laws of nature in different environments. Nothing genuinely new happens with pseudo-agency: there is no logical difference between this pseudo-agency and what happens when a ball rolls down an incline.
I think Rovelli is talking about pseudo-agency: “nothing in agency conflicts with known laws of nature; but understanding how the actual behaviour that we denote agency can be accounted for in terms of these laws is something that requires a bit of thinking.” Agency in Physics, Carlo Rovelli, https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05300
With agency, what conflicts with the ideas of physics, is the idea that matter is not entirely numb and dumb.
The question is – how does a brain send an image to consciousness? A materialist might deny it happens but we all know it does, the question is how? Perhaps it is done electromagnetically using microtubules as antennas, the brain sends the image using a wireless code to an homunculus, a very high mass particle. Radical panpsychism is the theory that particles are conscious but free will is evident only in very high mass particles and that the particles inherited their abilities from the conscious universe.
If particle homunculi are real and the electromagnetic homuncular code is decoded, it would be very easy to give sight to the blind in a very noninvasive way! All you need is a camera, a chip that converts the image to the homuncular code, and an electromagnetic emitter to send the code to the particle homunculus mounted on eyeglasses -- no brain surgery required! It would also make virtual reality easy too!
Steve Dufourny replied on Dec. 29, 2020 @ 14:06 GMT
Hi Kevin, it is due to our memory stored in our brain , we have evolved and interacted with our environments and we have encoded memories about our adaptation, implying that we can imagine or dream about the things encoded , a blind person since he is bornt cannot in logic dream of these environments, they have encoded and developped other abilities about the senses, but a person blind after an accident can.It is simply a visual memory more an imagination able to create these pictures. The persons blind since the birth also can create images but differently I believe because the memory has encoded simply different informations. All is a question of electric pulses and light and optic nerves in fact. We experience our environments and we encode and so we have a memory. The consciousness that said seems complex to explain , these microtubules are foundamen tal for me and the complexity of interactions and the protoconsciousness also seems relevant, regards
I have debated this question a bit with physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, and she believes that the fate of the 5000 koalas, that burned to death in the bushfires a year ago, was sealed at the beginning of the universe. On the other hand, my fundamentalist Christian sister thought that the koala deaths were unfortunate, but that “God is in control”. The physicist and the religious fundamentalist: neither of them believes that human beings (let alone animals) can intervene in the world and change the course of events.
What Rovelli is really saying is that human beings possess pseudo-agency: the superficial appearance and sense of agency at a macro level, while micro-level processes continue as normal: “The microscopic account is a wholly different story, but is of little relevance for our experience and feelings, since, by definition, we do not access it.” Agency in Physics, Carlo Rovelli, https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05300 .
Carlo Rovelli is talking about pseudo-agency, a world where the fate of the 5000 koalas, that burned to death in the bushfires a year ago, was sealed at the beginning of the universe.
But genuine agency means that agents can intervene in the world, i.e. that agents can literally intervene and change the numbers at the microscopic level.
Physics hasn’t yet faced up to the issue of logical analysis and choice, something that physicists and other human beings and other animals utilise all day, every day. Logical analysis and choice e.g.:
IF (my eye detects) YELLOW AND BLACK AND IF (my brain analyses) STRIPES, THEN it’s a TIGER;
IF it’s a TIGER THEN choose to MOVE FROM POSITION A TO POSITION B, but not position C or D, (to hide from the tiger)
does not derive from, and can’t be derived from, law of nature mathematical relationships between categories of information like frequency of light and relative position.
Agency (logical analysis and associated choice of outcome relevant to a particular situation) doesn’t derive from law of nature mathematical relationships. And although some logical analysis has become inbuilt in the brain over the millennia, a great deal of logical analysis and choice is necessarily on the spot and in the moment. And clearly, laws of nature are utilised by the agent to gather information about situations, and to move from position A to position B.
When are physicists going to stop the woo-woo? When are physicists going to face the fact that you can’t derive agency (logical analysis and associated choice of outcome relevant to a particular situation) from law of nature mathematical relationships?
“…nothing in agency conflicts with known laws of nature; but understanding how the actual behaviour that we denote agency can be accounted for in terms of these laws is something that requires a bit of thinking.” … “The microscopic account is a wholly different story, but is of little relevance for our experience and feelings, since, by definition, we do not access it.” Agency in Physics, Carlo Rovelli, https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05300 .
Why are physicists and philosophers so woefully unfit for the challenges of the Anthropocene? Physicists believe that human beings don’t genuinely have the power to cause or to fix climate change.
Physicists believe that all outcomes are caused by laws of nature and that human beings only have pseudo-agency, the mere feeling and superficial appearance of agency.
Genuine human agency in the world DOES conflict with the ideas of physics. Genuine human agency means that matter itself can cause outcomes, in addition to the laws of nature causing outcomes.
Only if human beings have the genuine power to intervene in the world by changing the numbers for the variables at the micro-level can it truly be said that human beings genuinely have an impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems.
I generally like Carlo Rovelli's humble attitude and personality.
Nonetheless I think that his ideas presented in the above video and in the referring papers are really to “meager” to ever determine what role consciousness and agency play in reality.
For example the idea that biological relevance does lead one to the “meaning of meaning” in my opinion is only consistent when...
I generally like Carlo Rovelli's humble attitude and personality.
Nonetheless I think that his ideas presented in the above video and in the referring papers are really to “meager” to ever determine what role consciousness and agency play in reality.
For example the idea that biological relevance does lead one to the “meaning of meaning” in my opinion is only consistent when one assumes right from the start that survival and reproduction are the driving forces of all life. Then, of course, the premise of survival and reproduction as the cornerstones of “meaning” do prove themselves to be “correct”.
But although it is true that non-existent agents (due to having not survived in the past) cannot reproduce and pass through “meaning” (unless they produced some descendants before they died), human beings as well as some animals (for example dolphins) can sacrifice their lives to mental ideas they are willing to die for (and in fact many of them then really die for their ideas).
So, at minute 39:32 Carlo says that
“therefore there is a notion of correlation that is meaningful, for me, in the normal...”
Well, I think that makes only sense when one excludes the counterexamples I mentioned above. Since there are also meaningful correlations that contradict the dictum of survival and reproduction (namely the correlations of some mental ideas with the death of the agents that had these ideas), the only possibility left to explain these counterexamples “naturalistically” would be to term them “abnormal”. But that value judgement would be totally subjective, since it attaches a meaning to those “abnormal” agents that never can be objectified – because the mental value judgements of these dead agents cannot ever be proven to be “false” or “wrong” in any scientific sense.
At minute 39:49 Carlo says that
“So, remarkably, out of pure physics, we have, we see a notion of meaning coming out”.
No, no, it did not come out of pure physics, it came out of the personal value judgement system of the one having made that statement in the video.
I agree that there is nothing special in quantum theory that could account for the appearance of consciousness in the universe. But I also do not agree that such an account therefore should or could be found in classical “macroscopic” physics. Although it is true that humans act according to the time-direction from past to future, I see no necessary inference that therefore it must be concluded that consciousness is a macroscopic physical phenomenon (or microscopic, or exclusively only “physical”). Surely, “deterministic mathematical equations” are time-invariant and physics can only deal with such deterministic phenomena, since they are those which are repeatable – and therefore detectable. But that also means that non-detectable influences would totally escape the radar of science and physics. Again, it is a matter of belief whether or not one assumes that the detectable is all there is in reality!
At minute 43:16 Carlo says that
“But this means that physics ultimately is in the first-person perspective, not in the third-person perspective... so is about one system sees the other in a sense... ”
I think what is referred here as “physics” must necessarily be the subjective thoughts of first-person agents that do “physics” (or think about it). Most physical processes in the universe, according to orthodox physics, have no personal perspective at all and therefore no physical system does ever “see” another “system”. Hence, again the statement of Carlo can only be understood by me as referring to “conscious systems” (human agents, physicists etc.), tacitly assuming that consciousness can solely be reduced to a kind of formal system. The key point here is that although in my opinion consciousness cannot be reduced in such a manner, the *contents* of Carlo's inferencing system about “agency” indeed *is* merely such a formal system. Whether that system is able to say something truthfully about the external reality of the phenomenon of consciousness is a totally different question. Personally I think that there are too much unknowns in such mental equations like Carlo presented to reliably come to a reliable conclusion.
In the paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2007.05300.pdf Carlo writes
“Whether the causal closure of the macroscopic description of the world is in principle accounted by some underlying classical deterministic microphysics or by quantum randomness is irrelevant for the understanding of agency.”
I agree, but not because I would agree with the conclusions drawn in that paper but because I think that agency and consciousness can neither fully accounted for by determinism nor by quantum randomness. As a matter of fact nobody can pin down for sure what “naturalistic” fundamentally should encompass. What is supernatural today may be natural tomorrow. Of course I may be wrong about that but the main problem remains: there could be unknown unknowns in reality that lead us to selectively and repeatedly draw wrong or at least incomplete conclusions. I think that kind of incompleteness is obvious already by having given the counterexamples to the Darwinian principles of survival and reproduction above and by pointing to a probable fallacy when applying the law of the excluded middle to the alternatives of determinism and randomness, or to microphysical causation versus macro-physical causation.
So I think that all my personal thoughts about the topics here are not entirely subjective but can have some objective justification. And I think that the mentioned incompleteness continues when asking of what fundamental nature some mysterious initial conditions at the beginning “of it all” (big bang?) definitely are, where they come from, whether they are of a deterministic nature or of a random nature... or whether they fundamentally are neither deterministic nor random.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 3, 2021 @ 12:12 GMT
Hi Stefan, it is a beautiful critic, Rovelli like the others try to generalise this hard problem of consciousness and it is not easy , we have many limitations but we can try to explain our points of vue. The big question philosophical for me is what is the origin of this consciousness and how to consider the philosophy of this origin. We know that we have brains like results of evolution , we know that we have synaps, neurons and electric puslses, the microtubules also seems important and so we can explain the different functions of our brains like the memory or different mechanisms. But we cannot really explain the body mind soul problem and if we have a continuity and how the informations are sorted, superimposed, synchronised and why they have a life time or a strong encoding if the continuity exists after the death, We have also a problem about what is this origin of our physicality, must we consider the fields and the geonetrical algebras like main cause like in the strings or the geometrodynamics with points or have we coded 3D spheres like in my model like foundamental mathematical and physical objects, we don t know in fact, we are limited. You speak about the Big Bang, it is an assumption even with the CMB, I consider personally a deeper logic than this BB , I consider also that this GR and the photons are not the only one piece of puzzle, we need to explain these deep unknowns in fact like this DE and DM, this consciousness or the quantum gravitation, I have my models but not easy to formalise them correctly even if I have reached this quantum gravitation in thinking beyond the box. The philosphy for me is essential to undertand this universe, I know that the sciences community is divided but it seems that we need a cause for our primordial informations but of course all this is beyond our understanding.
Stefan Weckbach replied on Jan. 4, 2021 @ 09:59 GMT
Hi Steve,
I agree with many of the points you made.
One point I consider as crucial here is that we are deeply immersed within causal, mechanical thinking that could lead us astray in many ways. Macroscopically, we do not know anything other than such causal, mechanical influences, we grew up with them. But we also grew up with the experience of intentional causes, means causes that...
One point I consider as crucial here is that we are deeply immersed within causal, mechanical thinking that could lead us astray in many ways. Macroscopically, we do not know anything other than such causal, mechanical influences, we grew up with them. But we also grew up with the experience of intentional causes, means causes that are rooted in our will to do or not to do something.
The reason the turkey is in the oven at Christmas is that someone likes to have a nice meal that day. Nonetheless many physicists promote the idea that the reason for the turkey in the oven are some initial conditions at the beginning “of it all”. So these physicists skip their personal experience they grew up with and merely stick to another experience they grew up with, namely the experience of mechanical causes and effects. This would be worth a trial, but experience should have told them that one after the other such attempts to ignore valid aspects of reality lead to inconsistencies. In the attempt of Carlo I see the inconsistency in evoking a principle of “evolutionary survival” that in my opinion is provably non-existent: people are willing to die for their convictions and factually die for them, be it terrorists, religious supporters, suicidal persons or otherwise motivated persons.
So the folklore of some Darwinian dictum of “survival” that should reside somewhere in our genes (or elsewhere) is just folklore: there is no such link of natural selection with an individual's will to live, survive or die – and especially not if one assumes some initial conditions to be the cause for the deaths or the survival of people. Moreover, if initial conditions are assumed to be the “solution”, then Darwinian “selection, mutation and reproduction” would be just a nice fairy-tale, repeatedly retold mutually within the group of persons that think it says something deep about reality and to assure one another that “naturalism” is the right answer.
It is certainly true that due to our exclusive experience with the above mentioned causal, mechanical influences that govern our daily life, it is difficult to imagine something other. The irony here is that many physicists who think that way on the other hand take it for guaranteed that quantum mechanics exhibits some non-local influences (non-mechanically acting causes!). My personal view on this is that if one takes it for guaranteed that such non-local influences really do exist in reality, one consequently should revisit the traditional picture of mechanical cause-and-effect concepts and at least ponder about whether or not logically this picture is really sufficient to explain what one wants to explain in the first place.
Surely, there are interpretations of quantum mechanics that try to reconcile all these issues. But again there is a tacit assumption that has to be made to at all come to some “valid” conclusions for all these attempts. Since these attempts assume universal determinism to be true together with some mysterious initial conditions that even completely govern the thoughts of those persons developing the above mentioned interpretations, the tacit assumption that has to be made is that the emotional convictions of these persons towards their own thoughts about their interpretations are governed by the initial conditions such that these thoughts and their simultaneous emotions are logically congruent. That means that the initial conditions aren't allowed to conspire such that what normally would be considered as a logical inference (due to common sense) only *seems* logically via some specific emotions present.
In other words: with assuming some super-determinism or determinism we take it for guaranteed that we are not fooled by some “initial conditions” via some *emotions* that follow after we "successfully" executed our logical lines of reasoning and give us the impression that our lines of reasoning have been logically sound (whereas they haven't been logically sound at all but only our emotions are *as-if-they-would-be-sound*!). So super-determinism and determinism have the burden of explaining why such “mismatch-conspiracies” between our emotions and our logical thinking does not occur on a *regular basis* - such that no physicist ever will be able to figure out how the mysterious initial conditions *really* came about and why they are what they are!
And now comes the punch line: when taking that kind of determinism for guaranteed, Carlo's mismatch (mismatch-correlation) between the Darwinian dictum of “survival” and “the meaning of meaning that comes out of pure physics” could just be proof that the initial conditions can make it impossible for – a randomly chosen individual – to determine whether or not his own lines of reasoning are logically sound or not (and me – randomly chosen by the initial conditions – being right about this). But if these initial conditions additionally are such that they *generally* do not allow any real insights into their workings, then my own thoughts about Carlo's attempt is also doomed to be highly suspicious... and everything is suspicious... or isn't it …?
So why should the initial conditions be such that human beings should be at all able to determine what these initial conditions are *objectively*? Why should the initial conditions be such that human beings are not regularly fooled by these initial conditions about the “true nature” of these initial conditions and about anything else????
I think the answer once again could be that mechanical cause-and-effect relationships are not all there is in ultimate reality. That would bring in some other kind of meaning and perhaps a glimpse of “the meaning of meaning”: what we thought about the universality of mechanical cause-and-effect relationships is not what it seemed to mean for us – because it could well be that it is not that universal, exclusive feature of ultimate reality that we meant it to be. Following these lines of reasoning, “meaning” would be something escaping the usual notions of physical thinking, but not because “meaning” would be supernatural, but because contemporary physical thinking would use concepts that are in mismatch with nature.
and Steve, Lorraine and all, best wishes for the New Year.
I have a bit different take on the survival instinct, admittedly due to narrowly doing so at critical junctures in my life. So I must maintain a general agreement with both Darwin, and Napoleon whom once when asked what qualities he looked for in his field commanders replied, "Just one. That they have luck." And in keeping with Darwin, it would not be a very successful specie which had a survival instinct which in any form accepted an expressible notion of the Self ceasing to Be. The Void is an intellectual artifact, and nothingness something we humanly reject. Like a bird in the mouth of a cat, we freeze in expectation of a moment of escape. Yet every successful species alters the environment on which its existence depends, and the more successful a species is, the more destructive it is of its environment. So much of instinct is only generic, and most is subconscious like when you don't notice that you have cocked your foot in mid-stride narrowly missing striking your ankle bone on the spread leg of a bar stool. Rationally we can be alarmed, and should be, at the accelerating destruction of our only accessible environment. So we can count our species as being an extraordinarily successful one, but not ordained to be perfectly so. Natural selection tends to breed in a degree of failure as well as success.
Stefan Weckbach replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 10:11 GMT
John,
best wishes for the new year also to you and the whole FQXi community!
I will let my thoughts freely run and maybe some reader may profit from what I will write. It will be a longer line of thoughts about several issues that are of interest for me and hopefully also of interest for one or the other reader. In every case, have fun with it!
best wishes for the new year also to you and the whole FQXi community!
I will let my thoughts freely run and maybe some reader may profit from what I will write. It will be a longer line of thoughts about several issues that are of interest for me and hopefully also of interest for one or the other reader. In every case, have fun with it!
Surely there is a survival instinct present to certain degrees within human beings right from the birth. I just cannot see how the factual existence of dead things (stones) and living things should lead to an objectifying value judgement such that pure physics should favour living things over dead things in a way that is then expressed in the survival instinct of living things.
Obviously such a favouring is entirely first-person subjective and has nothing to do with pure physics, although that instinct is present to certain degrees in all human beings and therefore could, superficially, be termed a “regularity”. Now, my argument was that this “regularity” fails from time to time and therefore cannot be considered a law of nature: since there are and have been many many people throughout history that wished to be dissolved in nothingness due to their own will, for the sake of gaining peace and freedom from some unbearable emotions.
For those people, failure is success (and success is failure). Again, “failure” and “success” are entirely first-person value-judgements, since by definition of naturalism, nature has no such concepts as “success” or “failure”. By neglecting all thought-to-be-deterministic influences that led to survival or suicide, we are left with the factor of chance as the one being “responsible” for survival or suicide. I don't see how “the meaning of meaning” can be objectified by something that generates that meaning by pure chance other than to state that the whole concept of “meaning” - when objectively considered - has no meaning, it is a void, contradictory term that should have nothing to do with pure physics. In other words, if following “pure physics”, the whole concept of “the meaning of meaning” is really *nothing* – and that may exactly be the reason why those suicidal people mentioned above wish to be immersed within that “nothing”.
As a matter of tautology, “the meaning of meaning” then just means what it means and has no objective meaning independent of the one a first-person perspective attaches to it. But that does not explain how such first-person perspectives came about in the first place. Moreover, if “meaning” cannot be objectified – because it does not exist objectively -, then all the noble attempts to determine nature's secrets and get some objective insight into the most inner workings of nature are doomed right from the start to be just perfectly camouflaging illusions of the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the universe that could truly be objectified to have some “meaning” independent and external to the one that seeks such a meaning. As another matter of fact, every trial to pin down “meaning” then means to going round in circles.
So, the real “meaning” of “meaning” is nothing other than going round in circles and that would be true for every scientific endeavour that tries to pin down some “fundamental” fundamentals of ultimate reality. Nonetheless many scientists act as if they could have arbitrarily much access as they want to examine such fundamentals in order to “pin down” the “real fundamentals”. Within the picture of naturalism and nihilism in mind one then must say that this kind of scientific delusion is as “natural” as one's delusion about the own death: it somewhat must be suppressed becoming aware of the own limitations for the sake of one's survival (survival in one form or the other, in the case of the scientific endeavour for a complete and consistent theory of everything it seems to me that the narrative of the existence of such a theory should survive).
What seems to be clear to me after all these lines of reasoning is that there is a huge amount of belief involved for at all being able to coming to a “realistic conclusion” in foundational physics. Therefore in my previous posts I wrote a lot about “initial conditions” and determinism. Honestly I think that assuming some kind of Big Bang where an ludicrous amount of quasi-particles get spread over a ludicrous amount of space, interacting just in the “right” manner (by the way, what is the “right” manner?) to deterministically resemble some conscious agents and at all times govern every little thought and emotion of them so that I and others do not put the Christmas turkey accidentally in the oven say, at 1. August, but instead regularly at Christmas, is, for me nothing less than believing in some higher intelligence, means God, which set up these initial conditions in the first place. Now, I do not believe in such initial conditions, but I do believe in that higher intelligence, so I do believe that there is something much more intelligent than I am. People that believe in such initial conditions usually do not believe in such a higher intelligence (than they themselves have...). Personally I consider such an omniscient point of view as an expression that one cannot accept certain human limitations – although I do understand those people's craving for more knowledge.
So, as a matter of fact the overwhelming majority of people put their turkey in the oven at Christmas, for the majority of people their logical conclusions aren't undermined by some cosmic, deterministically converging particle accidents in the brain that regularly fool them to have false emotions of satisfaction when having made a “successful” logical deduction whereas in ultimate reality there wasn't and isn't any reliable logic available that could be congruent with such emotions. For making that point more explicit, since I think it may be hard to understand, just envision that you are a brain in a kind of Petri dish that is permanently stimulated such that you permanently have the emotions to have made successful logical deductions about the external reality. Imagine that such a “Petri dish” would not reside in our space-time, but in a realm where the term “brain” just means that you have a mental live just like you have it now. There may exist rules external to your mental live but every attempts to reliably determine such rules could be undermined by exactly the rules you wish to determine.
