> On 2 Oct 2018, at 15:53, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 7:53 AM Lawrence Crowell > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> > wrote: > > > Fritz Capra wrote a book titled The Tao of Physics. I read it in high > > school and again as an undergraduate. This book is probably one of the most > > reviled book by physicists, though a few think it is good. I am a bit > > neutral. > > I read "The Tao of Physics" when if first came out and thought it was > mediocre at best. At the time it was my opinion that all forms of mysticism > was 100% bullshit, but not long after that I read Raymond Smullyan's book > "The Tao is silent". Smullyan's book covers many of the same topics as > Capra's but does a incomparably better job. > > https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Silent-Raymond-M-Smullyan/dp/0060674695 > <https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Silent-Raymond-M-Smullyan/dp/0060674695> > > I read a lot of books but even today I'd have to say "The Tao of Physics" is > one of the 2 or 3 best books I ever read. I still think mysticism is mostly > bullshit but after reading Smullyan's book I had a little less confidence in > my 100% figure, it may have been a little too high.
I agree. Capra is invalid. It strikes the eye when he compares a picture of a writing of Einstein and a text is sanskrit, where the common point is that it just unreadable. It is magic matter added to magic mind added to incomprehensibility. It is against reductionism in intension, but such vague thought can go quickly to obscurantism, which is reductionism in disguise (answering instead of questioning). Another book, the dancing Wu-li Master, was much less wrong. And, yes, Smullyan go very near the consistent theology (consistent with mechanism, but missed it again in its Forever Undecided, and in its philosophical remarks on Post in his last book), but both “Tao is silent” and “5000 BC” are very good. Mysticism is certainly not bullshit when you understand that any universal number/set believing in “enough induction” axioms discover his own theology (the logic G*), and indeed can fall in many traps from there, like taking the truth in G* as axioms, about themselves literally: that makes them into Rogerian sentences (these machine which asserts their consistency, cf also ma definition of stupidity and intelligence, if you remember). Of course I limit myself to correct machine, making G* extending properly G. I recall that G is the normal modal logic with axioms L []([]p -> p) -> []p. (Löb formula). Normal means that we have (together with the modus ponies rule and classical) the axioms [](p -> q) -> ([]p -> []q) and the necessitation rule A / []A. G* has as axioms all theorems of G, + the axioms []p -> p. It is not a normal logic, as it is not close for the necessitation rule (and that should be obvious(*)) Bruno Let me show the obvious. If G* was close for the necessitation, we would have, with “f” = “0=1”, or “Santa Klauss exist”: 1) []f -> f. (Axiom) 2) []([]f -> f) (Necessitation) 3) []([]f -> f) -> []f. (Löb’s formula) 4) []f (modus ponens on line “2)” and “3)” ) 5) f. (Modus pones on line “1)” and “4)” ). Note that the three primary modes: []p (in G and G*) and S4Grz the logic of the new box [1]p = []p & p., the first person: we have G has L, necessitation but not reflexion ([]p -> p) S4Grz has necessitation, reflexion but has not L G* has L, reflexion but not the necessitation. The theorems of Solovay is that, in a nutshell, G formalise the complete arithmetical provable part of the provability logic, and G* formalises completely the true part of the provability logic, including the many truth othat the machine cannot prove. G* minus G is what I call the proper theology, or the mystical part, which is the part on which the wise machine stay mute and only the fool talk (as Lao-Ze said). For a long time I thought that the taoists were the human theologians closer to the theology of the machine, but eventually, I discover better, like the bektashi or alive muslims (alas permuted since 1258, uo to now, there are still 60.000 in the Balkans), and generally the soufi, like the jewish (except the Aristotelian deviation after Maimonides). I got some indirect confirmation of this, as the bektashi muslims were known to have save the Jewish during WW II, and … the taoist did fall in the trap (despite the warning of Lao-Ze), and the taoist army where the more feared in the Chinese world at some period of time. Plotinus was aware of the difficulty of how to talk about something which we cannot talk about. Wittgenstein also tells us to stay mute, but of course that generate the question “but for God sake, what are you talking about?”, and we get near the theological trap. <>t is true, but []<>t is false. Consistency, the arithmetical interpretation of <>t, is the simplest theorem of G*, it is the simplest truth on some consistent machine, yet non provable, nor even assertable, by that machine. Yet she knows something almost similar, which <>t v t., but that belongs to the first person (S4Grz), to who that is obvious. To get physics, you need to restrict the arithmetical interpretation of the atomic proposition to the sigma_1 arithmetical sentences (shape ExP(x), P decidable). And you get the “platonic variant” and Timeaeus “bastard calculus” used by Plotinus, with adding the nuance of consistency itself <>p: []p & <>t []p & <>t & p You get the complete arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus. Is it a coincidence? Maybe, but is not also obvious that it might mean that Plotinus just a rather sound introspective machine, as they can all discover that theology, intuitively, and by reasoning assuming they are correct on arithmetic, with mechanism. Will mechanism fall is the trap? It might! Bruno > > John K Clark > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list > <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
