Forget covariant tensors (again). There was a beautiful, talented girl in my sixth grade class. She could dance ballet, draw striking pictures, etc. I thought of her occasionally over the decades. When Google search became available I discovered that she was married to a celebrity.
When you say that my inner life isn't private, Nick, do you mean you could figure out her name given what I've just written? As I think of her face, can you "see" it well enough to recognize her photo? I just don't understand what you mean when you question that I have a private inner life. Frank --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:47 PM Jon Zingale <[email protected]> wrote: > Frank, Glen, Nick, > > Glen writes: > `... in last week's Zoom, I mentioned to Jon (in response > to his query to Frank about RSA-encryption::mind) that I > think homomorphic encryption is a better analogy (to mind).` > > Fully homomorphic encryption† was also the metaphor I originally > had in mind. In an effort to not complicate matters, I decided to focus > on the idea of public key encryption more generally. Thank you, Glen > for taking it the rest of the way. Because Glen, Nick and I appear to > differ on Frank's mind only in that we disagree about the way that > Frank's mind is public, I will attempt to switch sides and argue for > why his mind may be private. > > Firstly, while we may only need to know some combination of > *transformations* which will allow us to know his mind, it may > be the case that those transformations are not accessible to > us. As an example and in analogy to computation, it may be the > case that we are not the kind of machines which can recognize > the language produced by a mind. While we as observers are > able to finite automata our way along observations of Frank, > his mind is producing context-free sentences, say. I don't > entirely buy this argument, but it also may be defendable. > As another example/analogy, we may be attempting to solve > a problem analogous to those geometric problems of Greek > antiquity††. It may take a psychological analog to Galois theory > before we understand exactly why we can't know Frank's mind. > > Secondly, it may be that the encryption metaphor should > actually be something closer to hashing. A friend of mine > once said that *rememberings* were morphisms between > *forgettings*. We are often ok with the idea that memory is > lossy, but why not thoughts themselves? Perhaps, at least > with regard to what we can observer of Frank, every time > Frank thinks of a covariant tensor he is reconstituting > something fundamentally different. The *remembering* is > always between different *forgettings*. > > Ok, I am not sure I could necessarily defend these thoughts. > Further, I am not sure they are necessarily helpful to our > conversation. It seemed a good idea to try. > > On the topic of steganography, I wanted to mention the > book *Steganographia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganographia>*. I > had originally read about it in some > part of Neal Stephenson's *Baroque Cycle*, and it has since > found a place in my heart. The book, originally written in > 1499, is perhaps the oldest text on the subject of cryptography. > What is amazing about the book is that it is an example of > itself (nod to Nick). The plaintext content of the book is > on the subject of magic, but for a reader clever enough to > find the deciphering key the book is about cryptography. > I had found a copy from the 1700's in the rare books library > at the University of Texas some years ago. The content was > *doubly hidden* from me as I neither had the deciphering > key nor can I read Latin ;) > > Jon > > †: If any members of the group would like to form a reading > group around Craig Gentry's thesis on FHE > <https://www.bookdepository.com/Fully-Homomorphic-Encryption-Scheme-Craig-Gentry/9781243663139>, > I would gladly > participate. > †† While it turned out that the Greek's assumptions about > the power of a compass and straightedge were incorrect, > work beginning with Margherita Beloch > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_Piazzola_Beloch> (and > culminating > with the Huzita-Hatori > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huzita%E2%80%93Hatori_axioms> axioms) show > that origami would > have been a more powerful choice! > -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . > ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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