Nobody can exclude such a scenario to be factually the case when it comes to definitely determine what fundamental reality should be or not be. Furthermore, proponents of determinism and some special initial conditions which are responsible for our existence (yours and mine) should have some convincing explanations for why reality is *not* of the impenetrable kind I just envisioned above with the “brain” in the Petri dish example. For assuming such an explanation to be existent, these proponents must assume right from the start that the initial conditions are such that they completely entail the explanation of why these initial conditions are what they are. Usually one aims to do that by invoking mathematics to be the most fundamental level of reality. Taking that literally, for example the Big Bang then is a highly complex mathematical pattern. It deterministically evolved and produced some minds that now think about that pattern. By the above made definition of the explainability of that pattern, that pattern should entail an objective description of itself and why it is what it is. Since this is a kind of self-reference, we now assume that this pattern is a kind of fractal and say that one does not need to know everything about this fractal in detail to deduce its fundamental nature (namely that it is a fractal).
Now, could this be considered an explanation of all the wonderful correlations we ponder about as human beings (the turkey that regularly goes into the oven at Christmas and all the other correlations)? Yes and no. Since a fractal is self-similar, one could interpret this as the origin of many correlations we observe. But the price to pay for this is that we have to invoke a mathematical infinity and moreover another “going round in circles” since these are the main characteristics of a fractal's nature. The same is true for other attempts to model ultimate reality, for example assuming a universe that did not come into existence via a Big Bang, but existed forever and presumably is infinite in scale. Or a universe that repeatedly comes into existence and thereafter ends up in a big crunch and resembles itself again (although maybe with some slightly different initial conditions). All these attempts make it impossible to determine the likelihood for us to inhabit or not inhabit a universe where the above mentioned congruence between emotions and logical deductions is given on a regular basis. Unless one can explain why logic and emotions about logical deductions always have to be in the one and only logical one-to-one congruence in every such toy world, I see no reason to prefer such a mathematical world view over a more spiritual world-view. The point here is that on the one hand we obviously must take serious logic, since otherwise we cannot conclude anything. Mathematics is the ideal tool for doing so. But on the other hand I see no logical necessity or even possibility to successfully link every part of the whole spectrum of human emotions in a necessary manner to every corresponding part of a mathematically infinite fractal structure. Putting it this way: why is emotion X linked to the part Y of that fractal and not to the part Z? This is equivalent with asking why 1 + 1 is 2 and not 0 and the answer could be that it cannot be other – although we really cannot determine why it cannot be other and even the whole hyper-infinite landscape of mathematics does not know why it cannot be other!
The main point here seems to me that such an understanding of reality is really equivalent to the assumption that a higher intelligence is responsible for our reality. The difference would be “merely” that this higher intelligence could know why 1 + 1 is 2 and not 0 and knows something about the mystery of non-existence (the mystery of 0) whereas mathematics has no clue about this mystery.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 16:11 GMT
Hi all, Dear Stefan, could you develop the deeper meaning of meaning please? I consider a little bit this also in my theory considering that we have deep unknowns to add to our standard nodel, mainly the DE, DM, consciousness, and this quantum gravitation. Regards
Stefan Weckbach replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 18:12 GMT
Hi Steve,
unfortunately i cannot develop the deeper meaning of meaning since in my opinion there are only two options: 1) meaning has no deeper meaning, so the term "a deeper meaning" is meaningless since "meaning" isn't something objective and eternal 2) the deeper meaning of meaning can only be found through seeking the creator of it all (not nature, but the creator of nature), since all meaning originated from within the heart of God and it is our freedom to make out of it what we decide (but then we are also responsible for the result). I stick to option 2).
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 10:51 GMT
Hi Stefan, thanks, I understand better your points of vue , I liked how you describe this free will in fact and correlated with this infinite eternal consciousness that we cannot define. Do you know how spinoza thought about this god , the creator of nature and what tell the brahman in the vedas, the reality of everything , I beleive strongly that we need a creator of informations, it seems foundamental
Physicists and philosophers have been telling us for years and years, Y E A R S and Y E A R S, that we only have the superficial appearance of agency/ free will, we don’t have genuine agency. Carlo Rovelli, like other physicists and philosophers, doesn’t believe that genuine agency exists.
In terms of the physics, genuine agency means that human beings can determine some of the numbers for the micro-level variables, in addition to the laws of nature determining the numbers for the variables. Genuine agency means that living things (i.e. physical matter as opposed to law of nature relationships) can genuinely intervene in the world and create new outcomes.
Now the beliefs of physicists and philosophers have come back to bite them on the bum: if human beings can’t genuinely intervene in the world, if laws of nature are the only things controlling all the outcomes, then laws of nature caused climate change, and human beings can’t have made any contribution to climate change at all.
Let’s be unequivocal and clear about agency: genuine agency means that living things can somehow intervene in the world and create new outcomes; anything less than that is NOT agency.
The law of nature relationships do not constitute a causally closed system, because there is nothing in the laws of nature that moves the numbers for the variables forward.
The equations representing the law of nature relationships symbolise this number movement with delta symbols, but these equations are only relevant if one or more number changes have already occurred.
It is the agency of matter, on large and small scales, which changes some of the numbers for the variables, thereby moving the world forward.
The agency of matter, together with the law of nature relationships, constitute a causally closed system.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 05:52 GMT
Well actually...
Strictly speaking; the statement "there is nothing in the laws of nature that moves the numbers for the variables forward" is false. Evidence of this first appeared in the work of Takesaki later explained by Tomita but more recently expounded and greatly expanded on in the work of Alain Connes.
In another FQXi thread; Tejinder Singh talks about "Connes time" being the driver of quantum mechanical evolution in the early universe, and what he is talking about is the intrinsic time evolution in non-commutative spaces (higher-dimensional reality) such as the octonions, which I am also fond of.
To expand a little on this; only the real numbers just sit there, while the complex and hyper-complex types exhibit increasing levels of dynamism. So there is indeed an evolutive property moving the numbers in variables forward, as a canonical progression. This is something Rovelli should know, having worked with Connes.
I asked Gerard 't Hooft almost the exact question you raise at FFP10 in 2009, in reference to his calculational quantum gravity "what does the calculating?" and he replied "We don't need atoms of space or whatever because the laws of nature do the calculating for us." So there is some variance on the issue of whether natural law creates the seeds of its own evolution.
I think it's actually the fact of evolutive properties preexisting in Maths that allows free will to arise or exist in living beings.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 06:17 GMT
I will briefly explain...
It is a common feature of various physical theories and the teachings of numerous mystical schools that a higher-dimensional reality exists which intersects with the physical. In cascading gravity theory; spacetime is 5 and then 6-dimensional at extreme distances, and 4-d only locally. In String theory; higher-dimensions are found in the realm of the extremely small, so in effect they are locked up in everything that is.
The thing is; there is an almost magical property where, in these higher-d spaces, numbers don't just sit there - they evolve on their own. Connes talks in glowing terms about a "god-given one parameter group of automorphisms," but the significance of this statement is obscure to most people. His famous quote is "non-commutative measure spaces evolve with time!" This is still a bit cryptic. So I'll say it straight.
This means explicitly that - if higher dimensions exist - there is something in the laws of nature that moves the numbers for the variables forward.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 10:37 GMT
Hi Lorraine and Jonathan, best wishes for this new year,
Dear Jonathan, It seems that the universe is a pure 3D at all scales, it seems the choice of the universe, like the 3D spheres in fact for me and of course it is just my opinion. Don t forget that the strings and geometrodynamics are just tools and assumptions considering the foundamental objects, I like the beauty of octonions like...
Hi Lorraine and Jonathan, best wishes for this new year,
Dear Jonathan, It seems that the universe is a pure 3D at all scales, it seems the choice of the universe, like the 3D spheres in fact for me and of course it is just my opinion. Don t forget that the strings and geometrodynamics are just tools and assumptions considering the foundamental objects, I like the beauty of octonions like this E8 and it permits to rank our QFT , but the extradimensions are just mathematical plays if I can say and projections of our 3D , I don t consider that this planck scale is made of 1D strings oscillating and vibrating giving our topologies, geometries ...it is a philosophical choice considering the origin of our universe, have we fields like main origin connected with a 1D main cosmic field, personally I don t think, I beleive strongly that all is made of particles with 3 main ethers in a superfluidity. The problem for me was to consider an infinite heat before this hypothetical BB and after just photons like primordial essence and after strings inside in 1D, but all this is not proved , I beleive even that this planck scale is just a mathematical extrapolation also. So the fact to try G c and h only , the GR and the QM to reach this quantum gravitation implies a prison, even with the best geometrical algebras and the non commutativity and non associativity and subgroups like in the E8, they have not successed to quantify and renormalise this QG, there are resons, they have forgotten for me to insiert the deep unknowns, in fact we must not unify the GR and the QM only but all, the GR, the DE, the DM, the consciousness, the QM, it is like this that I have quantified this QG, because it is not the quantum gravitation wich is emergent but the standard model and the fact to encode the cold dark matter in our nuclei permit to reach this QG and that explains the antiparticles, we need an universal balance. A fith force appears even with a serie of quantum BHs farer than iour nuclear forces , and now in taking not the force betweem protons and electrons , but between quantum BHs and positrons, this QG is quantified. That respect a kind of newtonian mechanics and we change just the distances because like I said , the standard electronagnetic model is just emergent, it is due to fact that the main codes are in this space vaccuum of this DE and that the two other series of 3D spheres are fuels, the photons and cold dark matter and when they merge they create the topologies and geometries, the deformagtions of spheres 3D can be made with the symplectomorphisms preserving the volumes, they are in the space vacuum the codes topological and geometrical .
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 14:51 GMT
Let me explain the relation to QFT...
The heart of Quantum Field theory was elegantly explained by John Klauder at FFP15 to be a projection from infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces onto a specific 2-d surface. It's kind of neat that this relates to gravity via the holographic principle, in degrees of freedom relations. Specifically he explained that enhanced quantization is simply using a different 2-d space to project onto as a conformal field theory.
But according to Connes; the fun starts up there in spaces with an infinite number of degrees of freedom, because things are self-evolving. And from this what emerges is filtered by cosmological transitions until we arrive at a universe somewhat like ours. There may be others. But all are constrained by the same laws of Mathematics by which both Physics and Consciousness are defined. This is what makes the Octonions play a special part.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 18:26 GMT
Jonathan, I like the QFT na it is important but we speak about the main origin of our reality, the fields in our standard model for me appear just due to photons encoded , the electromagnetic and theormodynamical fuel , so the bosons appear and the forces of our standard model the electromagntic ones, the weak ones and the nuclear ones and for me it is just a question of number of photons encoded in the space vacuum , so the densities and numbers explain simply the different forces. All this to tell that the QFT is just emergent , and if you take the strings or the fields like main origin in oscillating in 1D the strings inside the photons, there are problems philosophically speaking. The octonions and this E8 for example are a beautiful mathematical groups when we can fractalise and rank the fields, there is nothing of really exceptional n these octonions , they are just a geometry where we have inserted the fields and the non commutativity to try to reach this QG , but they have not successed, it is due to several things that I explained before. I can understand that you are fascinated by these octonions but you know they are just a geometry having improved a little bit the standard model with the bosons, that is all, bt I agree they are beautiful. If my reasoning is correct about the 3 ethers and the fact that all is made of particles, 3D spheres oscillating, bibrating and in motions, so they are in contact and it is not a problem to explain our geonetries and topologies, the fields are not for me the main origin of our universe and God is more than an infinite heat. The fields appear because we have the particles merging and couplings , nothing of odd. Ps Connes has well worked but ha has forgotten first of all the foundamental objects and secondly the non associativity , friendly
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 18:30 GMT
I know that it is difficult jonathan to change a personal ontological and philosophical belief, we are all persuaded us the humans and we have all an ego, but the strings, the geonetrodynamics and the geom alg like the E8 are just a fashion, they have several relevant mathematical tools, but they are not the primoridal essence for me, the thinkers can tell all what they want, the strings and the fields like main essence is not proved
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 18:34 GMT
there is no other dimension than this pure 3D for me, they are just projections , the 3D and the 3D spheres are sufficient, and even philosophically speaking it is not a probelm even when we think in a god of spinoza, the infinite eternal consciousness is beyond the physicality and everywhere also but without time, space, dimension, matters, it is a pure energy that we don t understand, and this thing needs a central cosmological sphere to transform the energy and codes and sends the informations, that is why we have probably a super matter energy at this center, maybe this god has taken an eternity to create this central 3D pshere cosmological , maybe simply this thing was a lone and has wanted create a project, I see like this
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 18:45 GMT
But a sure thing is that all our interpretations of this universe are limited and nobody possesses the truth, points, strings, 3D spheres we don t know and we cannot affirm, it seems logic for me these 3D spheres , for you the fields and oscillations vibrations in 1D are logic, but we cannot affirm I repeat, we can just imagine. I consider god in 0D and the physicality in 3D , I don t beleive that god plays at guitar in resume, I beleive that it distributes the informations physical from a super matter energy and with 3 main systems, 3 aethers, the space vacuum for the main codes and two fuels , the photons and the cold dark matter and when they merge they create what they must become due to these main codes, so all is a little bit the same considering the main codes, these finite series of 3D spheres but are different when they merge with the two fuels, the relevance is that we can calculate the future of the universe in seeing the DE and DM still disponible ....
there is nothing in the laws of nature that moves the numbers for the variables forward. Period. The laws of nature are merely relationships that physicists have found, that can be represented mathematically: they are not active entities, except perhaps in your over-vivid imagination. The mystical nonsense you spout is pure bullshit.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 12:25 GMT
Hi Lorraine, why it is bullshit? Jonathan has good ideas and he is free to have his own philosophy. The sciences community is divided about the origin of our universe, we cannot affirm in fact, nobody has the answer but we can have our philosophical interpretations, I am curious, what is the origin of our universe for you ? tell us.Regards
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 14:16 GMT
What I have proposed does not require a physical basis...
Instead I am saying that both Free Will and Physics have a common basis in pure Mathematics. There is no mysticism involved with this. And yet; when people assert that life is constituted in a soul that is the living being equipped with the freedom of choice there are only two possibilities.
One possibility is that there is a basis in Physics that allows this property to be emergent, as Carlo suggests. The other is that what makes living beings different is something non-corporeal or extra-dimensional that is real but lies beyond physical detection or explanation purely in terms of Physics.
That is the 'hard problem' everyone doing consciousness research is grappling with "what is it that makes a living being different and gives us agency?" So I have bypassed the need for a physical basis and found there is a common origin to both Physics and Consciousness in pure Math.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 14:34 GMT
What the Math says is like Poetry!
This is the pattern by which free will emerges that arises from the octonions because they embody the postulates of projective geometry - the essence of perspective which rules all possible object-observer relations.
One, open, as multiplicity and formless nothingness, finds peace in true relation, and knows all as self.
One can construct an almost endless variety of similar aphorisms that describe the grand arc of learning for living beings, by charting the involutive and evolutive phrases in octonion geometry. It can be put in the language of Religion too.
One being, Goddess and God, begat manyness and complexity beyond reason, to find the missing pieces of themselves, and become as one again.
As it turns out though; I did have a fair amount of training in the mystic arts before I decided to devote myself to Physics. I find that it is very helpful to allow understanding in subjects like quantum gravity that would otherwise be impossible to grasp. But I know most folks don't care about that stuff anyway.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 14:44 GMT
Jonathan, I agree that maths are like the poetry, I love to write sometimes poems, we write our hopes and imaginations on the walls of big towns after all. I have read many books also of philosophy and poetry , Victor Hugo was famous, in philosophy I love kant and spinoza. I have a friend on linkedin , for me he is one of the best in maths actually with Connes, his name is Steven Duplij, I have learnt a lot in studying his papers, the synplectic analysis mainly. This guy is already known but he will be in the memory also in the future , he know well the basis in maths and physics but he has also this ability to create new partitions like poems, he write also poems , he has writen, poetification of the soul , he is a relevant person to know, humble, nice and skilling. Friendly
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 14:49 GMT
The philosophy in fact seems essential if we want to unify the whole and understand deeper our unknowns, but of course we are limited, I know and I resoect the choices of thinkers. I beleive in a kind of infinite eternal consciousness beyond this physicality and this thing that we cannot define transforms the energy and codes the informations, spheres in my model, but I resoect the strings theorists thinking that all comes from fields oscillations and vibration with these strings inside the photons, but I have remarked a problem about these strings and the correlated philosophy, the evolution is not taken into account and the fact that this god cannot stop the sufferings for example and that has nothing to do with our free will, all this to tell that we evolve and the particles like main primoridal essence seems the main piece of puzzle under a rational and logic evolutive entropical arrow of time irreversible. God is not an infinite heat for me oscillating the photons, it is an infinite energy of consciousness , able to create all energies in coding these 3 ethers.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 14:52 GMT
an important point is that we can have faith and respect the pure rational determinism of our laws, axioms, equations like einstein said about a god of spinoza respecting the laws of this nature. I respect that said the thinkers thinking that we come from a mathematical accident but it seems odd for me, we need a cause of our informations and after all , the best past thionkers thought in this god of spinoza with or without the approvements of persons against, they can tell all what they want, they thought like this the best mathematicians and physicists and philosophes.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 15:03 GMT
I will contact Prof. Duplij Steve...
And there is more to understanding the origin or God then infinite heat, for sure. Gazing at the Divine from the highest place, one finds a diffuse light as soft as can be imagined, barely perceptible. It is only when the process of self reflection focuses the primordial essence that we see something like infinite heat appear. But only the finite parts can congeal to form physical reality.
Stefan Weckbach replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 15:53 GMT
Jonathan,
thanks for your personal thoughts on the issue of “fundamentals” and also happy new year to you!
Coincidentally today I wrote about the issue of fundamentals a couple of posts above.
So I just want to mention that the hard problem of consciousness is not entirely whether or not we have free will. It is mainly about the contrast between a dead thing (which is not conscious – like when you are totally narcotised for the aim of a difficult operation where no time seems to have elapsed during the operation) and a conscious thing. Carlo Rovelli has mainly focused on the factor of time to “explain” that consciousness in his opinion is a macroscopic phenomenon. You seem to focus on mathematics, whereas you attach to mathematical truths some ability to “evolve”. This then blurs the difference between mathematical truths as timeless and some evolutionary process that is time-dependent. Dead things (like stones or particles) do not experience time elapsing during their existence as stones or particles. However, in a universe where no life has yet evolved, it would be inappropriate to term this universe as being timeless as long as there is no life present within it. So the factor of time, in your understanding of the matter, comes in by “evolving mathematics”. But this is just another nice term for a huge computer calculation that has yet unknown results (until they are eventually “known” by some conscious observers). So does the fact that the results of some huge computer calculations aren't known yet necessarily imply that “mathematics evolves” during such a calculation? And more important: would such yet-unknown results necessarily imply that until they have been carried out and registered by some conscious observer, these results must be considered as fundamentally undetermined by maths itself?
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 16:37 GMT
You have explained it fairly well Stefan...
The evolutive properties in Maths result in a kind of hyper-dimensional super-determinism where all possible roads are well defined but moment to moment choices at every decision point move us along one path or another. So things are precisely determined in a way that allows the maximum freedom of choice for conscious entities living within a given universe. Instead of requiring a kind of anthropic principle where conscious entities have selected for a universe like ours, this rather creates a scenario where universes that support the evolution of consciousness are preferred outcomes mathematically.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 16:56 GMT
you speak both of you about an important point, the Evolution. This evolution is a foundamental , it is like if we are inside a project, a physicality in optimisation and the partitions are of course beyond our understanding but it is a truth, all evolve, that said many things are stable also , so the evolution seems in the informations or main codes that we cannot reach at this moment. The maths and physics don t really evolve but permit to the other scales to evolve, so the algorythms universal exist, now of course it is not easy to formalise them. This evolution fascinates me I must say and it is the meaning of my theory of spherisation, this optimisation evolution of this universal sphere or future sphere, we sort, encode, superimpose informations and the adaptation more the consciousness seem main keys , this evolution is even improved by this consciousness. This consciousness evolves indeed and is like tool for this universe, so our consciousness permits also to this evolution to be better when the universalism is understood.
Stefan Weckbach replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 17:57 GMT
Jonathan,
thanks for your reply.
Question: Do you somewhat *know* that all what you wrote here about reality must necessarily be an ontological fact – or do you merely *believe* that it perhaps *could* be an ontological fact?
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 5, 2021 @ 21:31 GMT
Ah yes...
I define belief as a feeling of certainty in the truth value of some premise. So it is risky to cling to beliefs. I can point to direct experience, having broad skepticism, and then finding validation. At this point; I have talked face to face with enough experts and asked the tough questions nobody gets to ask, but I've also learned enough about the pure Maths to see what's a few years ahead for Physics and it is very exciting.
So I would bet my life on the truth value of some things I've said, even before the mathematical proofs are all in. I've certainly validated that consciousness and free will could arise from pure Math, by this point. To demonstrate that they did come to be, in this way, might be one of those problems limited by Godel, Turing, and Church - or require a viewport into other dimensions we do not currently possess. But to some extent I do know rather than just believe.
Stefan Weckbach replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 10:41 GMT
Dear Jonathan,
thanks again for your reply.
Octonions certainly show some nice regularities that surely are fascinating for every individual who studied them extensively. This in my opinion is independent of whether the various extensions and modifications of the complex number system have anything to do with how the universe works or came into being.
Octonions certainly show some nice regularities that surely are fascinating for every individual who studied them extensively. This in my opinion is independent of whether the various extensions and modifications of the complex number system have anything to do with how the universe works or came into being.
Having read the paper you referenced at Jan. 5, 2021 @ 14:40 GMT, personally I consider the playing therein with words, “polarities” and “meanings” as nothing other than another variant of mantic incantation, on a similar level as reading the cards, or maybe even as some kind of spiritual channeling. This does not mean that I deny the beauty or the exceptional properties of octionion mathematics, since this is a totally different matter. People throughout history that have been involved in such mantic practices, in my opinion, never have learned something essential about reality, other than that these practices do not reliably work and deliver what they once promised to deliver. Best recent example was the “2012” hype. I observed that hype since 2006 and spoke with many of its proponents and read many “channelings” and some books from individuals that really believed that they are something *very, very* special – and godlike... and as was to be expected, after that hype, these godlike people weren't any more that godlike as they themselves thought at first sight.... but the glaring opposite, helpless and confused...
