On 09 Dec 2012, at 00:30, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 12/8/2012 2:28 PM, John Mikes wrote:
Dear Stephen,
it is amazing how we formulate our (belief) systems similarly,
except for yours in a descriptive - mine in an agnostic
"explanation" (=a joke).
Dear John,
;-) I try hard to stay in a superposed state, somewhere between
serious and 'just kidding". We understand each other here. :-)
I deny to be an atheist because one would need a God to deny and I
do not detect the concept for such.
Exactly! This is partly why I make such a big deal about how
people use the concept of 'existence'. It is impossible to deny the
existence without first assuming the possibility that it could
indeed exist! To avoid this trap, why not pull existence completely
away from any dependence on anything else and take it as an
ontological primitive. We then say (with Ayn Rand) "existence
exists". Full Stop.
Also: when you wrote
" I am claiming that "local determination/causation' and 'apparent
causation' are the same thing! This implies that there is no global
or total cause or 'orchestration'."
it resonates with my "denial" of classic causation in which it is
presumed to know about ALL initiative entailment - what my
agnosticism denies from our present knowable.
'What is Knowledge' is almost as difficult a question as 'what
is truth'! I really like Bruno's proposed solution, but he seems to
have a hard time with my attempt to "parametrize" truth using
agreements or mutual consistency in a game theoretical sense. What I
propose is no different from the solution to the problem of "perfect
knowledge" in game theory! Thinking of knowledge and truth via
semantic games has the nice bonus of allowing for a nice extension
into statistics and probability. I really like when one mathematical
idea connects to another.
I am struggling with the 'changes' that occur: the best I can think
of is the least obstructed possibility in 'relations' to go for,
considering more than we may know within our presently knowable
model of the world.
OK. What I do to think of this is to ask: "what situation is
necessary for the appearance of a type of change to vanish, in some
class of related circumstances?" I first noticed that this implies
that for a change to be non-vanishing there has to be a non-
vanishing means to measure the change or otherwise keep track of its
effects. Take away the means to measure change, and what is left?
I am also struggling with the driving force behind all
'that' (meaning the infinite complexity) IMO the origination of
anything. A have no identification for the 'relations' either. Nor
for any 'interchange' - a possible and inevitably occurring 'cause'
for violating the (presumed?) infinite symmetry (call it
equilibrium?) - generating undefinable "universes" (in my
narrative).
The way I see it, perfect infinite symmetry is changeless. Why?
What would act as the measure of change of the P.I.S.? Nothing! If
we some how break the symmetry, we get an immediate potential
difference and, check it out, the difference between the perfectly
symmetric case and the not so symmetric case is the same kind of
difference that we see between the states of a system in a maximum
entropy state and a state some distance away from maximum entropy.
Voila! We have at least an intuitive way to think of change and a
measure of such.
Orchestration is a good word, thank you. All I can think of is the
'least obstructed way' of change substituting even for 'evolution'-
like processes.
Yeah, this is, IMHO, the main reason why people have such a
problem understanding the nature of time! The fact that the sequence
of events can be mapped to the Real numbers gets all the attention
and leads to thoughts that time is a dimension and the question as
to "How did the events get sequenced like that in the first place?"
gets ignored.
The 'Overall Conductor' (God?) is a requirement of human thinking
within those limitations we observed over the past millennia.
I agree, it is a comforting idea.
The 'local governor' is within the model-limitations of yesterday.
By no means an 'absolute' denomination (not a 'real entity').
"Take me to your leader", explained the invader. "Whatr is a
leader?", asked the native. "None of you rules over the rest?" asked
the invader in surprise. "Why should there be such?, "We are all
different and have our own unique thoughts, why should some 'one'
rule over the rest?". "Oh my!", exclaimed the invader, "I had better
rethink my tactics!".
I want to press that I do not feel "above" such limitations myself,
but at least I try to find wider boundaries.
Boundaries are merely horizons to expand.
I would not say:
"...to imagining that a physical computer can run without a power
source."
rather push such driving force (see above) into my agnostic
ignorance,
Right, does my line of reasoning make sense?
Bundle it up with 'energy', 'electricity' and the other zillion
marvels our conventional sciences USE, CALCULATE, DIFFERENTIATE,
without the foggiest idea WHAT they are and HOW they work. I accept
our overall ignorance.
I have sworn eternal enmity toward ignorance!
Hmm....
With CTM it is simple, if our knowledge augment linearly, our
ignorance augments non computably. The more we know, the more we can
intuit how much we don't know, making us wiser (with some luck). We
can jump from big picture to big picture, but we cannot ever be sure,
and there is an infinity of surprises awaiting for us.
The enemy is not ignorance, it the fake knowledge, the hiding of
ignorance, I would say.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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