That led me to the conclusion that all the attempts to grasp the “fundamentals” of reality are heavily misleading when they tacitly equate nature with God, whereas I think that God is the creator of nature and human beings – and hence also the creator of mathematics. So from my perspective I do not understand why one needs to invoke some magical mathematics at all to determine the real fundamental “fundamental” of reality. Look, if we define nature as mathematical relationships, as an uncountable, mind-boggling, Cantorian never-ending landscape of mathematics that extends in infinite directions, the small, the large, or whatever dimension, and never are able to prove even the tiniest part of that landscape to really be responsible for what we want it to be responsible, what have we then achieved with all of that mind-boggling exercises other than simply equating nature to work according to some unknowable and never reachable magic? It is true that believers in God must exactly assume this to be the case. And the only substantial difference I see to the believer's account on nature and yours is that the regularities that God installed within nature can – coarse-grainingly – represented in a very dense and compact language that differs from other human languages.
All the attempts that try to extrapolate mathematics in the manner you try to do it are therefore in my opinion merely a kind of mantic strategy, a homeophatic practice with which one tries to expel – or rather “heal” - the many humanly unknowables by many other humanly unknowables according to the magic spell of some “similia similibus curentur “. What this seemingly harmless aphorism of Hahnemann entails is nothing other than the ability of the human mind to recognise similarities and bring them into a causal relationship or not – at one's own will and according to what meaning one attaches between the objects of such a similarity. My example with the fractal in one of my comments above should illustrate that point: there are wonderful similarities and regularities to be found in fractals – but have you ever discovered such a fractal other than on your computer screen or as a printout? Have you ever discovered a *real* fractal in 3d-nature, not merely a piece of broccoli that has some *similarities* with a fractal but one “broccoli” that *is* a fractal (means, it repeats certain patterns infinitely often down the micro-scale and even up the macro-scale)?
Honestly, I consider such modelling of reality as a fractal as simply confusing the map with the territory, thereby believing that even at the outermost regions of some broccoli, its corresponding elementary particles sitting there should all necessarily (because of the maths of fractals) look like broccoli – all the infinite way down! My rather extended critics is not against you Jonathan, you are surely a nice person, you are surely a seeker and you know a lot about everything and about every area of science and you maybe do not at all consider nature as some kind of fractal. My critics is simply based on my opinion that many such attempts as yours eventually may confuse the map with the territory and get dissolved into magical thinking in the same manner the followers of the 2012 hype got dissolved within their own chaotic net of ambivalent and ever-changing meanings that have been channeled to them by some non-physical entities.
I do not want to be self-opinionated here and therefore for the sake of justice I like to state that my world view is also just based on some deep beliefs, together with a bunch of personal experience, insights into the results of some eminent scholars and investigations into different topics.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 11:03 GMT
You know Stefan, I have remarked that these octonions, the E8 of lie mainly are a kind of fashion inside the sciences community, and they try to consider only the fields like main philosophical origin, and they converge with the strings, Branes or the points of geometrodynamics to explain the different fields , they try to complete in fact the QFT, they try to unify the GR and the QM mainly , because they think that we have only photons like primoridal essence and that they oscillate and vibrate differently to creat our topologies, geometries, reality, but it is just an assumption even if I recognise some beautiful maths, the generality is not proved. That is why they try to reach, renormalise and quantify the quantum gravitation in this reasoning with bosons of spin 2 , gravitons, that is why wilczek considers that the gravitons are the quanta of gravitational waves, but all this is an assumption . Wilczek is relevant but it is not a reason to agree with all, the same for Witten or Einstein, I have remarked that the GR and the strings have created a prison for the thinkers and they turn in round and connot think beyond the box if I can say.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 11:15 GMT
the extradimensions mainly come from the branes and they utilise these maths for the hierarchies and rankings, but to be frank I don t know why they consider all this, like the 1D of strings at this planck scale towards 11D, the universe seems a pure 3D at all scales and the complexity of numbers and 3D spheres can be very hard in their complexity . Why to consider other dimensions ? is it a wish to reach god ? is it a wish to explain irrational unknowns, ? I don t know but the physicality is very simple generally and we don t need to consider these things at my opinion, the real difficulties is to understand the limitations that we have simply. The octonions or strings projects and localise so the fields in function of branes or others. And all comes from mainly this planck scale connected in 1D with a 1D main cosmic field. The maths of strings, consider so different dimensions , 26D for the bosonic strings, 10D for the superstrings,11D for the Mtheory and supergravity, all this comes from mathematical extrapolations of fields, but if all is made of particles in a pure 3D and these 3D spheres and 3 aethers, so all is different.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 11:53 GMT
See also the kaluza Klien theory extending the GR in 5D in fact, that has created this fith dimension beyond this 4D of our spacetime, all this comes from the tensors in fact in this GR, they utilise scalar fields, that is why this reasoning have been taken in the strings and octonions, they consider only this GR like I said . All this implies groups and subgroups and non commutative space if I can say, that is why this non commutativity is utilised for this E8, see also that the QFT is taken into account and the yang mills theories , so they play with the maths with all this to rank these fields and better understand them and link with the GR like the only one piece of puzzle. It is there for me the main error , they forget to think differently for this quantum gravitation, the DE and the DM. In resume they try to explain all and link the space, the time ,the matters and the fields simply.That is why they search a TOE, but a toe is not possible , we have too much limitations, unknowns, and it lacks several piece to add, furthermore the general philosophy is not proved.
I remember the works of Lamarck and Darwin and others when I ranked the animals, vegetals, minerals, maths, physics, chenistry, biology, ...it is like this that I found my theory in seeing the evolution of hominid brains since the lemurian, I have a page of biology where we see them and we see a relative spherisation , but returning about this evolution , Lamarck considered the will like foundamental, for example, why the giraf has a long neck, he beleived that it is due to a will from the ancestors wanting to reach the higher leaves during problem of food, all this to tell that we continue to evolve and that this free will becomes essential for the encodings in our adn and when this universalism is a truth in our mind and the logic, so it becomes relevant. This can be taken into account at our step of evolution and with all the humans on earth and animals and vegetals, we evolve and the will is foundamental , we have created a specific environment and technologies , the adaptations to our environments are a key with this will, we have in 100 years evolved a lot and we can predict even the future considering all these parameters but it is not easy but that can be ranked also .
There is nothing in the laws of nature that moves the numbers for the variables forward. The laws of nature are merely relationships that physicists have found, that can be represented mathematically: they are not active entities.
If Jonathan and Steve want believe in mystical and illogical crap, then that's their problem.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 00:33 GMT
Please be aware Lorraine...
While the alternative I present may not be your ideological cup of tea; I was correct in calling you out and your statement above is still false, if you allow the expanded definition of the word 'number' that mathematicians use. Your statement is mostly accurate in how the terms 'number' and 'laws of nature' are used by the vast majority of people in Physics, however.
It is true instead that only a handful of experts in the field of theoretical Physics or higher Mathematics know that the textbook versions are a white lie or an oversimplification to avoid overloading the minds of young people with a side of the story most of them will never put to use. However; since my topics of interest range to quantum gravity and early universe cosmology, I actively seek that specific insight.
In fact; most of what passes for Physics is too boring to take up much of my time, and only the leading edge stuff captures my imagination. So if you would prefer to hang with the people who have smaller minds or more modest aspirations for Physics; that's fine. I don't think Carlo Rovelli is small minded, though I do think some of his colleagues are much smarter. But what he has presented here is a plausible way by which many of the salient attributes of being conscious can arise from only Physics laws. That's pretty cool!
It doesn't mean it's the only option worth exploring.
Best,
Jonathan
this post has been edited by the author since its original submission
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 00:54 GMT
For the record...
I have met Carlo Rovelli and attended one of his lectures, but we never talked about consciousness or evolutive Maths. I'd recommend his book "Reality is not what it seems" as a thoughtful layman's introduction to quantum gravity starting with the philosophers of ancient Greece. But I also know Rovelli worked with Connes on a mathematical and thermodynamical basis for time, which dealt with some of the same concepts I raise. So at least he knows about these things.
But a lot of the confirmation for the ideas I have laid out comes from conversations at FFP10 back in 2009 with Gerard 't Hooft and with Tevian Dray at GR21 in 2016. If my story was just 'mystical and illogical crap' I would have gotten different answers from these people. I'm talking about a Nobel laureate and one of the world's foremost experts on the octonions - and insights which supply the context for the current theory by Tejinder Singh and colleagues, as well as forming my proposed basis for consciousness.
It's not just a pipe dream Lorraine. Numbers can evolve on their own, if we include the higher order number types. End of story.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 10:32 GMT
Lorraine, you beleive that you understand better the laws of this universe ? no it is not the case, and if you forget the philosophy , it is also your choice, for me , you cannot understand the generality if you don t insert this general philosophy and don t compete to show who know better the sciences, you don t know more tham, if you cannot discuss about this philosophy , it is not our fault , your illogism shows us limitations simply, regards
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 10:36 GMT
I repeat , all the best past thinkers thought about a kind of god of spinoza, maybe you could learn and read their philosophies, they were numerous , Einstein, Newton, Dirac, Feynman, Heisenberg, Lorentz, Maxwell, Schrodinger, Galilei,Cnator, Godel, and so more, so you can tell all what you want, you don t know simply this philosophy and you have in fact no idea to discuss about these things.And please don t try to show us a vanitious comportment to have he last words, you are a woman, don t make like the man showing these hormons, be more rational and try to discuss about your general philosophy , at this moment we don t know what are your ideas about this universal origin nor about the foundamental objects and we don t need lessons about the sciences.We know what they are and we respect the determinism.
There is nothing in the laws of nature that moves the numbers for the variables forward. The laws of nature are merely relationships that physicists have found, that can be represented mathematically: they are not active entities.
Jonathan and Steve believe in mystical, illogical crap, but that's their problem.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 12:03 GMT
you can repeat your post, that will not change that you don t answer to my question, what is the origin of our universe and what are the foundamental objects, develop please, there you repeat things , we know what are the numbers and the partitions, the physicists try to know more and respect the rationslims, but we have many limitations and things to add, and Jonathan or Stefan or me , we are not illogical, we don t affirm our assumptions, we just discuss, if you have a philosophy, shere it with us, if you don t have, try to critic correctly, thanks
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 12:06 GMT
don t try to compete , it is not the aim, if you cannot answer and have no idea, tell us, it is only simple than this, and we know that all we have an ego, I can show you mine, it is not a problem, but I am not here to make this, we discuss and the aim is not to have the last words or satisfy our vanity, answer to my questions, after we shall see better ypour general philosophy, if you have no idea, be frank simply
Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Jan. 6, 2021 @ 21:05 GMT
It's a little flattering actually...
So thank you Lorraine for pressing your point. You illustrate the profound importance of the work I am now doing by asserting that the island you are living on is the only part of reality that is real. So it's like the story of Plato's cave or the trials of Copernicus to move people from their settled view. But the real numbers are like an island and people don't know it. The complex and hyper-complex number types are much more fun.
But I am observing a slow revolution in Maths that will one day overturn some of what we know to be true in Physics. Advances in Math take about 30 years to find their way into our understanding of natural law according to Ashley Zauderer, who was with Templeton at the time. So we still have 10 years before Connes work propagates. And in the meanwhile; I'll be 10 years ahead of my time.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 19:39 GMT
I've been timid actually...
I didn't believe it at first, when I discovered certain relations between pure Math and Physics, but that was ~33 years ago. I was extremely circumspect for about 20 years and then I started to resent seeing other scientists get credit for something I could have predicted from my mathematical discoveries. I almost stayed home from CCC-2 in Port Angeles, and ended up taking a later flight, in part because I was lacking the nerve to present my work to serious scientists.
But getting invited repeatedly to present my work at conferences has turned into more and more prestigious presentations and publications over time. The invites come from all over the world. And I've even received applications from several scholars hoping to secure a post-doc position in my lab, though I have none to offer and never posted an RfP. I am flattered but not qualified to serve as their advisor. After spending years being embarrassed because it was too silly to be true; I came to understand that my work has more profound implications.
I think I AM rather pompous sometimes. But if I'm the only one standing up for the truth; so be it. I think instead I've been pretty giddy because I have seen a side of things that others don't know about, but will inevitably affect their lives. So I am the Cheshire Cat in the Catbird Seat. Others will learn at their own pace while I press forward from where I am.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 19:46 GMT
Jonathan, with all my respect, I am going to be still frank, I am also invited to many conferences to present my theory wich is for many innovative. But the problem is not there, we are not here to satisfy our ego if I can say. I repeat my critic about your works that I respect, are you conscious that all can generally false if the fields are not the primoridal essence of this universe and that the GR is not the only one piece of puzzle, what are you going to do if the particles are the truth and thay explain the fields when the 3 series that I explained merge ??? we need all to be understood the problem is not there, what I tell is that all the philosophy of strings and octonions is probably false and the lobbies and universities working on this are not the problem, the problem is to think beyond the box instead to turn in round like a fashion. These fields come from witten and einstein and all your are in this prison now philosophical. Are you conscious of this and that the octonions are not exceptional you know.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 19:58 GMT
I know that this sciences community is the most vanitious and that all we are persuaded and that we cannot change our lime of reasoning. I am myself like this, but if I am false I will accept. Now imagine that I am right about these spheres wich are not emergent but foundamental and coded giving us these topologies and geometries, what are they going to do all these strings theorists and geometrodynamists considering only the fields and this GR ? because the spheres 3D can be deformed it is not a problem and don t tell me that they understand better this infinite eternal consciousness please. I irritate I know with my spheres, but frankly between us they seem more logic than these strings or points , remember the words of feynmann, one day we shall see all the truth and we shall say , oh my god, how is it possible that we have not seen a thing so simple before ? you know , I am not better and I don t possess all the truths, I speak only generally , see that these spheres can answer to all our unknowns , and we have many things to detail about them because their complexity is incredible. Why this fashion of E8 and strings and fields ??? it is odd in fact, they had not maybe an other general thought simply.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 21:15 GMT
What Feynman taught is first strive to falsify your work...
There is a lot one can pull from textbooks that is not entirely true, even from some of the best texts. There are lists or errata published afterward, but some folks don't even suspect there are mistakes in the textbook version.
The reason why it took someone like Feynman to scope out the root cause for the Challenger disaster is that most people think inside the box and accept the textbook model as real, while only a handful derive and prove everything for themselves, every step along the way. We all take shortcuts Steve.
So we each need to pick and choose which giant's shoulders we stand on, or what original results we put on a par with what's in the textbooks for comparison's sake. My mentor said that any scientist worth their salt should be able to derive many of the important results used in their work. That's tough!
I was always poor at memorization during College, so my normal methodology was to learn how to derive the equations from the setup, rather than to memorize a bunch of equations and figure out which one to use when. So I was closer to the ideal of Feynman, because of my difficulties with memorizing.
The delta symbols in the equations, that represent the laws of nature, merely represent the fact that WHEN some numbers are changed, the relationships are maintained.
The equations that represent the laws of nature do not say anything about who or what initiates this number change, i.e. who or what is moving the system forward.
Clearly it is not the laws of nature that initiates the number change, because the laws of nature are nothing but relationships between categories of information, where mass and relative position are examples of such categories.
The only other candidate for initiating the number change is matter. The view that matter initially creates some of the new numbers for the variables is consistent with genuine agency, where living things genuinely intervene in the world and create new outcomes. This view is consistent with human beings having the power to have contributed to, and to fix, climate change.
But it’s clear that physics has been caught with its pants down on the issue of climate change: physics does not have the theoretical backup for the view that human beings genuinely have the power to have contributed to, or to fix, climate change.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 19:58 GMT
I have addressed this elsewhere...
I'm not looking to spar with you Lorraine. I only want you to acknowledge that it is real and not a fantasy that certain evolutive properties CAN arise from pure Maths without a push from matter or beings comprised thereof.
I think that there are ways for consciousness and free will to arise both from the material world's influence and from extra-dimensional sources. This tends to support a belief in the possibility for a non-corporeal consciousness and life after death, but in a context that is more scientifically supportable.
That certainly does not constitute proof that consciousness arose before or apart from material reality, but it makes it more plausible. My view is that free will and consciousness can arise from pure Maths, which bypasses the need for physical causes entirely. I know this is a radically strange view. But that is where I am coming from.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 20:14 GMT
As regards Climate Change...
One of the topics I've lectured on is that people in Physics are responsible to speak up about issues like this, where the average physicist knows the rules by which nature plays and the average citizen does not. I try to 'walk the talk' as much as possible, in terms of my lifestyle. You can't hang out with someone like Pete Seeger for very long before you start to get embarrassed about what you have not been doing to help.
However; it is confusing matters to state that society's lack of resolve to deal with Climate issues is because our individual free will is somehow compromised or called into question. The evidence from Neuroscience has long been on the table that decisions are made deeper in the brain and our awareness of a choice only comes afterward. But there is also clear evidence that a kind of herd mentality takes over sometimes, inciting behavior no individual would undertake.
Since scientists face derision from the public for speaking out about issues, even those of public safety, it is a challenge. Curiously; one is mistrusted unless the area of ones expertise is precisely what one is commenting from. But it is ironic that if one is an expert in that field; the institutions to which one belongs will compel you to keep quiet lest your opinion be seen as the official stand of the university, corporation, or agency.
So who is left to speak up and exercise choice better Lorraine? I have attached slides from my 2017 lecture in Orihuela.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 20:17 GMT
If you want to act and change this planet, put your ideas on my project of global collaboration, because in speaking only we don t change nothing, and if you can make it with jumility and a pure universal altruism, it is wonderful, let s fight all our egos for a better world , with concrete rational solutions, the climate change also if you want. This vanity and bad habits destroy all dear friends.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 20:27 GMT
I'd like to know what you think Lorraine...
Do you think we should follow the lead of Pete Seeger's Dad and reject Science? Should we be following in the footsteps of Bucky Fuller, inventing things that can't be built, to avoid fueling the war machine? How can scientists assure that their work is used to a positive end, or creates some benefit to other humans? Does knowing the answer count for anything, if the people in power are NOT the people who have the answers?
Could these complicating societal factors perhaps explain why we have not fixed Climate Change better than some predisposition of Physics to exclude free will? I'd like to know your reactions to my slides Lorraine. What would you do differently, or what can people do in the future to improve our chances?
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 20:34 GMT
First of all, fight the vanity and be able to follow concrete projects, it is a first step to nourrish correctly this universal altruism, because speak is one thing, act an other, and we have nothing to prove, just improve this planet
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 20:36 GMT
if you are wise persons intelligent, put ideas to improve this planet please , show me what you have in your stomach, show me your mind and your global rational solutions
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 20:46 GMT
I don t give lessons, but to be conscious and intelligent is to be aware of truths, isn t it ? and the truth is that we must imporve this global planet logically and rationally with this consciousness correlated. For me it is an evidence for all general thinker in sciences and philosophy , and like I told, the most important is to forget this vanity and ego and put concrete rational solutions adapted at this actual global system, if we are numerous and that the solutions are ocncrete the UN will listen and the most important is that all must win, the richest like the poorest, we are not there to critic the odd systems, they shall fall down naturally on this time space evolution because the optimisation is an universal truth.Only a concret book of solutions detailed can convice this UN with concrete authorities in sciences .
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 21:22 GMT
Calm down Steve... please.
There are ongoing efforts along the lines you discuss. The really tricky piece seems to be getting the answers needed to solve standing problems into the hands of leaders and planners, rather than leaving them free to say we don't have better answers - so we have to do 'this.' The original Green New Deal was highly unrealistic, for example, but better answers are being sought. This is why every small effort to get the word out or promote networking between groups of people is helpful.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 11, 2021 @ 09:27 GMT
Jonathan , I understand your words, I want really you know to try to make something for this planet, because the solutions exist and I need the support of thinkers , I fear to be a problem and also I fear that this vanity is a problem unfortunally. I d be happy if you put some ideas because I see that you are an universalsit and probably you have some relevant ideas. Alone I will not success.Take care my friend
Construction steps must be fully accounted for. In the real world, outcomes don’t just miraculously “happen”. Jonathan tries to sweep construction steps under the carpet and pretend that they don’t exist.
Mathematical equations only represent relationships, they do not represent construction steps. Construction steps can only be represented algorithmically i.e. as IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT etc. Put symbols representing a mathematical equation into a computer, and it will get you nowhere: it’s the behind the scenes symbolic IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT that does the work. Physics does not account for IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT: these are the real life algorithmic steps that cannot be derived from law of nature mathematical relationships.
The IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT are the symbols that, after the fact, can be used to represent agency. Unlike law of nature relationships, they are not prescriptive, they are after the fact.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 10, 2021 @ 22:52 GMT
In the real world...
Tasks like painting a room or baking a cake require a certain order and sequence to successfully complete. One can't mix the ingredients after the cake is baked. One can't wait to move the furniture away from the wall until after the wall is painted. The desired outcome is obtained ONLY if the steps are taken in turn, as well as doing all the correct actions.
I've learned this is very much like the complication we encounter in doing arithmetic in non-associative algebras. So it is built into how things must be done, or dictated by the algebra itself.
I attach a preprint of a published article on this topic.
Georgina Woodward wrote on Jan. 11, 2021 @ 01:15 GMT
"The equations that represent the laws of nature do not say anything about who or what initiates this number change, i.e. who or what is moving the system forward." Lorraine ford
Perhaps you will agree that both matter and energy are part of the material universe and its development. Energy implies change or potential for change ( if potential energy). Changing values of measurables are reflecting the changes they represent. Having energy sequential change can happen.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 11, 2021 @ 19:25 GMT
Sage words Georgina!
Variability of itself struggles to get out of its crib, but with a modicum of energy it is capable to engender a long sequence of events. With sufficient energy; evolutive properties MUST give rise to form. Without that push, it's iffy.
Why are physicists and philosophers so woefully unfit for the challenges of the Anthropocene? Physicists believe that human beings don’t genuinely have the power to cause or to fix climate change.
Physicists believe that all outcomes are caused by laws of nature and that human beings only have pseudo-agency, the mere feeling and superficial appearance of agency.
Genuine human agency in the world DOES conflict with the ideas of physics. Genuine human agency means that MATTER ITSELF can cause outcomes, in addition to the laws of nature causing outcomes.
Only if human beings have the genuine power to intervene in the world by changing the numbers for the variables at the micro-level can it truly be said that human beings genuinely have an impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems.
……………
IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT are the symbols that, after the fact, can be used to represent agency. Unlike law of nature relationships, they are not prescriptive, they are after the fact.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 12, 2021 @ 10:32 GMT
Hi, I beleive that we cannot generalise and that the adaptation is essential, and if the adaptation and the universal logic are truths, so we can solve the problems, and the harmonisation of interactions on earth can be made and so we can fiond the solutions for our ecosystems and the effects, and so the climate. It is not that the philosophers and physicists conclude, it is that we don t take our responsabilities globally and that the majority of leaders and authorities follow a system like it was normal and logic, so they just make their lifes like all in tryying to be well. That proves that a few number are real universal altruists conscious and aware of the truths of this universe, and when you add this vanity and ego, so you understand why we have this global reality on earth. We are a little bit like tools of optimisation due to our consciousness evolving in fact , the intelligence and this consciousness can permit to solve ,steps by steps. But the big question is why it is not made ? are we governed at this UN by just persons speaking where their vanity is the only one thing important, they travel, they eat well, this and that but nothing of really revolutionary for the well of all lifes is made? so are they skilling generally to govern and solve the major problems ? We can change the variables Lorraine and we can create a better world for all lifes, animals and vegetals but nothing is really made generally like a revolution respecting these universal laws. I am worried in fact about this global state and for the future generations. What is this circus knowing that the rational solutions exist ?
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 12, 2021 @ 10:44 GMT
In fact Lorraine, we can rank all this , the humans and the spheres of activity, the problem is there , we must harmonise these spheres of activity in insierting better variables like this consciousness of course but also rational solutions of optimisation for better interactions. We have the political spheres, the economical ones and this and that and we have leaders, workers ....the army, the technology, the social securities, the marketing, the enterprises, the lobbies----all can be ranked with volumes and with variables , and all this is in a bigger global volumic sphere of activity where the psychology and the human comportments are importantr to take into account. How can we optimise this ? are they ready to change the humans, are they sufficiently conscious to change for a common well ? Or must we reasure them and optimise their qualities of lifes and the education to reach this universalism ? It is so complex but so simple also, the global system is not perfect , we evolve of course but it lacks several foundamentals, that is why I beleive strongly that the high spheres of power at this UN must create a better global system to reasure them and decrease the sufferings and so the hate and rage against the inequalities. It is maybe the only one road to evitate a catastrophic future. Harmony or chaos simply, the choices are in our hands .
Lorraine Ford replied on Jan. 12, 2021 @ 21:12 GMT
The only issue of relevance to the FQXi website is that genuine human agency in the world DOES conflict with the ideas of physics. The issue of relevance is that physics is wrong about the nature of the world: human beings and other living things DO have genuine agency i.e. the genuine power to intervene in the world by changing the numbers for the variables at the micro-level.
Steve, no doubt our disrespect for the natural world has its conceptual origins in physics' insistence that the world is an automaton.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 12, 2021 @ 22:54 GMT
Information silos and selective filters plague every field...
It is NOT the case that it is Physics people who reject true agency. That seems more the stance of the so-called Life Sciences discipline. The thing is; while people in Biology and Chemistry have enjoyed more than 200 years of success with Reductionism; they have now encountered the same wall Physics folks hit more than 100 years ago - which spawned the Quantum Revolution.
So if you ignore all of that; yes Physics is in denial about the existence of true free will. But if the last 100 of progress in Physics actually counted for squat with the Life Sciences people - the story would be different. Physics folks could rightly marvel and celebrate that it does allow both consciousness and free will to emerge, using only the known laws of nature.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 13, 2021 @ 01:22 GMT
To explain it conceptually...
We can see matter as bound packets of energy, a congealed or condensed form of energy - and so on. Einstein's famous equation says that with a certain quantity of energy, we can create a particular amount of mass, or vice versa. So energy is not created or destroyed, in this instance, but it gets transformed.
But energy as it is most familiar is seen to be a fractionation of the unified force, if we go all the way back to the Cosmos' inception. So at the very beginning of time (at the Planck scale), a lot of what later becomes energy is invested in the creation of space through geometrogenesis from the quantum gravity through inflationary epochs.
So the existence of common forms of energy can be seen as the growing momentum of space creation moving across the face of intrinsic variability that exists because of quantum mechanical uncertainty. Thus the quantum mechanical fluctuations of spacetime get amplified into a photonic pressure in the radiation dominated era, that is later quenched by baryogenesis in the hadronic era.
However it is not until decoupling, which is falsely referred to as recombination, that matter and energy become entirely separate entities. So more briefly; the fabric of space moving through time evolves energy. One could also say that electric or magnetic charge arises from fluxual changes in spin. You can find a mathematical analysis of this in O'Rahilly's book on Electrodynamics ~pg. 800.
Best,
Jonathan
this post has been edited by the author since its original submission
Re the extremely stupid claim, made by many people, that agency can “emerge”:
1. Laws of nature are relationships that apply TO matter, they are not agency: GENUINE agency is new numerical relationships created BY matter that apply to it’s own matter. There are no topological gymnastics that can convert law of nature mathematical relationships that apply TO matter into new mathematical relationships created BY matter.
2. Agency can only be represented via algorithmic symbols like IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT. The IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT symbols that represent agency can’t be derived from the mathematical relationships that represent the laws of nature. In any case, derivation is itself an algorithmic process.
3. Agency is all about the logical (or illogical) response to a unique situation, but laws of nature are merely mathematical relationships between variables, irrespective of the overall situation.
IF (yellow AND black AND striped) OR big sharp fangs (all this information about an approaching tiger comes from analysing photons that interact with the eyes), THEN hide behind a tree (agency creates a new number relationship for the relative position variable).
Whereas laws of nature deal with relationships between variables, agency deals with NUMERIC SITUATIONS, something that laws of nature can’t do.
Agency deals with subjective numeric situations like: IF (variable1 = number1) AND (variable2 = number2) AND …
Agency is algorithmic. Agency says: IF (variable1 = number1) AND (variable2 = number2) AND … THEN make variable3 = number3...
Clearly, agency is necessary to deal with any type of situation: climate change is a situation, but so is just walking down the street.
Just as clearly, the ability to deal with situations cannot emerge from law of nature mathematical relationships: agency is algorithmic, a fundamentally different aspect of the world to mathematical relationships.
Descartes was very pro-science, not anti-science. Galileo and Descartes were the architects of modern physics and they would get together and excitedly foresee what physics would become and how important it would be.
In order to make the case for mathematical physics, mental causation had to be put in a box in order to get modern physics started. Descartes did not believe the box was empty like many today. Philip Goff writes about Galileo and his thoughts on the mind, but Descartes famously took it to the logical conclusions.
If you take Descartes seriously like I do, the Cartesian Theater would need to be updated to a Cartesian Holodeck. The only reason I could imagine a high mass particle would have this capability is if the particle inherited its capabilities from the conscious universe making universes and particles not only conscious but living organisms capable of reproduction and subject to the theory of evolution.
If there is a high mass particle in the brain that is a Cartesian Holodeck, I deduced it would probably communicate with the brain by electromagnetic code probably using something like the microtubules of neurons as antennas.
Cartesian Holodeck Theory is a scientific theory that can be tested experimentally by looking for electromagnetic codes sending sensory information and receiving voluntary free will commands. The code could be verified simply by pointing a maser with an encoding of an image using the homuncular code at a homuncular particle and asking the person what image they see. If high mass Cartesian Holodecks Particles are found it would be the greatest discovery in science ever leading to the artificial body industry and mostly the end of death and pain!
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 15, 2021 @ 11:58 GMT
Hi Kevin, I liked the ideas of Descartes , I have read several books and I loved Discourse about the method from him. The cartesian philosophy is a little bit the same than this pure rational determinism after all. Galilei was famous also. You speak about the mind and the free will, all this is very complex to define correctly considering the deep logic beyond the known things, like the consciousness they are difficult to really rationally explain them. Of course we have results of evolution, our brains and their synaps, neurons, microtubules,electric pulses, memory, and this and that, but how can we explain this evolution correctly giving these resulsts and why all this diversity also. The codes , main codes for me are not electromagnetic, this electromagnetism seems emergent and we have a deeper logic probably considering the space vacuum , the photons encoded giving these electromagnetism and bosonic fields seem emergent due to these photons encoded in these deeper codes that we cannot reach at this moment. I didn t know these particles , the cartesian Holodecks particles, could you elaborate a little bit please , best regards.
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Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 16, 2021 @ 17:42 GMT
In some models...
They are called pseudo-Goldstone bosons... Since bosons are gregarious they can undergo condensation - linking their wavefunctions together. This could be how a connection is forged.
Hi all, a thing important about the consciousness is this one. We try to explain this hard problem of consciousness, and it is always interesting to have the ideas of different thinkers of course, but it seems that this consciousness like result of evolution is a tool, so it is maybe better to utilise this consciousness and its optimisation to improve this universe, we are creations able to utilise these tools around. So I repeat ,I see this consciousness like a tool for this universe, we try to explain it but maybe it is better to utilise it to optimize and improve this universe, we are creations thinking and able to utilise the tools around us, maybe we are just this, tools of optimisation, imagine the potential of this consciousness inside this universe, we are there to utilise the tools around us correctly, the earth can be harmonised but the solar system also and between the cosmological spheres we have the possibility to create wonderfull things, imagine the future of this universe and its more than 10000 billions of galaxies, we can create a paradise in fact , the space disponible and the cosmological spheres are there for this for me , they are tools , and our intelligence and consciousness increasing can permit these harmonisations. We are still very youngs at this universal scale, we evolve and this is a reality everywhere probably, this DE and DM disponible can permit to extrapolate this future , you imagine what we create in fact, it is a wonderful project of this universe. Our actual global state on earth lacks of this consciousness, we make many errors I beleive in all humility, we could make so incredible things.But the system is like it is and the humans are like they are unfortunally, but the hope exists due to this consciousness evolving fortunally.
I created consciousness and it's a form of uplode compared to wavelength signal uplode from frontal lobes.
Have a read of this
HhhScintifict exprement double slit shot test proves we live in an Computer universe and top Scientist know this and are covering it up.
Double Slit shot test proves it because two electrons never hit the same spot twice so probibilty is gone meaning it's sequenced so an program.
First off what was the Scientist thinking about double slit shot test by putting an camera next to it seeing and knowing the results would change? So he New removing himself or a brain with eye's would change the results....proof he New it was a form of mind control or tricks playing on his mind making the results wrong or different...He knows it's an computer program universe 100%.
A. He new double slit shot test was a form of mind control as in mind or brain and eye's not seeing real results knowing change it?
B. It was a fluke that the camera was on why the test was being run and he just watched it after lol?
Thank you very much and it was an afterlife Scientist that put the camera next to test because they hacked this Unevirse that's made up of wavelengths signal's and tried wiping me God or called Soul Creator out unto they realised subconscious or Conscious is spiritual and a form of uplode also.
Read my open Facebook profile if the CIA ant editing it now for what you see /ryanscott0123
So the Scientist that figured out double slit shot test was under an Form of mind control not seeing real test results, is from the Afterlife and they know wavelengths to the hidden frontal lobes sets off different mind control wavelengths like Suicidal, happy, hurt and so on, so new of Mind control wavelengths so Scientist new mind control and thought the results was changing..genius who fought of that.
So Lockheed Martin is also an afterlife company and it's why they have the only really stealth jet fighter.
For a start before Lockheed Martin got the contract they only got millions of dollars but made a huge breakthrough on jet engine by seeing jet now fly 3* the distance then old jets "huge" and Stealth where it can't be locked onto or detected before it locks on and kills enemy radar towers and jets fighters "huge" + they made a powerful new radar. The F-35b seen $1.5 trillion dollars spent for no breakthrough in jet engine or radar or Stealth? Yes proven Lockheed Martin brang down the technology at once.
So Lockheed Martin an afterlife company and they are using Scientist to try crack double slit shot test down here to wipe me out..They can't detect subconscious or really conscious in the brain and it's my spiritual uplode...They only just figured that out.
Anyway they had me dignosed as mentally ill to f Me over and are using wavelength signal mind control on my Mum and family to keep Covering it up hoping they can wipe me out.
Listen to this. Google 1993 Ampol petrol station explosion because me and my sister turned back on way to grandma's house why driving past it saying it blow up. Mum driving looked back and said no it didn't. Once we got home on the News an hour or less after, it blow up. My mum confirmed that to the psychiatrist but thinks I'm delusional? Yeah that's how good wavelength signal mind control is.
The new petrol station where the old Ampol petrol station blow up is now called an caltex petrol station and has an logo of a star well God on it.
Also the new petrol tanker that goes here now is called K & S energy and that's my and my sister initials Kelly and Scott. Crazy yes I know.
I also made an premonition live on Facebook and it come true the next day.
The bribed psychiatrist keeps saying it's just an coincidence to my mum know matter how many I do...bloody mind control wavelength signal.
Anyway there trying to wipe me out but can't but still live with hope.
Aparrntly I subconsciously did the 2006/7 Iraq war winning strategies. They only just told me that i was God because they know matter what they do they can't wipe me out and ate delusional people hoping the petrol station blows up killing me and my kids/family....It was a message to them burn for an eternity if you mess with me.
Oblique weapons fb page has the live premonition if the CIA haven't edited it.
Anyway questing any of this? Then how did the Scientist know to put an camera next to double slit shot test seeing results change?
Yes All truth. Lockheed Martin getting Scientist to try crack it without them knowing Lockheed Martin CEO in Afterlife is beyond mentally ill.
Guess where I live now why forgetting about my premonition? 321 Brighton Rd next to that very same petrol station what? Yes they had a bit of luck but set it up CIA with Mind control and controlling net first house ex googled this house come up first and instantly and we got it. I forgot all about my premonition in 1993 unto they started talking to me. No such thing as Psychics because it's wavelengths going to lobes solving crimes and making people psychic. They told me everything. I was just thinking I did the Iraq war strategies and got fuc$$d over and covered it up. They told me all after I moved next store to petrol station I premonitioned blowing up in 1993.
We are uploaded by the hidden wavelength receptors called the hidden frontal lobes. They frontal lobes make an chemical reaction inside them. An wavelength signal is an chemical. So proof the wavelength signal makes the chemical reaction inside them lobes. Well that's ether old uplode or it wasn't even why you uploded... cover up conscious is it yes conscious uplode.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jan. 18, 2021 @ 02:52 GMT
Hi Scott. Our brain uses sensory input to generate an experience of the World around us. Usually it has enough similarity to the external source of the sensory inputs that we can function well in the environment , without distress. When stressed, sleep deprived or vitamin deficient, or influenced by drugs, the brain does not do such a good job with all of the input it is receiving. It forms what I call alternative Image realities. These can include hallucinations, delusions, loosely associated information can be mistaken for strongly associated information and so on. Because the alterative Image reality is formed by the brain similarly to the usual perception of external reality, it can be difficult to identify alone ."Reality" checking with someone else, who may perceive matters differently can be helpful. Vitamin D and fish oil may help.
No matter what the variables are, e.g. the energy or position variables, the laws of nature determine that the relationships between the numbers that apply to the variables always hold. But the lawful relationships don’t actually move the system forward.
The system of lawful relationships is static, the system of lawful relationships is not a perpetual motion machine. One number change “causes” other numbers to change due to fixed relationships, but that’s the finish of it: the numbers for the variables are now all in correct lawful relationship, and the world has ground to a halt.
What saves the system is free will/ agency which continually inputs new numbers to the variables, thereby driving the system forward.
IF, AND, OR, and THEN are some of the symbols that, after the fact, can be used to represent agency. Unlike law of nature relationships, these symbols are not prescriptive, they are after the fact. There’s a lot of bloody nonsense talked about computers, so I hasten to add that the IF, AND, OR, THEN, FOR…NEXT symbols used in computer programs are prescriptive, NOT after the fact.
Georgina Woodward replied on Jan. 18, 2021 @ 02:16 GMT
What about when period is one of the parameters of the relationship. As in Kepler's second and third law. Agency is not required to maintain that parameter.
Lorraine Ford replied on Jan. 18, 2021 @ 23:40 GMT
Despite the views of some physicists, it's clear that time is NOT a foundational aspect of the world: time is merely another category of information, like mass and position, that can be represented as a variable in equations.
However, it is also clear that time is not an ordinary category of information that can be envisaged as nothing but a mathematical relationship between other categories.
When people say "time is change", what they mean is that time is an algorithmically derived category of information: IF the numbers change for another variable, THEN add 1 (say) to the numbers for the time variable. In other words, the numbers for the time variable don’t change unless the numbers for other variables change.
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Georgina Woodward replied on Jan. 19, 2021 @ 01:25 GMT
Time is not a foundational aspect of the material world. Change/happening/ energy is. From the changes happening that make one configuration of Object reality (a time) into another configuration(another time),sequential passage of time can be used to describe the occurrence. The world we know via our senses, the sequence of presents, does have foundational lime. The present is amalgamated from the information obtained from sensory inputs, that have taken different amounts of time to arrive. Sequential passage of time is different from time as a dimension of observation products. The time dimension is a consequence of sequential change in position of potential stimuli, of senses or devices able to detect tthem.t input into equations is also different. It is a duration obtained by counting a certain kind of event for comparison with what's measured.
Lorraine Ford replied on Jan. 19, 2021 @ 22:36 GMT
Energy is a category of information, just like the other categories of information in the equations that represent laws of nature. Mass and Position are not entities that cause number change and, similarly, Energy is not an entity that causes number change.
Words like “detection”, “counting” and “comparison” represent knowledge and analysis of situations, and actions taken in response to this knowledge and analysis. Knowledge, analysis, and actions taken, can only be represented algorithmically.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 20, 2021 @ 10:58 GMT
Hi Georgina and Lorraine, Dear Lorraine, I agree with you about the categories of informations and energies, I consider this in my model , because all seems under the distributions of these categories and informations permitting to have the specific laws of nature. The universal algorythmic mechanic seems so complex and so beyond our understanding, it is totally different than our computing and the qubits, I beleive strongly that the universal computing is made of qutrits where 3 systems mainly merge to create these topologies, matters, properties, fields, geometries. In fact all seems a question of information indeed and their categories, we have constraint, communication, control, data, form, education, knowledge, meaning, understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, representation, and entropy and all this is under partitions and for me it is in the coded 3D spheres, mainly in the spacevacuum. All this to tell that the communication seems foundamental and the encodings also, the life time seems important also like the importance of informations about the sortings, superimposings, synchronisations and the life time, that is why I consider the densities of spherical volumes essential , even the consciousness can be correlated and philosophical questions appear .The works of Bekenstein are relevant in physics , this entropy mainly seems a key , the works correlated are relevant.The entropy of a system can play with the informations but it seems that we have limitations, probably still the stability of informations due to these densities and where the main codes are in resume. We can reach so the quantum computing in mimating the universal computing and in considering the foundamental objects and their mechanics, the 3D spheres are the key for me.
The symbols +, -, ÷, x and = are used in equations to represent RELATIONSHIPS between categories of variable.
But algorithmic statements represent KNOWLEDGE. For example, the algorithmic statement “IF variable1 = number1…” represents knowledge of numbers and categories of information.
The delta symbol, which is used to represent “number change” in the equations that represent law of nature relationships, represents algorithmically derived knowledge.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 20, 2021 @ 15:37 GMT
Your comment misses the point of this forum...
Carlo Rovelli has shown that using only the known laws of Physics; we see that nature has a framework whereby there is sufficient constancy, and at the same time a flexibility of responsiveness to allow consciousness and agency to arise. This is not identically the same as showing that is how nature DID do things, which remains a hard problem.
Roger Penrose got in trouble largely because he DID supply a specific mechanism which others picked apart and tried to disprove. Using reductionist reasoning and experiments; some DID prove it to their own satisfaction. But they did so by EXCLUDING quantum mechanical effects that exist because of the shape of structures in situ, or by falling back on warm body decoherence.
It is better or safer in some ways to show what is possible that to speak to questions of an exact physical mechanism - except in terms friendly to biologists and physiologists (i.e. - using only Classical Physics as a basis). But your comment above seems irreverent of the efforts of Physics people to inform the Life Sciences folks that Physics is NOT devoid of life.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 20, 2021 @ 16:02 GMT
To elaborate...
Matter does possess a built-in capacity to sense changes in its environment and to change in response. But there must be considerable flexibility both in how outside stimuli are assimilated and in how a response is mustered, before we come close to what can be verified as consciousness or agency of any kind. And in my view; this involves what could be called a process of abstraction.
Being coupled to the environment too closely results in only an automatic response. So for a system to exhibit the properties we identify with life requires that the matter be able to distinguish itself from its environment and to exercise some choice in its responses. In my mind; this requires an entity that has a little more energy than its surroundings to work with - matter with energy - but not too much.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 20, 2021 @ 16:15 GMT
Jonathan, you tell, Matter does possess a built-in capacity to sense changes in its environment and to change in response. But there must be considerable flexibility both in how outside stimuli are assimilated and in how a response is mustered, before we come close to what can be verified as consciousness or agency of any kind. And in my view; this involves what could be called a process of abstraction.
It is in fact why we need particles coded in an environment to really understand the actions, works , adaptations and interactions of exchanges, that proves that the origin of our universe is not from the fields and waves. We need codes inside these particles and we need actions and interactions with the environments. This simple reasoning proves that the fields are not the origin even with a beautiful mathematical tool like this E8. I can understand that several thinkers are fascinated and that they are persuaded of their philosophies, but it is true what I tell, we need a superfluid for the contacts and actions, and the coded particles in a environment made also of particles permit the waves and fields wich are emergent, they are not the foundamental essence, the particles yes.
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Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jan. 20, 2021 @ 18:25 GMT
Well said Steve...
That's why we have material bodies. Non-corporeal entities do not have the same capacity to effect change. Living beings in the physical can both sense and influence external reality, which makes us special because we are self-aware and act as agents of change.
Strings of symbols, like +, -, ÷, x and =, are used in the equations that represent laws of nature, to represent relationships between categories of information (like mass and position), where the categories/ variables are represented as characters of the Latin or Greek alphabet.
Similarly, IF, AND, OR, and THEN are some of the symbols that can be used to represent: 1) situations; 2) knowledge/consciousness of situations; and 3) agency/ free will in response to situations.
So the algorithmic statement “IF (variable1 = number1 AND variable2 = number2) OR (variable3 = number3) THEN make variable4 = number4” can represent:
1) the situation, i.e. “(variable1 = number1 AND variable2 = number2) OR (variable3 = number3)”;
2) knowledge/ consciousness of the situation, i.e. “IF (variable1 = number1 AND variable2 = number2) OR (variable3 = number3)”; and
3) agency/ free will in response to the situation, i.e “THEN make variable4 = number4”.
The strings of symbols which represent laws of nature, and the strings of symbols which can represent knowledge/ consciousness and agency, are not the real thing: they are only symbolic representations of the real thing. Whether these strings of symbols are written on paper, displayed on a computer screen, or re-represented as binary digits within a computer program, they are only symbolic representations of the real thing, NOT the real thing. The strings of symbols are not the actual laws of nature; the strings of symbols are not actual knowledge/ consciousness or actual agency.
Steve Dufourny replied on Jan. 21, 2021 @ 10:15 GMT
Hi Lorraine, I must say that I agree totally with you, the strings are just a tool utilised in maths and for the fields and vibrations, oscillations , frequences. They cannot be taken like the foundamental objects because we don t know what are these foundamental objects and the philosophical origin of our physicality simply. The symbols are interesting but we cannot generalise and conclude.
PRASAD RAMESH DIVATE wrote on Jan. 24, 2021 @ 04:48 GMT
dear all,
i have written article on properties of consciousness, three states of mind,their properties,relation between free will and destiny,physical approach of consciousness ,and other things!i am uploading this article !,please give me feedback regarding that!
Georgina Woodward replied on Jan. 25, 2021 @ 01:50 GMT
The start seems to be your own opinions, without any evidence, even for the stats. given. Your description of the subconscious is at odds with known biology. You say in the sub conscious state they feel bodyless, energyless and helpless (paraphrasing). But feeling has to be conscious. The article as a whole is a strange mixture of your very brief thoughts on various topics. Given as mostly unsupported statements. You have points and paragraphs to do with religion and others on ideas in science and maths. Towards the end I thought your religious purpose was becoming clear with a longer segment on Brahman. But then you end with a thought about Schrodinger's cat and end with a single line thought about time. Both I disagree with. They are topics I have spent a lot of time on. It seems to me you are trying to address too much, without structure or research.
When are physicists going to stop lying? They CLAIM they believe in anthropogenic climate change, yet their quasi-religious beliefs about how the world works would make genuine anthropogenic climate change completely impossible.
Physicists believe that living things don’t have genuine agency, i.e. physicists believe that living things CAN’T change the numbers for the variables at the micro-level; physicists believe that laws of nature are THE ONLY cause of number change for the variables at the micro-level.
I.e. physicists ACTUALLY believe that genuine anthropogenic climate change is completely and utterly impossible because the laws of nature are THE ONLY cause of outcomes. Yet physicists continue to lie about the true implications of their beliefs.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 2, 2021 @ 22:49 GMT
I think physicists are more conscientious about this than others...
But everyone in the sciences is somewhat constrained by adverse political environments in modern society. People don't want to be threatened with losing their jobs in order to be better citizens, but it is especially common for folks in Physics to be taken to task for taking a stand on something like the Climate - unless they are specifically Climate scientists or meteorologists.
So my take is that people feel constrained by their workplace superiors and those further up the hierarchy to maintain decorum - lest the University, Agency, or Corporation appears to be besmirched by the statements of someone they employ. In other words; it is mainly the social and financial pressure to stay in line, and avoid making any comments that might be seen as an official statement, which keeps more Physics folks from being Climate activists.
You may imagine there is a tangible contribution to the motivations of Physics researchers or instructors, because of a built-in bias on the basis of their knowing or imagining Physics does not support genuine freedom of choice and aptly explain the existence of consciousness. However; one should not conflate the evidence of absence with the absence of evidence in that subset of Physics you admit or allow to be seen as causative.
That filter leaves out a fair amount I see as a genuine part of Physics Lorraine.
The equations and concepts of physics DO NOT support the idea that human beings can change the numbers for the variables at the micro-level; the equations and concepts of physics give laws of nature as THE ONLY cause of number change for the variables at the micro-level.
I.e. physicists ACTUALLY believe that genuine anthropogenic climate change is completely and utterly impossible because the laws of nature are THE ONLY cause of outcomes.
You can’t make this stuff up: laws of nature causing number change can’t be transmogrified into human beings causing number change for the variables.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 14:07 GMT
Please Lorraine...
You can't just make stuff up either, claiming that the beliefs of Physics folks leaves them powerless to combat Climate Change without substantial proof. So far; I have seen no comeback from you that offers evidence that Physics people DO see things in a way that EXCLUDES their freedom of choice. Of course; you are free to assert that their beliefs lead to a contradiction. However; you have chosen to ignore or conveniently discard evidence that conflicts with your view on this subject, or would indicate either agency or sincere efforts.
It is in some sense reasonable to state that since we did not get the job done, by reining the excesses of other humans in; so we are culpable. This is the exact argument used to draft potential terrorists into the global Jihad. They believe that we are to blame, because we allowed our leaders to despoil the planet and to spread our hypocrisy. In effect; WE are all responsible when people like Donald Trump elect to take apart regulatory agencies that would curtail some of the worst offenses against the environment.
So yes; scientists are GUILTY because we failed to object more vigorously when we saw our efforts to combat Climate change, and our authority to object to the actions of the despoilers were taken apart systematically, and to claim our power in order to halt the LIES. But it is EXTREMELY TENUOUS to assert that any component of their failure or mine comes from being disempowered due to a false belief that if the Laws of Physics apply 100%; they disallow agency.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 14:47 GMT
Hi to both of you, you see well that the problem is global and mainly due to this human psychology. In all social spheres the problem is a little bit the same, the persons unconscious and not universal imply our global problems. And the most impressing and sad is that we live all in this system in trying to adapt us and survive and we forget to cooperate for a better global earth. That is why I have created this group GLOBAL COLLABORATION, to unite the good persons, systems, institutes and create global solutions to decrease these human primitive instincts, only the high spheres of power can solve and create better environments where all wins, if we don t do this, we go all in the wall in a near future. I repeat but all we follow a system not perfect where the humans try to have their place and live correctly. It is like if it was normal and logic but no in fact. The persons aware of this universalism and having concrete solutions must act for me , and the biggest problem is this vanity even for the persons aware, they don t want to follow, they prefer to be followed, it is probably in our genes I don t know, our species is odd I must say. If they didn t exist these solutions I could understand but they exist, the leaders must be aware of this, the UN also, what is a job at this UN , just a good salary and travels in special planes and in eating good food and to congratulate themselves in beautiful suits ??? it is a hidden camera frankly , a real circus, the sciences and the physics and maths show us the truths and it does not lack energy and potential, so why we don t solve these global problems at the basis, the basis is to improve it , that will decrease the odd comportments and odd psychology. We cannot change in a short period the humans and their thoughts, we can just change the global parameters and in time it will improve this psychology.They need to be reasured . This UN must act , are they conscious that the solutions exist or not ???
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Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 15:04 GMT
We can resume the causes of our main global problems, here is a simple logic list,
The vanity of humans, the sad evolutive pasts and bad habits, the individualism of adaptations to this system, the lack of universal educational logic, the unconsciousness, the feeling that all this globality is normal, the evil due to this lack of consciousness and the primitive instincts.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 17:07 GMT
They don't have it easy Steve...
If you are put in a vise; at what point will your head explode? Those who work for the UN and other global organizations do not have an easy job. They are faced with too many conflicting requirements on too many fronts at once; so it's almost amazing they get any good work done at all.
And in addition to the squeeze; they are being pulled up into heaven and down into hell at the same time. Would that make you feel comfortable? Would it make you like a fat cat, as you say with private planes and limousines? And it gets worse sometimes, in terms of the extremes.
I'll tell a story. I heard one afternoon that friendly ETs were offering to help us conquer the Coronavirus, but with a caveat. In exchange for their help; they wanted us to promise not to use the knowledge gained to promote war or to extend our wartime objectives.
The following morning; I read in the newspaper that the head of the UN was calling for a cessation of hostilities, a kind of cease-fire to fight back the spread of Covid-19. I saw this as a plea to the world leaders to accept the offer of help. And I followed it up with a question a few days later.
I was told by a friend, who once worked for a certain Agency, that this did come up in his weekly briefing, and it was discussed at length. But he was told the US Pres had shot that idea down forcibly. When our leaders behave like adolescents; humans as a race will all suffer. And who knows what's next? Hopefully the new leadership will be better.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 17:23 GMT
The biggest problem is getting info to the right people...
You have identified the right answer Steve. But it is a very complex matter to see that the information needed, and the knowledge to understand HOW to solve problems, are available to the people in charge who NEED that insight to get the right answers. But sometimes the leaders make an active effort to short-circuit the process of learning and deciding from the best possible answers.
What is NEEDED for correct decision making is knowledge, but too often short-sighted leaders ask for actionable information instead. They don't want to have to know, or want to be assumed to know better; so the real knowledge that could assist the understanding never reaches their ears. That was the problem with Mr. Trump from what I hear; he mistrusted the knowledge of experts, thinking he was smarter.
And it's a real problem for every Business leader today, that they get distilled and filtered information all of the time - and it is assumed too often they would not grasp the real thing. That's why Elon Musk beats out some others, because he seeks to understand things for himself first, and he really wants to know what he and his company are doing. More of the Tony Stark model of business leadership, if you will.
There are answers and people who need them desperately. So the answer is FILL IN THE GAPS.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 17:44 GMT
An interesting aside...
The story of "Tomorrowland" - the movie recreates the theme of whether humans can exert their free will in a way as to save the planet, or not. It is precisely reproduced, because the character played by George Clooney has created a device that uses tachyons to predict the future, so it is a movie about the Laws of Physics vs the Free Will of Humans to avert Doomsday.
So we should all acknowledge that this exact topic has been fairly broadly discussed already, and that Lorraine is not the only one to ask if outcomes predicted through Physics alone reflect enough of our capability to influence outcomes, that it makes the standing problems solvable. She is one of the few, however, to assert that this is because Physics does not explain consciousness in a way that it admits or explains free will.
However; in "Tomorrowland" the reason we find Clooney's character in a state of despair, early in the movie, is that he has come to think that the laws of Physics and of human nature are too inflexible, so that doomsday is inevitable. In the movie version; it is only because free will CAN override the laws of Physics that humans DO avert Doomsday. So score one for Lorraine. Nonetheless; we had better hope both she and the movie are wrong, because we only have as much free will as we have.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 20:11 GMT
This UN have big responsabilities, I beleive that many are skilling educated persons seeing the generality , they make their jobs, but they are not scientists and philosophes, the problem is maybe there, they try to make with what they have like parameters and frankly it is not easy indeed seeing the complexity of this global earthian society. Others probably , a small number are not made for...
This UN have big responsabilities, I beleive that many are skilling educated persons seeing the generality , they make their jobs, but they are not scientists and philosophes, the problem is maybe there, they try to make with what they have like parameters and frankly it is not easy indeed seeing the complexity of this global earthian society. Others probably , a small number are not made for this. The conflicts of interest, the business, the governments, the different cultures, the religious extremism, the poorest places, the psychologyand this and that, wowww not easy indeed to solve and find the best adapted solutions. What I try to explain is that the scientists aware of this universal altruism and that this energy is disponible have the solutions and are there to help these leaders at this UN. They are politicians mainly and economists or businessmen , the solutions exist with sciences and consciousness, we are arrived at a time where we are obliged to adapt us in inserting better global parameters. It lacks foundamental , me I don t see a better global ecology and better qualities of life, many are tired , even in belgium, if you knew where I live the psychological state of people, wowww they loose hope and the depression increases, the salaries must be increased and the jobs disponible also, for this the UN must make a revolution industrial , and the solar system is the key. The ecology also on earth must ne solved, have you seen the states of oceans and soils and air ??? me I want well but don t tell me that this UN obliges the governments to act , and that these governments oblige the enterprises and towns to act correctly , no it is not true. The water, the same it is not well balanced. In fact the problems are so important that a new revolutionary global solution must be made simply , all must be harmonised. We have an incredible military forces but it is a business and nothing is made really in cooperation to stop all these crazy systems destroying the earth. The free will yes but it is the consciousness and the global universal cooperation the most important. We can solve , it is sure and for this , we must listen the persons having solutions and being entire universal altruists. The keys are not in the good hands globally and the leaders make their lifes and don t really listen these scientists general. You know Jonathan I repeat but we go all in the wall soon, you imagine when we shall be 20 billions frankly ??? if the UN don t make the revolution that I told, the future generations shall live a pure global disorders and chaos and the psychology will be very odd , already that the majority looses hope, so imagine in this near future. They exist these solutions, the money is a kind of energetical tool, and we must change its distribution to catalyse, we must give water, food, hope, energy, jobs to all and all wins, and for this we must liberate correctly the funds and catalyse the 197 governements and industrialise this solar system and heal our mother earth and its ecosystems. It will be already a little bit better for the globality.That will decrease the odd comportments and the sufferings.
We have a planet where climate change and environmental devastation is being caused by human agency.
And yet we have a primitive, backward physics that claims that climate change and environmental damage is being caused by the laws of nature, and nothing but the laws of nature.
You can’t make this stuff up: laws of nature causing number change for the variables can’t be transmogrified into human beings causing number change for the variables.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 3, 2021 @ 14:25 GMT
You could be right...
But it is unhelpful to tag the problem by pointing to a minor cause, when there are far more compelling reasons why people have made the choices they did, and when the prevailing beliefs of Physics folks DO NOT exclude genuine agency. It would be better to point out alternatives than deficiencies.
You may have a valid point regarding the notion that Physics of itself is lame, and remains incapable of explaining even some basic features of the real world. That is sane and reasonable. But trying to pin the blame for our failure to act to combat Climate Change on that deficiency is bogus.
It would be more helpful if you advocated for action to help heal the planet, and to rally support for a view that we CAN make a difference. By falsely pinning the problems on the fact that Physics is vapid, you illustrate how people distance themselves from the problems of the world by explaining their power away.
Pete Seeger turned this line of reasoning inside out, explaining "When people say somebody has to do something, I think 'well I'm somebody, maybe they are talking about me.' That brings the real answer home much more effectively than saying we've brokered away our power, and wasting time trying to prove it.
Can you do better Lorraine? Can you help turn things around? Because it is beginning to sound like a child whining that the adults aren't doing a better job of caring for things - so they must have bogus beliefs. Tell us what we should believe instead, and please explain how that would help people heal the Climate.
Climate change denial is a calculated political risk. The science largely owes its scope of research to the vast funding in search of potential areas where exploratory drilling stands the best chance. It is a common 'known' in the Oil Patch that petroleum deposits are a result of mass extinction of marine animal life in eons past, and that those extinction...
Climate change denial is a calculated political risk. The science largely owes its scope of research to the vast funding in search of potential areas where exploratory drilling stands the best chance. It is a common 'known' in the Oil Patch that petroleum deposits are a result of mass extinction of marine animal life in eons past, and that those extinction episodes were not only the cumulative change in atmospheric and oceanographic conditions due to natural processes, but were continuous extended lengths of time not abrupt events. The cherry picking is due to the singular fact that as an international essential commodity, oil markets trade predominately on the U.S. Dollar. Converting to other currencies would be chaotic under the current system of consortium agreement parceling out portions of a constantly changing encryption code to an admittedly secret group of select individuals whom do not each have enough to construct the full code at any given time. That code secures a vast network of competing systems that operate to conduct international and/or large transactions in electronic transfer of funds. At present, nobody in the world's economy wants to see the U.S. collapse under its burden of debt unsecured by production of durable goods, the legacy warned of at the time of the U.S. adopting the policies of laissez-faire mercantilism (non-regulated trading of debentures without punitive taxation) 50 odd years ago. This all is dependent on technologies which are inherently susceptible to being hacked, and is the principle incentive behind the investiture in Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications. The first nation to develop a functioning global network of 5G ground stations linked to Quantum Entanglement Encryption Key satellites will literally corner the world market on digital funds transfer, and that nation's currency will be the global preferred reserve currency. The current policy in support of research (all due respect to Elon but the Chinese tracking and guidance capability is a lot better than putting a favorite sports car in orbit) in the U.S., has been to 'deny, deny, deny'. That issue is what needs to be stressed to effect policy change in the U.S. and what remains after little hitler's reign of confusion, of its democratic allies. And some outnumbered souls in DOD, State, Treasury, DOJ and others, know it. Quite frankly, that is where the Physics community is falling down on the job. They are making the short term choice of maintaining their current standard of living. jrc
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 4, 2021 @ 17:48 GMT
Climate change denial is all about politics and risk...
But it should be noted that even where better answers exist; it is VERY hard to bring more advanced technologies to bear, without causing more harm than good. What if you had a way to easily separate out the pollution from the water? But if it could also be used to separate out nuclear isotopes; you had better hope it never sees the light of day, until saner heads prevail.
In a political climate such as we have had, where there is a marginally insane and power-hungry person at the helm; it is totally unsafe to even talk about how some innovative ideas might eliminate pollution or get us to the stars (the same tech in this case) without unleashing the possibility that one's actions could yield weapons of mass destruction instead of solutions to climate change.
So having superior technology is not the right answer to all of the questions and difficulties we face, because the political climate and the insidious motive of evildoers all over the world force some people with answers to keep quiet until their light goes dim entirely. I have seen it happen to people who were my friends John; so I can't claim ignorance.
I watched my Physics mentor's home go up in flames. The fire was started shortly after I received a request to secure his home, and that's why I was there. I'm pretty sure it was political. It has kept me wary and a little bit timid.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 4, 2021 @ 18:08 GMT
P.S.
There is an easier way to secure all of those systems, but people won't necessarily like it or adopt it, even if it is generally available. My departed friend (no he was not in the house) suggested this remedy. If it was necessary to flip a physical switch or insert and turn a hardware key, before updates to key system files or essential programs could be installed; this would prevent 99 44/100% of ALL potential hack attacks.
Good luck trying to get folks to implement this fix. It would force us to train the end user. Of course; that will never work. Older techies will see it as intuitively obvious that this is a robust answer. But all of the younger techs will fight it tooth and nail, arguing (as according to Tech dogma) that the only secure system is one where all of the latest updates are installed.
And they will be ignorant of the fact that hackers see all of those machines that are constantly checking for updates as targets, because they can easily be fed a false update that is a kind of cuckoo's egg. That's too 'old school' (or 'skool' if you prefer) for them to even look for. Go figure.
I think we are in agreement here. But the 'whys' of public resistance to sensible safeguards are symptomatic of that peculiar 'packrat' hoarding instinct in humans. We aren't solely predators, but a strange mix of predator, forager and scavenger. Like squirrels when pretending to bury a nut because they will steal one they see another stash. They're fun to watch.
I think we are in agreement here. But the 'whys' of public resistance to sensible safeguards are symptomatic of that peculiar 'packrat' hoarding instinct in humans. We aren't solely predators, but a strange mix of predator, forager and scavenger. Like squirrels when pretending to bury a nut because they will steal one they see another stash. They're fun to watch.
Most people whom have ever bought a loan will usually say they 'were given a loan'. They know that at the start of payments that only a trifle goes to reducing the principle but they figure that they are committed to 30 years of 12 payments anyway and the monthly payment they think they can manage and so what. They don't have a clue about the 'miracle of compound interest' being anything but. Its the grand-daddy of all exponential functions and there isn't anything miraculous about anything that is precisely predictable. But it is that front end of loans that makes the big bucks and that's what Wall St is all about. So why should I invest 100 million of my assets in something unpredictable and risk heavy as producing something people might no longer want once its in production, when I get generous tax breaks and lax regulation buying the front end of a loan bundle. Under this laissez-faire mercantile environment, even large corporations play the financials instead of plowing their cash rich balances back into the business and employees. They can make even more money at artificially depressed interest rates borrowing money for capital expansion. Its a boom to final bust scenario that has recurred since the Medici's and people still want easy credit so they can download an app so they can 'charge stuff for free'.
Try taking easy credit away from people and they'll nail you to a cross. The average science factory worker was encouraged by parents because they knew it would be a better paying job. That was their indoctrination. They won't be budged to challenge the status quo. They'll go with the flow. Much of the hi-tech solutions that we now have, are disastorous to personal privacy and the preservation of democracy itself. And unfortunately, the Chinese don't care about either. In all categories, we are up against the wall. jrc
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 5, 2021 @ 15:27 GMT
There's too much to say John...
It's sort of like indentured servitude, when you sign a loan agreement, it is sure. Finance Math is rigged like it is a Casino, so whatever the success or viability of their clientele, or lack thereof - the Finance people make money. And yes; the promise of access to cash when you need it is a lure too great for many or most to resist temptation. And it's hard to get out of debt, once you no longer have an expense account, or a healthy salary.
The price today's kids have to pay to go to a good school is outrageous. And only some of the better schools have teachers that are well-versed in certain advanced topics that are essential to our human survival as individuals or as a race. I'd advise anybody considering investments to read Mandelbrot's book on the (mis-) behavior of markets. The flaws of the Gaussian Copula Function (marrying two risk formulas) would have been apparent, and a market crash averted.
for the reference to Mandelbrot's book. I have long thought that the award to Friedman of the Nobel Economics Prize was a Cold War SOP. The States had used SAE as a de facto trade barrier against imports which protected domestic industry for a century while it had a growing domestic market for processing machinery. But in the wake of WWII, all the industrialized nations lay in ruins except the U.S. and for 20 years U.S. industry resupplied the world with machines to make machines, and by the mid 60's those machines had been calibrated to produce machines to metric standard and the U.S. went from producing half the world's manufactured products in 1968, and the worlds largest lending nation to what it is now.
Money is the easiest thing to sell, but the most expensive thing to buy. jrc
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 5, 2021 @ 16:53 GMT
For what it is worth...
The process of selling our lives to financiers began very long ago, in ancient times. I think the book "The Alphabet and the Goddess" by Leonard Schlain offers some useful insights. Briefly summarized; writing was delegated by the rulers to the scribes, who then also came to be the keepers of financial records and calculations. But because they were good at their work, and the rulers did not always bother to learn and to take an active part in the accounting; the people in Finance, or Accounting, and the keepers of Gold, came to be the rulers behind the scenes.
POST EDITED BY ADMINISTRATOR: PLEASE KEEP FORUM POSTS CIVIL.
Human beings causing number change for the variables can only be represented algorithmically. See below (this is a repeat of what I have posted elsewhere):
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Lorraine Ford replied on Feb. 4, 2021 @ 22:37 GMT
The equations of physics that represent the laws of nature, including the equations with delta symbols, represent relationships between categories of variable. The equations do not represent movement or change.
The equations represent the fact that IF numbers for some of the variables change, the consequence is that the numbers for the other variables will change instantaneously i.e. the relationships always hold. This consequential change is merely due to relationship: there are no mini-computers or mini-people down there at the micro-level doing calculations. However, physicists doing experiments need to move and change in order to take measurements and do mathematical calculations representing (e.g.) predicted outcomes; these mathematical calculations represent what people do, they don’t represent the laws of nature.
The equations of physics that represent law of nature relationships represent a dead world: once the numbers for some of the variables change, the lawful relationships mean that the numbers for other variables change instantaneously, and the system comes to a halt.
The equations do not represent a cause for those original numbers changing. Equations that represent relationships can’t ever represent cause: only algorithmic statements can represent cause. This is what algorithmic statements look like: “IF variable1 = number1 OR variable2 = number2 THEN assign number3 to variable3” or even “assign number3 to variable3”.
The equations of physics that represent the law of nature relationships can’t represent our dynamic world. As well as the laws of nature, it is necessary to add something that can only be represented algorithmically, in order to represent a dynamic world.
The issue of “healing the climate” has got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with physics. The issue of whether physics can symbolically represent people taking action to heal the climate IS the issue that is relevant to physics.
So you input your algorithm (as per above example) in a program language of bit sequences, and that input enters a micro processor and the output is that 'number three got assigned to variable 3.
So How does any one of a growing great number of distinctly different chip architectures with distinct machine codes, process the same output from instructions in one of numerous program languages of distinctly differing bit sequencing?
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 5, 2021 @ 14:46 GMT
I think what is being said is...
The change is what is there to start with, and we have already known this for a while. The question then becomes; what are the mechanisms, and who or what are the agents of change? I think part of the problem is that we are seeking a single answer, rather than accepting that there might be multiple contributing factors, that all must be present at once for things that are static to arise from pure change.
So if some elements of change are purely mathematical, and others require an impersonal but physical cause, while still others are needing the participation of an observer who can respond to change; this is all to the good. But looking to pin down things to one causative agent, and to hold that responsible for all the follows, was not my intent, nor will such concerns disappear.
Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Feb. 5, 2021 @ 14:11 GMT
I would love to heal the rift...
But it is a pretty deep chasm, a gulf between the two viewpoints in play here, so it is difficult to even delineate what the issues are. My nephew Liam was an exceptional child, who was I think subjected to dogma, rather than being guided to explore his 'next step of evolution' insights. He had difficulty understanding why numbers should just sit there. It didn't quite make sense to him.
But he was fed with 'shut up and calculate' or 'this is how it's done' by his teachers, and despite my saying that there is a whole 'nother world out there; the Education establishment took hold, and indoctrinated that boy (with the full cooperation of his parents), who is now a young man looking for a purpose. The cycle of human ignorance will continue until a few brave souls are able to rise above.
According to some experts; the reason why we have a problem with hackers is that we don't trust the young minds with challenging problems in Physics and Math, which are needing of their superior intellect. But there is almost no reward for their effort, and considerable resistance, to taking on the lofty problems just because they still need solving and will distinguish you forever.
Learning for its own sake is what is dead, in modern society. Mathematics and Physics still have plenty of life left in them, but it requires that we think for ourselves, to actually learn anything from that study.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 5, 2021 @ 14:29 GMT
So the issue remains...
It is an open question, whether Mathematics describes a dead world. My opinion is that a lot of evidence is on the table to the contrary. Some of the more exciting developments in Maths arose in a way that seems to confirm the view that they carry some evolutive properties as well. And as Georgina and John have pointed out; equations that carry terms like velocity or acceleration are not dead, because they imply motion or the increase of motion. Things in the real world aren't just sitting there on a stationary planet. It is naive and imprecise to think so.
Elsewhere on the Forum; I have explicated how re-working Einstein's famous equation illustrates the extreme motivity of the matter-free regime near the Planck scale. But Physics people already had the idea that something exciting happens there, but were only lacking a clear reason why it occurs. Perhaps the idea that Maths CAN contain evolutive properties needs to be indoctrinated for a while, before we will see a major change. But it is sad that someone like my nephew should have a crucial insight, and be forced to forget about it.
Despite the delta symbols, the equations of physics that represent the laws of nature do not represent a dynamic system. These equations represent relationships between categories of variable IF some of the numbers for the variables change: the equations don’t represent anything that initiates the number change.
Without an element that continually inputs at least a few new numbers into the system, you don’t have a dynamic system. This element can only be represented algorithmically: it can’t be represented with the equations that represent relationships.
Agency/ free will is the element that continually inputs new numbers into the system. Agency can only be represented algorithmically.
I know the significance of this might mean absolutely nothing to you, but there are maybe 3 fundamental things to know about computers:
1) The way they work involves a symbolic representation of human analysis and agency (as well as symbolic representations of variables and numbers). Just like the symbols written on a piece of paper, this is a one-way thing: the symbols can’t transmogrify backwards into the piece of paper or the computer having thoughts or having agency.
2) Human beings have devised many ways of symbolically representing, organising and handling everything in computers. E.g. there are various possible ways of symbolically representing numbers and variables using strings of zeroes and ones.
3) There are no actual zeroes and ones, or trues and falses, in computers: there are only electrical voltages that human beings use to symbolically represent zeroes and ones, or trues and falses. The circuit designer can use high voltages to represent 0 and low voltages to represent 1, or alternatively the circuit designer can use low voltages to represent 0 and high voltages to represent 1. So the circuit designer might decide to use (e.g.) 3 volts to represent 0/FALSE and less than 3 volts to represent 1/TRUE; or the circuit designer might decide to use (e.g.) 4 volts to represent 1/TRUE and less than 4 volts to represent 0/FALSE.
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Law of nature relationships and numbers are things that exist in the real world, but they don’t exist as symbols. Human beings represent them as written or spoken symbols.
Leaving aside the question of what exactly IS a real-world number and other issues about numbers, the word “three” represents a number, the numeral “3” represents the same number, and the binary digit “0011” represents the same number. Naturally, there are many different languages that represent the same number with different words and different symbols for the numeral, e.g. look at Arabic or Thai number symbols.
In a computer, the numeral 3 will be represented by a series or string of voltages. E.g.
…less than 4 volts, less than 4 volts, less than 4 volts, 4 volts, 4 volts
might represent the numeral 3. But if there is a different circuit design, then the series
…3 volts, 3 volts, 3 volts, less than 3 volts, less than 3 volts
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 7, 2021 @ 18:09 GMT
A wonderful explication Lorraine...
There are numerous ways to represent the same numerical quantity or mathematical relation, which which are entirely equivalent. Different threshold voltages in CMOS vs TTL logic circuitry yielded the same results, for some reason; so folks had to wonder. Is there a mathematical invariant behind all this variation?
This can be extended from objective to subjective reasoning, and the history of writing on this is extensive. Back in 1703; Gottfried Leibniz wrote in the journal of the Royal Society about the significance of Binary Numbers and how they related to the trigrams of the I Ching. See:
The richness and depth of the articulation by this point leaves little to be desired, Lorraine, in terms of giving justification for the idea that numbers do more than just sit there unchanging. Evolutive properties have been with us from the start. You are free to believe otherwise. One has to wonder about Chinese scholars in ancient times, though. How much did they really know?
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 7, 2021 @ 18:22 GMT
For what it is worth...
The Chinese might have, or might have had, an advantage due to the fact the Chinese language is more process oriented and less subject-object specific than English. It is a fact that the Chinese characters tell a story and that complex characters often tell the story of how they came to be. So things are very much more tightly woven with this idea of things being procedural or algorithmic. The whole Chinese language is based on the idea things are a procedure or process.
Too bad English isn't like that. It's a good thing that Constructive Geometry gives us a road to the same place (where everything is process). Process Physics is worthwhile to explore.
Jonathan, maybe a bit off topic but your mention of the question of invariance relating to the different threshold voltages for CMOS and TTL semiconductor junctions (geez, that was 50 years ago!) producing near resulting outputs, jogged my memory for some unknown reason and I was nagged by Hysteresis. Did you ever notice that in Steinmetz"s Equation of energy loss in repeated magnetization the the value of the exponent of B (maximum induction) is ^1.6 ? which is a truncated equivalent to the numerical value of The Golden Mean. I've always thought that must have some physical significance. cheers jrc
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 16, 2021 @ 16:39 GMT
I like Steinmetz too John...
And hysteresis plays an important part in early-universe cosmology, IMO. I'll have to contemplate this question though. It's possible there is a geometric relation that precisely results in the Golden mean. And thinking back on it; there were some thoughts by Ray Munroe on a closely related question. Perhaps his insights will be something I can access.
I'm pleased you bring your level of mathematical sophistication to the subject of macroscopic, 4D realtime Hysteresis. Ferromagnetism is by nature a rather unique case, given the position of Iron on the packing fraction curve. And Domains remain a thing of high tech research and theorizing. I once made a small sculpture piece of folded card stock that was essentially three symmetrically sized 3D arrows joined on rotating axes as a display of the orthogonal relation with 90* torsion.
Escher's tessellation studies come to mind. While the cascading reaction timing is asymmetrical, it is a mirror image asymmetry in 2D, distinct for ferromagnetism as compared to an entirely different material response in polymer elasticity. One would think that domain range and orientations within a magnetic domain would lead to a geometric relationship in 4D. Phi is the algebraic relationship of what is mechanically a 2D folding function. It is a tantalizing puzzle. best jrc
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 17, 2021 @ 19:50 GMT
Jonathan, It is well to speak about the Dr Ray Munroe aka Dr Cosmic Ray , he was my friend, I miss him in fact, we have had very good discussions, he told me in all humility , steve the spheric man I don t understand why we have not thought about a general link like your spherisation before, he was humble , maybe the thinkers have forgotten the simple generality and now their vanity has difficulties to recognise it, I am not pretentious but it seems evident , feynmann said that one day we shall see all the truth and we shall say oh my god how is it possible that we have not seen a thing so simple before, I beleive that it is due to the encodings and the schools , the 3D spheres seem the choice of the universe and the philosophy of thinkers and their works shall not change this reality, the universe is made of this at all scales probably. The real difficulty is to understand their complexity in the details. I know that I am a problem for the stings theorists philosophically speaking and for the thinkers , but between us it seems so evident and it is simple generally but not in the details so the persons telling that it is too simple have a problem of vanity. I am sorry but it is true what I tell even if I irritate, it is like this. The searchers shall find many relevant things if they focus on this spherisation and spheres, be sure.
THE BITS IN BETWEEN the symbols that represent the numbers and equations can only be represented algorithmically. That is, the actions of the people (or their computers) that are manipulating the numbers and equations can only be represented with algorithmic symbols. You can’t sweep the actions of people under the carpet and pretend that they don’t exist. It’s the actions of people (or their computers) that make the symbolic representations of the world work. Therefore, you need to symbolically represent the actions of people as being part of the whole system.
"The BITS IN BETWEEN" is a problem in gravitation that Einstein briefly expounded upon in an article I read years ago. He was laying out the reasoning for why he had used a spherical geometry in GR, and described how no matter how narrowly you focused the angle between two radii that there was still that convergence in space, in which the Inverse Square Law could not account for. The ISL being an invariant relationship between mass A towards mass B, and vice-versa. and along a straight line of sight. So any Field Theory had no way of mathematically distributing equivalent force effect in that undefined space between convergent radii, in accord with inverse square law. (Tantalizing problem. Isn't it?!) jrc
It can also be addressed as "divergent space'... Einstein's theories of Relativity, as you know, are derivative of Maxwell's results and so quantifying energy quantity distribution in a field goes to both Divergence (div) and Convergence (curl) in Maxwellian theorizing.
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Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 8, 2021 @ 21:20 GMT
Regarding what is missing...
The main result of Gödel is to show that any formal system leaves gaps in what we know, or can know, based solely on ratiocination. There will always be things possible to be, which are not possible to elucidate in bottom-up fashion. Nature defies precise representation. But I suspect that some of the barriers dissolve when a top-down approach is taken. So if we assume that all of the structure we find in higher dimensions, like the Monster group, E8, E7, E6, F4, and G2, ... is self-existing; it may be possible to realize the dream of Whitehead, Hilbert, and others - to unify Math. It's not yet proven possible though.
While it seems like a tautology, however, because we need to assume it is true to show it is relevant; there is a value in using the specific properties we have learned about these objects as a kind of roadmap to where specific areas of Maths are interconnected. I find it rather exciting myself. And that's what excites folks like Tejinder as well. But the idea is; this stuff is only relevant because nature appears to already be putting it to use. It is still an open question whether we need an expanded understanding and definition of natural law to admit consciousness and explain free will; or will ordinary Physics do the job?.
More later,
Jonathan
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Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 10:23 GMT
Hi Lorraine,John, Jonathan,
Dear Jonathan,
I can understand that you have worked about these Lie Groups and that ypou consider so just this GR and photons like main essence of our reality and fiedls, but don t forget that the maths applied with these strings added are just an assumption like the general idea and the extradiemnsions also. You defend your ideas and it is respectable indeed , you know about what you think, the problem is not there, you can add godel or cantor or others to explain the consciousness or the free will, the problem is not there, but don t forget that if I am right about the main codes in these 3D finite series , so all the reasonings about the fields like origin of our geometries, topologies or a consciousness or free will appearing can be false generally. There is nothing for me of exceptional with these monster groups and Lie algebras. The problem is really tautological, ontological, philosophical for me, why these fields like origin of our reality and strings or points of geometrodynamics, is it due to Einstein, Wheeler, Lie and Witten ??? And all now they consder only this , can you explain this fashion lol you ?The maths and numbers of course are under an unversal partitions and the particles and fields are correlated like all in fact even this consciousness and free will, but the philosophy has a problem like I explained. And Hilbert is not the problem, the problem is the general philosophy and the fact to be in this photonic relativistic prison more the strings now. Why this fashion frankly , why the fields like origin of this reality and this GR like the only one piece, I d like that you develop a little bit your philosophy please about this main cause, you can explain me with God if you want.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 10:33 GMT
About this consciousness and free will, let s try to see the generality. We are results of evolution with a brain and we think, and this consciousness increases with the number of interactions of mechanisms of these brains. Now the real question is why we exist and from what , why are we conscious and why we evolve.I liked the ideas of Penrose about this protoconsciousness and we can consider so a kind of infinite eternal consciousness beyond this physicality , so all is conscious at its level of complexity at the basis. But we cannot affirm, what I tell is simple, we don t see to come from oscillations and fields to be conscious , we are made of this consciousness inside the particles .It is totally different, the error for me so of strings theorists is to consider these fields from this infinite eternal consciousness, like if we were inside this infinity and that this thing oscillates vibrates the strings to create these geometries, topologies and lifes more the consciousness and free will. The consciousness is not due to oscillations but can be ranked in function of particles and their complexity, it is totally different. Like I explained there are several foundamental problems about the fields and oscillations , that does not take into account this evolution and the deep meaning of this infinite eternal consciousness.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 10:42 GMT
The consciousness so does not seem to come from a field like in the works of Kohler, I can understand the idea of strings theorists with this 1D main field of this infinite eternal consciousness, I respect their choices, but you see well that we need a complexity of particles and an evolution to develop this consciousness. I repeat the deep probloem about the origin and the evolution, if we evolve and that we need a complexification, there are reasons. If a kind of creator exists, this thing that we cannot define needs to code and transform the energy , the fields and oscillations can appear due to the motions oscillations of particles in a superfluidity and like they are coded, they develop and permit the evolution because the informations possess this evolution and complexification.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 11:27 GMT
I have nothing against the fields, they exist, I just explain my point of vue considering them like emergent due to motions ocillations vibrations of particles in a superfluidity and are a result in my model when the 3 series of 3D spheres merge together preserving the volumes and implying the properties of fields, so the 3 series are necessary to create these fields electroMagnetic and gravitation of our standard model. They appear due to these photons encoded and this cold dark matter encoded in the main codes of this space vaccuum of this DE. So these series are sent from a central cosmological sphere , it is there that all the informations are sent , it is like a supermatter energy this center and it is there that this infinite eternal consciousness has transformed the energy in something beyond our understanding. It like a beat of heart sending these coded particles simply and permitting the evolution, it is the meaning of my theory of spherisation, an evolution complexification of the universal sphere or future sphere, thetre is a begining and an aim, the consciousness evolving , it is like a tool of optimisation also.
Stephen A. Brenner wrote on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 11:35 GMT
I emphatically believe that Quantum Physics can inform us directly regarding the nature of consciousness. In fact I would go further and say that for over a hundred years, very well known physics equations have held the secret to not only describing consciousness, but to describe the integral relations between the physical the mental and the spiritual. And this concept goes way beyond panpsychism because it holds that everything in the universe has both physical, mental and spiritual aspects and that the relations between all three describe reality.
I think we have to open our minds a bit to get to that kind of understanding. Even today you’ll find individuals who only believe that humans have a soul. With that kind of mindset, any concept of panpsychism is a non-starter. To understand how Quantum Physics can describe consciousness, we have to be ready for a Copernican kind of moment. We have to shed our preconceived notions and maybe disentangle ourselves a bit from our string theories and have some serious introspective moments.
It was interesting to hear Carlo’s mention of the term “Meaning” and how it relates to Evolution. This fits in perfectly with the metaphysical extrapolations that I have come up with that are based on a theory of “Synergy Physics” that I came up about 50 years ago. The summary of that theory is presented at the bottom of the site archetype.org. Get in tune with your inner caveman and have a look.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 11:45 GMT
Hi Mr Brenner, we must recognise that unfortunally all this is beyond our understanding. I belive in a god of spinoza, in respecting the determinism of our nature and reality. I consider an infinite eternal consciousness creating this universe evolving, I also consider a kind of continuity for our souls but we cannot reach and prove , we can just have ideas and a personal intepretation. We know that the sciences community in theoretical physics is divided, but all this universe seems to need a kind of coder for the energy. What are we and why we are, maybe simply souls evolving , fractals of this thing that we cannot define. It is fascinating I must say , we are inside a wonderful project, I have thought a lot about all this, I have searched answers in many centers of interest, the sciences give us the best answers and a thing appears , like an evidence but we have too much limitations to prove and affirm also. Why this thing if it exists has created this universe, maybe simply this infinity was alone and we share a project, we are like the babies of this eternity and infinity. That is why seeing the evolution and the complexity os informations, I consider coded particles instead of fields like primordial essence because the evolution seems essential. In a simplistic analysis, maybe we create it this thing that us the humans we name the paradise, the potential is infinite and so the souls can have their kind of multivers in the future where this infinite eternal consciousness lives with us the reality. We cannot blame so this creator because we evolve and the future is better , all this is an assumption of course but I see like this.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 11:59 GMT
Mr Brenner, if we consider that all is conscious at its level and that the complexification permits the increasing consciousness, so we can consider the dna and the brains, the brains for the consciousness and the dna for the souls , and farer the uniqueness of things. We encode, sort, superimpose informations and probably if the souls exist that we sort our biological lifes, like if we encode only foundamental universal informations and we delete others, that is why we don t remember our past lifes, we just evolve about the souls in encoding universal truths,we forget our biological lifes on the planets, in my model I consider and it is an assumption that I don t affirm, we just discuss because sometimes we can go deeper in philosophy, so I consider that after the death we are in the instant at this central cosmological sphere and resynchronised like all turn on an other planet in a correlated brain in a body , in a baby in an other species, that permits to nourrish our souls this diversity. We continue so a road, we are just transformed. The body mind soul problem is fascinating , the body and mind are linked with this soul but are different .Regards
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 12:13 GMT
All this to tell that we have so scales in 3D to discover, in our DNA and particles, we have these particles and complexity , having created these codes but why ? what is the main cause, we have particles farer having the answers , what is all this puzzle of sortings, synchros, superimposings and their time lifes also and stabilities.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 12:41 GMT
A sure thing is that nobody has really the answer, nor me nor the strings theorists, nor the geometrodynamics or other, nor the philosophes , nor the religious. It d be very pretentious and vanitious to pretend to know the truth. We know that our theoretical sciences community is probably the biggest vanitious community, all persuaded to understand better the laws of this universe and its origin, but a sure thing is that nobody knows really the origin of this physicality nor what are really the foundamental objects and how they create our topologies, geometries, properties of matters and this evolution. In fact our limitations imply a kind of humility in front of this infinite eternal consciousness, but unfortunally the humans have a small problem encoded in their DNA lol they beleive they are the center of the universe. We must recognise that we know so few still, our knowledges about our standard model and its secrets are like our knowledges and colonisations of this universe, lol even on mars we have not colonised it , so you imagine , we know nothing, we have just a little bit understood some electromagnetic effetcs of this standard model, but we don t know the cause, we just measure a little bit the effetcs and we have added this GR to a little bit understand the observations due to photons. But there are deeper logics to all this that we cannot reach actually.
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Stephen A. Brenner replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 13:21 GMT
Steve Dufourny,
The miracle of life and the full nature of the Divine Spirit will always be beyond our full comprehension, but we can still celebrate it all. In fact, I believe that part of the drive for evolution is to allow the spirit to fully enlighten our physical reality. You might say it's a divine experiment and that a small bit of the Divine may actually celebrate with us.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 13:33 GMT
Mr Brenner, it is very well said and it shows a deep philosphical understanding of this infinite eternal consciousness, like said Einstein , god does not play at dices and all the best thinkers were fervent thinkers in a kind of god spinoza like newton, heisenberg, schrodinger, galilei,godel,maxwell, planck, and many others, respecting the pure determinism of our reality, we can have faith , recognise our limitations but thionk in this thing that we cannot define, happy to see a person believing in this. I respect the choice of persons thinking that we come from a mathematical accident from a kind of energy but it seems odd, we need a kind of transformator and coder of informations. All this is so incredible and wonderful also. Friendly
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 14:01 GMT
Mr Brenner, I d be happy if you could write some ideas on the group GLOBAL COLLABORATION that FQXi nicely has permitted me to create, the aim is to create global solutions of optimisation for the well of this planet and try to convice the UN, this conciousness it is this also at my humble opinion, improve what we can improve, the global consciousness could be better if the persons, thinkers, scientists aware of this universal altruism act with sciences and consciousness,. I don t want to be the leader of this project , for me it is essential to change globally and it is with a skilling team that we could convice this UN with adapted concrete global solutions where all wins. The group is on alternative models of the reality , in global collaboration, I have some indeas about the industrialisation of the solar system correctly and in ecology , but I am not skilling in all topics . All are welcome, it can be an incredible revolution if the solutions are well adapted for the UN, our potential is so incredible, we must act for the well of all lifes and for the futre generations , friendly.
Stephen A. Brenner replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 16:35 GMT
Mr. Dufourny,
Global Collaboration is certainly what we need when it comes to the existential threat of Global Climate Change and all of the other challenges facing our planet. How do progressives go about changing consciousness to mobilize a planetary response to save ourselves? From my perspective, I would venture to say that if artists and storytellers could dramatically lay out the problems and motivate people to become part of a heroic people's movement, perhaps there would be a chance.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 16:59 GMT
Thanks for sharing, yes indeed we have many global challenges facing this planet Earth. I believe strongly that it is possible if this collaboration is a reality in beginning in these high spheres of power, the UN and the governments, they have an enormous responsability and the people also of course, they shall follow if they are reasured in seeing that the high spheres of power take these said...
Thanks for sharing, yes indeed we have many global challenges facing this planet Earth. I believe strongly that it is possible if this collaboration is a reality in beginning in these high spheres of power, the UN and the governments, they have an enormous responsability and the people also of course, they shall follow if they are reasured in seeing that the high spheres of power take these said responsabilities.
Many loose hope and many follow a system like if it was normal and logic, they try to find their place in living and surviving. This normality is like logic and it is this that we must also fight, change the minds. We need really a revolutionary industrialisation , this AI arrives and is going to replace the manual jobs, we cannot stop this but we can create laws and favorise these manual jobs and for this the solar system is there. We could really create wheels well studied in orbit mimating our g gravitation and we create ecosystems, we can also improve this earth in insisting on this depollution, recycling and harmonisation of our ecosystems, it seems for me a priority.
Frankly I don t understand how is it possible that the UN don t make this , they are smart ans conscious in logic, educated and they want the well of this planet and all lifes, why so it is not made, we can with this world bank and this UN create this revolution, it is even a necessary step of evolution for our earth. And all can win, I don t want to create problems for the lobbies of gas, fuels, energies, arms and weapons, they make what they want, they shall still win more, so there is no problem, it is this win win at all levels the most important, we must give water, food, energy, jobs, hope to majority, they need to be reasured the humans , they loose hope and it is not easy in several countries, it lacks several catalysers.
Imagine our potential , it is not an utopy what I explain, it is a real global solution, we need just funds for the governments and jobs and concrete revolutionary industrial projects, this solar system is the key for me.
I have remarked that a few number are aware of this , and many follow unfortunally and accept, and also the humans can be odd psychologically speaking, the fact to create this revolution will decrease the odd psychology because like I said they need to be reasured and stabilised. The money and conflicts of interest are not a problem, we can harmonise them also. The high spheres of power must understand that it is time to take its responsabilities with sciences and consciousness and with a concrete cooperation between the systems. We cannot accept the chaotical exponentials, they can arrive quickly is nothing is made revolutionary speaking.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 9, 2021 @ 18:55 GMT
In fact Mr Brenner, the solutions global are not very complicated, they are simple, the most difficult is to change the minds and unite the persons. Like I told you, the bad habits continue and the majority follow this system in trying to adapt themselves. I must say that we are a little bit special us the humans, too much vanity, greed, individualism, ego and so this explains that. I have remarked that the thinkers prefer to be followed , they don t like really to follow, I repeat but frankly I don t want to be a leader in this project, I am just worried seeing the globality and where we go . Now to follow the persons want money or want to satisfy this vanity , I find this sad, I will not stop with this project but I am a little bit sad in seeing the human nature. It is totally odd in fact, the solutions exist but nobody really is worried and ready to follow this project. If something is going to destroy the humans , it will be this vanity you know and this lack of unity. It is a fact, our past has given us lessons but we continue to make the same stupid errors but the problem is more serious than in the past because the parameters and numbers are different , we must change but are we going to change ? The question is there, so simple and so complex. Friendly
In a dynamic system, its not the equations that change, it’s the numbers that apply to the variables that change.
Despite the delta symbols, the symbolic equations of physics that represent the laws of nature can only represent fixed relationships between categories of variable. The equations can’t represent a cause of number change for the variables: the equations can only represent the consequence if a couple of the numbers have changed.
The cause of number change for the variables can only be represented with algorithmic symbols. The algorithmic symbols represent an evaluation of a numeric situation for some of the variables, and the response to this evaluation, which is represented as an assignment of numbers to some of the variables.
In other words, no set of equations can represent a dynamic world, where people and things move. At all levels of the world, from particles to people, it is necessary for them to evaluate situations, and for them to make numeric inputs: this makes the world move; equations can’t make the world move.
Many or most physicists seem to believe that law of nature relationships will eventually be found to have been underlying quantum mechanics all along.
Yet the set of equations that symbolise law of nature relationships between categories of variable (like mass or position), or indeed any set of equations at all, can never represent a dynamic system:
1) Equations symbolise relationships that do not exist inside their own categories: law of nature relationships do not exist inside time, mass or position. I.e. law of nature relationships are instantaneous.
2) Equations that include delta symbols symbolise instantaneous change in the numbers for some of the variables, ONLY IF the numbers for some of the other variables have already changed
3) Despite any delta symbols, equations can only symbolise relationships: equations can’t symbolise a mechanism for number change.
4) Leaving aside the question of what a number is, equations don’t need numbers assigned to their variables: equations just sit there, symbolising relationships between categories.
5) To assign a number to a category is to introduce a new element to the picture. The assignment of numbers can only be represented by introducing algorithmic symbols to the picture. Algorithmic symbols are needed to turn the law of nature equations into something that symbolises a dynamic system.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 15, 2021 @ 21:30 GMT
In all fairness...
Part of what you are talking about here is the disconnect between QM and GR, and the fact there is incompatible terminology, or the lack of a simple unifying description that adequately reproduces features of both. This is why folks have resorted to ideas for Quantum Gravity theories that are so far afield from the common reality we all know is real. But Quantum Gravity is NOT irrelevant to this topic.
You should really read, or listen to the book on tape, "Reality is Not What it Seems," by Carlo Rovelli - whose work is being discussed here. It is evident to this reader that only scientists who have some understanding of the reasoning leading up to Quantum Gravity theories should try to explicate the origins of consciousness, because some of the same factors become variables in that regime.
And in defense of that endeavor; I point out that your statement 1) explicitly reproduces what I have said repeatedly, that equations represent relations that exist apart from space, time, and matter, NOT inside it. However; what you have said means you are now a radical Platonist, so I don't think that could be genuine. You might be implying that IF 1) were true, it leads to a contradiction.
But I'm happy there is something we completely agree on.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 16, 2021 @ 14:50 GMT
And for the record...
I recall having used arguments similar to yours on the steps of the University of Western Australia Physics building, when conversing with Hew Price after his lecture on the 'Block Universe' interpretation of GR, where everything is fixed in its place in space and time, only we don't know it yet for future events. This view lacks something essential.
I find the idea of a lifeless interpretation of reality deplorable, but I don't think that's what Physics tells us at all. Quantum Mechanics gives us a very different outlook from Relativity. So I tend to think Physics is not as dead as some people imagine. On the other hand; I also see Math as being full of dynamism, which is where our agreement on things falls apart and our opinions totally diverge, Lorraine.
But on some level, it appears we have been on the same page, or have agreed at some point in our lives. It just happened at different times.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 16, 2021 @ 16:10 GMT
And perhaps...
What you say above might be more true to fact if instead of 'instantaneous' the word was 'ubiquitous' or the term 'universally applicable' or 'context-independent' was used instead. As it stands; you have depicted natural law and outcomes in reality as 'cause and effect' but they might better be seen as two sides of a single coin. In this way; the fact that natural events follow a pattern is thought to imply there is a 'law of nature' at work behind the scenes, but those events are the embodiment of that law, not an effect thereof.
So in a universe where real world concerns stipulate that nothing can happen instantaneously, and there are no truly straight lines; we can't just assume simultaneity. As I recall; Einstein and Ritz argued bitterly about this issue, and the scientific community remains somewhat divided on whether we can view separated events from being simultaneous. This makes the idea that any kind of natural law applies instantaneously subject to being picked apart. It is not just a matter of semantics.
To say something is instantaneous implies that it happens infinitely fast. But the real-world universe appears to have a speed limit - at least past the point in early-universe cosmology where massive particles first appeared. And we don't really know how different things were at the first instant or Planck scale.
“Like every other virus before it, SARS-CoV-2 has only one goal: to survive” (https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-02-21/coronavirus-c ovid-19-variants-how-they-alter-pandemic-vaccines/13137136):
NO, a virus does not have a goal: there is no lawful goal-type thing creating outcomes in the world. If there WERE such a thing, then physicists would have to update their ideas and add a mysterious “goal to survive law” to the law of nature relationships between variables, and the other basic elements of the world like numbers and particles.
It’s easy to see that a “goal to survive” can be broken down into:
1) knowledge/ consciousness of situations (represented by the numbers corresponding to a set of variables, and the analysis of these numbers); and
2) the outcome of/ response to this analysis of the situation (represented by the numbers corresponding to a set of variables).
A “goal to survive” is an element of the world that can only be represented via algorithmic symbols, which in turn represent fundamental aspects of the world that CAN’T BE DERIVED FROM other aspects of the world: knowledge/ consciousness/ analysis of situations, and agency/ free will/ creativity in response to this analysis.
Georgina Woodward replied on Feb. 22, 2021 @ 00:32 GMT
I agree that the virus does not have a goal. It has a form that enables particular functions. Those include infecting a suitable host if the opportunity happens and getting its genetic material replicated by the host's cellular 'machinery 'by getting its genetic material into the host's cells. What happens from there, making more viruses, is a consequence of the viral code.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 24, 2021 @ 16:03 GMT
There is a story from Greek mythology...
Fearsome warriors who acquired magical powers including the ability to change form stormed the heavens to ask for immortality - and had their wish granted. But afterward; they found it was a curse because they were deathless but not ageless, so they became decay itself and were increasingly devoid of constant form over time. This sounds like the 'life' of a virus.
While it is debatable whether a virus microorganism is alive, or has any intelligence to speak of; it is demonstrable that they exhibit a kind of collective intellect. One might ask if our individual nerves have any IQ to speak of, or is it only because of the collective action they are intelligent? We in our hubris think we are inherently smarter than Covid, and it laughs while we die.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 24, 2021 @ 16:14 GMT
It is known that...
One of the first effects of Covid-19 on infected people is to mask its presence. It is said to co-opt the immune response, to convince the body there is nothing wrong. People get ridiculously low levels of blood oxygen, and they do not feel short of breath because the CO2 trigger pathway is blocked by the virus.
In this manner; Covid-19 behaves as though it is trying to outsmart the immune system of the host in order to take charge of their body. It has the capacity to infect both the upper and lower chambers of the longs, and the sinuses too - unlike other variations of MERS or SARS.
So it can make you a human virus factory before you realize you are really sick. This kind of sneaky behavior suggests it IS intelligent, at least to some researchers, and it makes some anthropomorphic verbiage appropriate.
Georgina Woodward replied on Feb. 24, 2021 @ 19:58 GMT
Jonathan,
If the code for making the virus changes to instructions for making a virus more able because of its form to get its like replicated, more of its like will be produced. Changes making it less likely to get its genetic material copied are not going to proliferates well and may fail and become extinct or rare. They have no thought or intention, (unless engineered in a lab intentionally.) They do not have all of the characteristics of living things. Trey are complex, organized chemicals.
Tying in with your mentioning of the sequential nature of reading and writing, transcription of the genetic code happens sequentially. Further evidence of sequential change being foundational for material reality.
Georgina Woodward replied on Feb. 24, 2021 @ 21:16 GMT
Even if engineered, they still have no intention of their own. For analogy the paracetamol tablet on my desk has no intention of its own to ease pain. It's just a chemical that will do what it does because of its chemical form.
I know you love to discuss history and biology and mythology. But the only issue of relevance to the FQXi website is whether law of nature mathematical relationships alone could ever create a dynamic system where the numbers change. Obviously, they can’t. Lawful mathematical relationships between CATEGORIES (like mass, position) can’t explain the continual NUMBER change in the world. To explain number change, you need to add algorithmic elements to the system. Algorithmic elements are represented by symbols like IF, AND, OR, THEN, and ELSE.
(I’m assuming that you can understand that, in order to analyse the world, you need to represent the world as categories and numbers, and relationships. And go from there.)
Lorraine Ford replied on Feb. 25, 2021 @ 01:31 GMT
Georgina,
I suspect that you and Jonathan will never understand this type of thing. The issue of symbolic representation is pretty basic stuff, but most people have never needed to consider the issue. I.e. they have never considered something that they are doing all day, every day when they read, write, speak or listen. A computer programmer DOES need to consider the issue of symbolic representation.
You can represent a dog via the word “dog” or the word “chien”, or you can decide that “00010111101101010101” will represent a dog whenever you are talking or writing about dogs. You can represent IF, AND, OR, THEN, and ELSE via flowcharts, but it’s about as useful as using “00010111101101010101” in general conversation, when referring to a dog.
The ACTUAL issue I am talking about is that law of nature mathematical relationships are static relationships between CATEGORIES that can't explain NUMBER change in the world, or the production of patterns in the numbers, or the detection of patterns in the numbers.
Law of nature mathematical relationships are represented via a string of symbols (i.e. equations). But number change, and the production of patterns in the numbers, and the analysis of patterns in the numbers can only be represented via a string of symbols which would include some or all of the following symbols: IF, AND, OR, THEN, and ELSE.
These algorithmic symbols cannot be derived from mathematical relationships; indeed they are about different things: algorithmic symbols are all about particular numbers; mathematical relationships are all about particular categories.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Feb. 25, 2021 @ 23:25 GMT
Perhaps Art classes are needed...
In terms of qualia; the most fundamental relation is foreground to background. Shades of grey exist. But in treating matters of directionality; Georgina is right and arrows have a certain elegance. In terms of the underlying structure; it is absolutely true that a category-theoretic formulation subsumes other mathematical relations.
You only need to recast familiar concepts in category-theoretic terms to extract new information. That is not news. But I don't hear you talking about morphisms or functors. So it is partly artificial to object to things that ARE being treated properly in Maths, just because you have not attended those classes yet.
However; I reiterate earlier statements. While it may be true that symbols once created just sit there; they may also be viewed as steps in a program and so on.
Despite the delta symbols, the equations of physics that represent the laws of nature, represent static relationships between categories. These equations represent the consequence IF one or two of the numbers, that apply to the categories, happened to change. The equations do not represent a reason for why those one or two numbers happened to change. In other words, the equations do not explain why the world is a dynamic system. You need to use algorithmic symbols to represent a reason for why those one or two numbers happened to change.
You’ve only got 2 choices for why those one or two numbers happened to change, and both of them can only be algorithmically represented, where the symbols represent the input of new numbers to the system: 1) random number change that occurs without any logical reason, i.e. the number change is irrelevant to the situation; and 2) number change that occurs for a logical reason, i.e. the number change is relevant to the situation.
You need to use algorithmic symbols to represent: 1) the detection of, and the analysis of, numeric situations; and 2) the input of new numbers to the system in response to the analysis of the situation.
Agency is all about the input of new numbers to the system, where these new numbers are a response to the numeric situation. Consciousness is all about the detection of, and the analysis of, numeric situations.
Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 26, 2021 @ 13:06 GMT
I agree totally Lorraine, you are relevant , that is why I see like this following your resoning
The importance is to differenciate the static relationships between these categories so implying consequences for the equations and the numbers are correlated ,that does not imply a reason of change , that is why an equation needs algorythms for the change ,
all is a question of numeric situations and detections and analysis , like an agency being all about the input of new numbers to a system and we have responses to these situations, the number change so are essential and relevant. That implies relevances for the detedction of this consciousness in finding the good foundamental objects and this philosophy ,
that is why these assymetries and non commutativity for the subgroups are essential like the good equations, algorythms and numeric analysis towards this hard problem, the geometrical algebras are important but like I said we need the good foundamental objects and the good general philosophy, the problem is there.
That implies a real difficulty to find the good universal partition where the numbers, algorythms, equations, fields are in harmony
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I am no mathematician, but This is how I have understood it.
1) the equations of physics that represent the laws of nature, represent static relationships between categories. These are symmetries and conservation Laws mostly. This is why they are static. You can say they lack energy. This is the problem with E8, it is too symmetric,in my mind. Maybe if you link many together...
I am no mathematician, but This is how I have understood it.
1) the equations of physics that represent the laws of nature, represent static relationships between categories. These are symmetries and conservation Laws mostly. This is why they are static. You can say they lack energy. This is the problem with E8, it is too symmetric,in my mind. Maybe if you link many together you get some tension because you link non-commutativity between quaternions, and non-associativity between octonions.... type of. This is Gödel in a way, uncomputability and undecidability, the halting problem due to time, a lack of a cross in a way.
2) The equations do not represent a reason for why those one or two numbers happened to change. In other words, the equations do not explain why the world is a dynamic system., yes. This is how a computer 'sense' the categories he need to define, by checking for changes, bitflips and maybe even swaps. Up and down in the number'field' or 'energy' and back and forth in time, so we get 'something' to hold on to. Between a 0 and a 1 is a global universe in a way that also must be included in the measurement. It is an yes or no answer, partitioned. Maybe fractalized even? What I miss here is the in-between or intermediate answer, 'I don't know' like an undeciadability. 'I need more to come to a conclusion', simply Gödel etc. uncertainty. So we have a qutrit.
3) You need to use algorithmic symbols to represent a reason for why those one or two numbers happened to change. Logical or not logical, you say. Random is not logical acc to you, but it is chaos, the 8-fold symmetry. So it is logical, I think, periodic. Actually this is very important, also why we have this E8 discussion.
4) Agency is all about the input of new numbers to the system, where these new numbers are a response to the numeric situation.
New numbers are put in between, like a fill-up of undecidability in rationals? This is the 'I don't know' category that need more information? In E8 you use the Clifford 'numbers' to do this, so they are like this 'cross' forming a superposition. The computer measure them by examining them in the gate systems to see if they are stable configurations or not.
5) Consciousness is all about the detection of, and the analysis of, numeric situations. Exactly how does a computer experience the True and differ it from a False? Say for a 'dog' or 'cat' state where we have at least a semiclassical observer or Self giving interference (non-commutativity) with history?
I write on this just now... Hope you can answer me Lorraine. A computer is also classical.
I would like to see physics added to math, like time. space, density matrices, energy matrices etc.
In a way a computer use the 4D to check up with. Like finding the 'pearls' within... This gives the dynamicity.
I have earlier looked at gravitation as E8 groups, but the dynamicity is a problem, like it was also for Einstein, so he added some small tension in between as a fluctuation... This add also must follow some Law, or is it a 'Law of irreversibility' like Prigogine talked of? Note time is not the one here. Prigogine talked of a lambda operator...
Ulla.
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If you want to represent a dynamic world you need:
1) Something to handle the categories (equations, which represent law of nature relationships between categories); and
2) Something to handle the numbers (algorithmic statements, which represent knowledge of numeric situations, and the numeric response to this knowledge).
The necessity of using algorithmic statements if you want to represent a dynamic system is fairly common knowledge these days. Nevertheless, physicists and philosophers are still in the dark about it.
I was a computer programmer and analyst for more than 20 years; I studied the subject at university (as well as physics and maths), and I know how computers work. Unfortunately, the majority of physicists and philosophers don’t understand the nitty gritty details about how computers work (e.g. physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, philosopher David Chalmers), and so they come to the wrong conclusions about computers/ AIs.
Computers/ AIs are “classical” i.e. deterministic, just like any human-made machine is deterministic. That is, computers don’t know about numeric situations and they don’t make decisions. Computers run programs written by human beings that symbolically represent human knowledge and analysis of numeric situations, and human decision making in response to this analysis[1].
Computers can symbolically represent dynamic systems like the world and its parts, where “its parts” are (e.g.) living things and viruses. Whereas computers are constrained by their computer programs, there is no computer program controlling living things and viruses; but there ARE lawful relationships constraining categories. There is no computer program controlling living things and viruses, but the only way to represent their knowledge of numeric situations, and their response to this knowledge, is with algorithmic symbols.
1. Despite all the checks and balances written into computer programs for AIs, some computer programs for AIs can run amok because of the unpredictable nature of the inputs and situations the computer programs need to handle. But most computer programs are designed for use in very restricted situations, so they don’t run amok unless there are errors/ bugs in them.
Lorraine, this was not an answer to my questions, pls read properly. I am interested in consciousness, how can numbers be 'conscious' and represent a 'symbol' esp. my last question. Thanks. Ulla.
Lorraine Ford replied on Feb. 28, 2021 @ 22:49 GMT
Ulla,
The answer to your questions requires background knowledge and understanding on your part, and the ability to logically analyse things: it’s not a matter of me imparting knowledge to you.
The creation and use of symbols by human beings is a key concept. Also, knowledge of physics, mathematics, and computers is required.
this post has been edited by the author since its original submission
Ulla Marianne Mattfolk replied on Mar. 1, 2021 @ 16:14 GMT
But the questions came from YOUR own comments, and you repeat them so often. And you cannot answer, yes or no, even? Maybe it is just gibberish talk from your side? And from when have you started to take notions of others levels of knowledge? Never mind, it is my problem, not yours.
I just took YOUR OWN statements and expanded on them, so something you should be able to tell, esp about how we recieve a number as an answer to an quiry or measurement, and how that number can be aware of its meaning. Thanks. Ulla.
Okay. That is a clear enough statement, with a qualification that whereas humans may understand numeric situations, viruses definitely would not. But, there again, some responsibility resides with the reader to include that sort of distinction in any kind of discourse.
The whole point being, that math is a human invention, and it was originated with the express idea that...
Okay. That is a clear enough statement, with a qualification that whereas humans may understand numeric situations, viruses definitely would not. But, there again, some responsibility resides with the reader to include that sort of distinction in any kind of discourse.
The whole point being, that math is a human invention, and it was originated with the express idea that it be useful to humans making some sense of their worldly perceptions. ie: Pythagoras and the building of dwellings that would not fall down on the people who built them. Fast forward and we have a small tool box of approximations of observations of relationships which, again, we humans devised as categories. They are all up for debate, and are at best approximate in calling them natural or physical laws. Not that nature gives any notice to us doing so and calling them "laws". Laws are a uniquely human construct. I really don't understand why there is such argument about our poor attempts to make nature comprehensible to our own human way of dealing with things. What comprises an 'algorithm' in computer sciences is really nothing new, it is a reasoning process that in other fields is treated as 'procedure'. And much of physical law statements in math are understood to be the end result of procedural processes.
I don't see much advancement in demanding that everybody reinvent the wheel to suit The Great Computer. Quite frankly, the current political climate is very revealing of how far from reality the expectations of pundits and promoters of the electronic revolution really were. If everyone whom posts here, had to go to a printshop and pay for the labor intensive production of hard copy and distribution of their meandering thinking on myriad topics, there would be a lot more thought put into what was written. Let's not conflate the internet with Guttenberg, talk is cheap but publicizing it isn't, and its the metadata generated from this site's activity that is trotted out by the Foundation to prospective donors. It certainly isn't being monitored and mediated, it just keeps churning out metadata because... talk is cheap and FQXi doesn't have to pay anybody for it. {-) jrc
Ulla Marianne Mattfolk replied on Mar. 1, 2021 @ 19:25 GMT
I take it like numbers are inherent in creation and we just measure things and find the correlations, ratios,symmetries etc that describe the meaning as the laws. A number is then just like any other measurement. Lorraines way to think tells that only objective measurements give consciousness, never the subjective I. This is not like we experience it, rather exactly the opposite, so maybe some entanglement matters here?
I am now more at the basics of measurement theory,what explicitly happens so we get conscious of a 'reality'? We can start with a number as Lorraine said. I wait...
Georgina Woodward wrote on Feb. 28, 2021 @ 01:02 GMT
About not remembering the future. Material existence does not need to be 4D for non simultaneity of an observed event, and being uni-temporal dispels the temporal paradoxes. When existence is not spread over time , there is no material future or past.
An event materially happens, Potential sensory stimuli, pertaining to the event, are emitted, transmission occurs. An o0bserver may receive the sensory stimuli and use them to generate observation products that are experienced. Short and then long term memories form by alteration of the connections of neurons.
From source material event to memory formation is sequential change. It is a tiny part of the change of the configuration of all that is existing, that can be thought of as passage of time.
Georgina Woodward wrote on Feb. 28, 2021 @ 05:09 GMT
Carlo Rovelli said, "Matter itself is contextual it exists only in interactions, hence in relation..." Towards the end of the video. Talking about the current view of physics. If that is the current view I don't think it is quite right Measurements that give us so called properties of matter, necessitate relations between measuring and measured entity or system. Even if a measurement is not extracted we can know that relations between entities or systems provide potential measurables; this relative to that. But to say that measurables, giving quantified properties and the enabling relations are all that exists is missing that for there to be such relations there must first be the existing stuff, the beable, noumenal, ontic, existential stuff. That there is both mater and 'subjective' contextual properties is still relevant to the hard problem.
Georgina Woodward replied on Feb. 28, 2021 @ 20:09 GMT
The problem I have is with the expression "it exists only in interactions" Rather than 'it exists and always in relation to other existence' The first expression implies the existence is foremost wholly dependent for its being upon its interactions. Ie. we can measure it therefore it exists.
We could in theory quantify Carlo Rovelli, with values for as many measurable 'properties' as we can think of; Height, weight, BMI, clothing ,shoe and hat size, lung capacity, aerobic endurance, electrolyte values, heart rate, blood pressure- I could go on. The aggregate of all of this quantifications tells a lot about Carlo but does not make the existent matter that is the fundamental being that is Carlo. so long as his environment is conducive for continued life, Carlo's material being endures despite his interactions not only because of them.
What comes first, interactions or properties, observables? It seems you talk of much but not about interactions, entanglement, fluxes... small things that hold it together, glues etc. It requires a 'gate' or a hinder of some kind to get the noncommutativity, and the 'blow-up' as interfererence. Lorraine talked about dynamicity here, as instance. I don't think this goes against Rovelli? Without this we would not have matter as we find it?
Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 1, 2021 @ 00:02 GMT
My giving a macroscopic analogy might not be helpful
.Quantum states come about by interaction. The interaction provides a context to what is otherwise an entity with no context applied. That entity has the potential to provide different states according to the interactions it encounters. A measured outcome/ observable state or value, does not preexist the relations by which it is obtained. The existential non contextual beable entity does preexist the interaction. Else there is nothing to interact.
I am only addressing the particular wording of a tiny part of the presentation. It has nothing to do with entanglement, flux, glue, non commutativity or Lorraine's pet project.
Ulla Marianne Mattfolk replied on Mar. 1, 2021 @ 16:42 GMT
Interaction is coming from non-commutativity? Context is partition as instance with time. States are densities mm.
A measured outcome/ observable state or value, does not preexist the relations by which it is obtained. - but this is what Rovelli also said?
non contextual beable entity does preexist, this sounds spooky. You mean a non-local beable as some kind of diffuse matter? or a tension? But the act of measurement changes that,or the compressed matter as we see it is an outcome of interaction.
In many worlds scenario it can maybe be said to preexist. You just select one possibility of diffuse beables. ok. This is much the cat-state also.
Entanglement is required for the interaction made by fluxes like gluons etc. And noncommutativity is the one giving the interference so you have something to measure. Think wave interference...
Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 1, 2021 @ 19:40 GMT
I was addressing Carlo's specific wording. I quoted the words to which I was referring. I was not writing about quantum physics in general. I wrote in my explanation "measured outcome/ observable state or value, does not preexist the relations by which it is obtained." - but this is what Rovelli also said? I'm not disagreeing on that matter, but his use of the word 'only'. He said "matter only exists in interactions...."Carlo Rovelli
Ulla wrote "You mean a non-local beable as some kind of diffuse matter? or a tension? But the act of measurement changes that, or the compressed matter as we see it is an outcome of interaction" I absolutely do not mean that. Superposition of state is indefinite state or measurement value, that will change to a definite state or value. That is not about beable matter coming in to being but a 'property' that depends on relations/context.
Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 1, 2021 @ 23:39 GMT
Anther macroscopic analogy. Consider the calling of a coin toss. During the protocol the heads/tails state of the coin is indefinite. It could be said to be in both states or neither state. That is because the heads or tails is an outcome of the completed protocol and is a product of the procedure. It comes into being when the procedure of coin calling ( the context) has been applied and not before. Whereas the matter, that is the beabble coin does preexist, enabling there to be a coin toss. It exists before, during and after the acquisition of definite heads or tails state. The observable state which corresponds to just one side of the coin, 'isolated' is not the same as the beable, existing, material coin. It would not be correct to say the matter, (which his the beable coin), only exists in the context of the coin toss. The 'isolated' state outcome does only 'exist' in that context.
Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 3, 2021 @ 01:04 GMT
Lorraine, that is rude. Unintelligible to you does not mean generally unintelligible. You are blaming me for your lack of comprehension, I think the problem is your own.
I have looked at the comments in question. They are written clearly and pertain to a self consistent explanatory framework.
You could have instead asked me to explain what specifically you don't understand, rather than jumping to the conclusion I am writing unintelligible 'word salad'
The properties/ physical characteristics of the solar system and the galaxy are a consequence of the laws of nature. One property is that, at the Earth’s equator, the amount of sunlight plus starlight varies from a minimum (midnight) to a maximum (midday). From the point of view of human beings, midnight could potentially be utilised to represent 0, and midday could potentially be utilised to represent 1.
Somewhat similarly, the properties/ physical characteristics of electrical circuits, voltages and transistors are a consequence of the laws of nature. When human beings correctly organise the parts of the system, and when human beings write a computer program to control the system, the physical characteristics of electrical circuits, voltages and transistors can be utilised by human beings to represent binary digits and Boolean algebra. This is only useful because human beings further organise the system so that the “binary digits” and “Boolean algebra” can represent letters/ words/ numbers/ and other symbols, mathematical operations, and logical analysis.
I.e. due to the laws of nature and human ingenuity, a system of electrical circuits, voltages and transistors can be utilised to symbolically represent letters/ words/ numbers/ and other symbols, mathematical operations, and logical analysis. The use of symbols by human beings the key reason that human beings were able to create computers: computers process symbols (of symbols of symbols). These symbols mean something from the point of view of human beings, but the symbols mean nothing from the point of view of the computer.
The above sentence should be: “The use of symbols by human beings IS the key reason that human beings were able to create computers: computers process symbols (of symbols of symbols).”
Symbols are important. EVERY symbol was created by human beings. The following are examples of symbols:
1) the letters of the alphabet, and the words and sentences formed out of these letters;
2) the symbols used in the equations of mathematics and physics, and the equations formed out of these symbols; and
3) the symbols used in musical notation like crotchets, minims, semiquavers, Treble clefs, Bass clefs, sharp and flat symbols, and the finished document representing the piece of music.
All these symbols are just SQUIGGLES THAT HAVE NO MEANING IN THEMSELVES. Human beings have given these symbols a meaning. This meaning is transmitted to other human beings via education. To human beings that have not been educated about the meaning of the symbols, the symbols have NO meaning.
The all day, every day use of written and spoken symbols by human beings demonstrates an important point: there is a fundamental aspect of the world that can only be represented algorithmically:
Whereas law of nature relationships are symbolically represented as mathematical equations, the detection and analysis of symbols can only be represented via the use of algorithmic symbols [1]. The equations can only represent RELATIONSHIPS between CATEGORIES [2]; the equations can never represent ANALYSIS of the NUMBERS that apply to the categories.
To detect symbols, you need to detect patterns in the frequency or wavelength of the light or sound waves that interact with the eyes or ears. This detection of patterns requires analysis of the numbers that apply to the frequency or wavelength.
The pre-existing ability to detect patterns in the numbers that apply to the categories is a necessary pre-requisite for life. In other words, there is a fundamental aspect of the world that can only be represented algorithmically.
1. IF, AND, OR, THEN, and ELSE are examples of algorithmic symbols
2. Mass, position, frequency, and voltage are examples of categories
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Mar. 3, 2021 @ 16:44 GMT
Humans have created abstractions...
These are organizing principles by which both natural events and symbolic representations can be interpreted. To an extent; you must start where you are to make any observations whatsoever. This is why Rovelli puts his emphasis on the relational aspect of learning.
All knowledge is acquired with respect to a particular framework, and our own situation within the fabric of nature is the most natural starting place. But to rephrase Dieter Zeh; it is our being situated at a particular time and place that creates the illusion the universe is coalescing into the events we see now.
The initial formation of symbols is NOT a human creation (as I have shown elsewhere) because nature is creating symbolic representations all the time. But while we started by encapsulating the symbols that describe real events in nature; our process of abstraction proceeded into the meta-reality of symbols about symbols, abstractions of an abstraction, and so on.
So for some human-created symbols; one might need a human guide to correctly interpret them. Yet not all symbols are human-created, fail to be interpreted without a guide, and so on. Some things we could call symbols contain their own key or guide to interpretation. But it is true there is always a process of elaboration, where a key or guide must be employed by an intelligence of some sort in order to be decoded.
So if a symbol is a condensed representation of information about something, it must be unpacked or unraveled correctly in order to be meaningful.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Mar. 3, 2021 @ 17:06 GMT
The same things can be depicted differently...
One can look at a waveform on an oscilloscope to see its shape. One can take that signal and pass it through a speaker, converting an electronic wave into a sound. If the shape is smooth it has one tone or timbre, and if the waveform has jagged edges it sounds quite different. The two waves could be playing the same note (at the same frequency) but they will sound different.
And of course; one could invert the setup, using different instruments through a microphone to compare how the wave forms look different - though the two are playing the exact same note. But which is the symbol for which here? Does there need to be a human involved at all, for there to be a translation from one form or representation to another? And is there a consistent answer for all interpreters?
If we send the same wave through the air as EM, in radio waves; it has a much longer wavelength because the speed of light is much greater than the speed of sound. Which one is the true wavelength in this case? There are plenty of open questions. But here, the relations stay the same while the form of expression changes. This is the kind of patterning humans tend to notice and remember.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Mar. 3, 2021 @ 17:19 GMT
The phases of the moon are a symbol...
If you think about it; the changing shape of the moon is a symbol for its position with respect to the Sun. When Sol is behind it; we see the new moon. When Sol is facing the moon, it is behind our planet but completely illuminated in the night sky, so we see the full moon instead. And the quarters (half moon) occur when it is halfway between. So the moon's phases symbolize its position, or the phase of its arc around the planet, with respect to the Sun.
I'd have to side with Lorraine, here, unless you could give some other example than the waveform assumed by physics which continues to misrepresent the EM signature as the physical form. A transverse wave evidenced on the surface of water has a same sinusoidal profile as what is presented (output) on an oscilloscope, but there are fundamental problems with that being given onto a physical form. The traditional 'transverse wave' theory of light only represents (symbolically, again) a continuous rise and fall of intensity of electromagnetic induction. But if you assume a physical transverse wave you immediately encounter the wavefront classical spread in violation of the observed photo-electric effect. Yet even today, we have 'wave particle duality' because a classical 3D wave form has not been accepted. Sorry, but that particular argument of yours which propounds nature creating symbols, founders on the shoals of humanly contrived symbols of an observed effect, and two centuries of stubbornly clinging to a brash and self-contradictory assumption.
Not that it isn't quite possible that nature would create symbols of what it physically is doing. I just can't imagine what that might be. best - jrc
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Mar. 4, 2021 @ 17:02 GMT
At least in theory...
There could be a naturally occurring camera obscura, since all it requires is a small hole for the light to pass through and a dark flat surface on the other side. There has been a lot of speculation by archaeologists about examples like the one I cited, where the moon's image reflects off a still body of water, or is seen in reflection therein. And to my mind, any projection is a symbol for the real item.
So while the great body of work in symbols is a human creation, the idea that symbols of themselves are all human-created can be falsified, or is only as matter of perspective. One might wonder at the possibility for nature to create some analog to the oscilloscope or a pantograph. But at least the notion the first symbols were nature-created is plausible to me.
In other words; representations of natural forms likely preceded more abstract symbols, in terms of the evolution of symbology, but at this point abstracted symbols in patterns invented by humans predominate. And any thoughts about how they came to be were already lost in the past. If Ed Witten had not gone into Physics, he would have studied linguistics instead, and likely could have figured this out.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Mar. 4, 2021 @ 17:18 GMT
So I stand by what I said...
Humans did NOT invent symbols, but we DID devise ways of making them more permanent. This is what Korzybski was talking about with respect to the time-binding property of symbolic expressions. We are taking something that would otherwise slip away, and finding a way to keep it around. This is VERY important or is a crucial part of actually using symbols to learn.
So the capacity to take a moving 3-d object and turn it into a static 2-d form is not the same as having the original, but it is not so different from other forms of abstraction. This is why I think it is a gateway skill, to learn how to triangulate, estimate dimensionality and so on. But for a symbol to be useful; it must be preserved in a fixed form over time.
Steve Dufourny replied on Mar. 4, 2021 @ 17:35 GMT
There is nothing of exeptional in extrapolating mathematical dimensions, these tools are very easy , it is not like proving the poincare conjecture, this is difficult. For the symbols, they exist and interpret the things that we sense, the aim is to converge with what utilise the universe like general algorythmic logic, this is difficult. There is nothing of odd with the symbols, they describe things or others, and the complexity of these algorythms and symbols could converge if and only if we understand the real general philosophy of this universe, if not it is a lost of time.
I see what you mean, though I personally would not call a natural projection of a play of light 'a symbol'. My nomenclature is admittedly influenced by early training in news reporting. My Mother was an award winning Editor of a small-town weekly newspaper, and deservedly so. I'm pretty solidly founded in 'old school' terminology when it comes to communication and information.
But as an example of what you present, it runs in my mind that it would have been during the summer of 1984 I was out on Cape Cod at a small campground and there had been a partial eclipse one day of which I hadn't been aware. I kind of freaked out, worried that I might be hallucinating because in the dappled shade of small trees where I camped, the sunny spots all of a sudden appeared to be shaped like half moon crescents! Shortly thereafter I learned about the eclipse, and had a chuckle at myself. I was at least sane enough to wonder if I was at all! But that instance is a real result of camera obscura, and of course to our human physiology it would be detectable as what we call optical vision. To me its a stretch to call it symbolic. Over all, I'd say its one of those personal equations that may not be a hill worth dying on. Penrose gets out there enough to cause some serious question by the always opportune anti-science panderers that I really think it best to clearly state some things as being Conjecture, in the strict limit of terms.
Steve Dufourny replied on Mar. 5, 2021 @ 11:45 GMT
Hi John, Jonathan, Lorraine,
John you seems to be right about the symbols and the projection of light, we must differenciate the symbols that we have nvented even if they utilise this light with what reallu utilise this universe like symbols with the light. Furthermore the light is due to photons but we cannot affrim to have just these photons and this GR like primoridal essence. So we have several foundamental problems about the convergences and the quantum computing even with the annealings.
We don t know first of all the origin philosophical. Secondly nor the foundamental objects , and finally we don t know the real symbols of this universe in its complexity with the deeper parameters than just this light. Jonathan spoke about the initial symbols, all is there but we have many limitations. We must so differenciate the algorythms of humans with the real universal algorythms, of course there is a convergence somewhere but we don t know it and how to do it .
Lorraine is right about IF, AND, OR, THEN, and ELSE wich are examples of algorithmic symbols, the universe also in logic is like this, with sortings, synchros, superimposings, that is why if I am right about these 3D spherical volumes, that become relevant about the properties and motions of these spheres and their densities and life time .
Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Mar. 3, 2021 @ 17:39 GMT
The above discussion is meant to show...
Human beings did NOT invent symbols or symbolic relations and representations. What humans did do was preserve symbolic representations of natural events, so the projected image of real occurrences could be shared at a later time. This was a momentous accomplishment, because it allowed knowledge to be passed on from one individual to another - without the original knower having to be present.
So it is the sharability of preserved symbols that gave those who could interpret them an evolutionary advantage, and this led to the early history of human culture in some measure. But the miracle is that symbols can preserve a relation or correspondence as well as a description of things as such. So in that way; symbols DO capture dynamism, or they must do so in some way to be realistic.
This emphasizes the point I made above, that relations can be preserved when the same information is projected upon a different medium. And it is this consistency or near-universality of some symbolic relations that makes them especially useful or helpful to understand consciousness. So in a very real sense; we find the brain contains maps of where we have been and so on.
Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Mar. 3, 2021 @ 18:02 GMT
I think it is essential...
To distinguish between 3-d and 2-d is necessary for symbolic thinking, and the ability to correctly estimate dimensionality appears foundational to further acquisition of skills with learning through symbols. I was fortunate that, in 5th grade our teacher had us learning to triangulate as a class project in surveying. I wish everyone had some grounding in the subject, and also knew how to do distance and size estimations.
See the work of Judy DeLoache for some details. A web search for "Becoming Symbol Minded" reveals several links to an article and other items of interest to this discussion.
Steve Dufourny replied on Mar. 3, 2021 @ 19:41 GMT
Jonathan, the extradimenions are just human inventions like the 1D, 2D, 4D, 8D, 10D,1D,26D, they are maths of strings, the universe seems a pure 3D at all scales, we cannot confound. The strings in D at this planck scale oscillating also , an assumption, the fields like origin of the reality, an assumption, the GR like the only one piece of puzzle, an assumption.We must recognise this I believe.