Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Marty and George, I answer you together since you had some questions about translation. Regarding your question, Marty, I think you should embrace whatever interpretation of Exodus 3,14 that is most meaningful to you. Maybe, as you suggest, God could identify with Frank Sinatra singing I faced all and I stood tall / and did it my way. Otherwise you can interpret it in many other ways. One, let's call it the philosophical mode, could be that God is just equal to itself and cannot be defined otherwise. (This ties nicely with the self-referentiality discussion). Another possibility is to interpret it in a dramatic sense: God is just about to reveal his true name to Moses -YHWY- and verse 14 is a way to increase and prolong the dramatic tension. Regarding your question, George, in Genesis 1,4 ki-tov I would not read it as if it was modern Hebrew (because it was good). In this case, ki refers to an object clause. I would therefore translate it as usual with the words And God saw the light, that it was good. You are entitled, of course, to make your own interpretations and midrashim. That's what the text is there for! Regarding your comment: Too much information is no information at all and a white sheet of paper carries just as much information as a black one. So overstimulating one's mind with a barrage of letters may achieve the same results as understimulating it. I think you are completely right. Abulafia's personal accounts point in this direction, too. That is also the message in Borges' The Library of Babel. In principle all possible books are contained in the library, but since they are mixed with an overwhelming majority of books filled with gibberish, the result is that the library is useless and contains no information at all. There is a tension between information and noise. Too much information becomes noise. The library is flooded with noise and the librarian that writes the story seems disheartened and pessimistic. The inability to make sense of the library is bringing humanity to extinction. On the other hand, Abulafia filled his mind with noise (overstimulation) and came out with an ecstatic experience, full of joy and bliss. Why is it so that we have two outcomes so opposed to each other? Yours truly, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Bruno, I am learning something very valuable from this experience. I think that, coming from different backgrounds, if we want to have an exchange of ideas we need to create a common language. My lack of a common language with you prevents me to follow you through your argumentations. I sense that what you say is important and interesting, but we seem to speak in different languages. A way to move forward could be not to take for granted that the other is familiar with our concepts. If you explain a concept at a time it would be also very helpful for me. Yours truly, R. Rabbit On Jun 19, 9:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Jun 2010, at 17:03, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear George, Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of Genesis). By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root Seper is related to the words letter, number and speech). This 10 Sefirot are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part of) God. I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Well that is exactly what the digital, or numerical, mechanist hypothesis provide. The choice between letter or number is not relevant. You can choose for the ontology the formal existential quantifier on any term taken from a first order specification of a universal, in Post, Church,Turing sense, system. It happens that any system with terms for numbers, that is 0 and its successors, together with the addition law and the multiplication law, provides a universal system, so I use it to fix the things. In that system I can enumerate all partial computable functions: phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, phi_3, ... A number u can be said universal if phi_u(x,y) = phi_x(y). This u is like the Golem. You write x on its forehead, and it compute phi_x on some input y. x,y is some number describing the program, x, and the data, y. This defined, or show to exist, sequence of causal relation like sequences, with fixed x and y, of terms: phi_x(y)_1, phi phi_x(y)_2, phi_x(y)_3, phi_x(y)_4, describing faithfully computations. Faithfully means that there are implemented in some genuine intensional sense, relatively to u. A tiny, yet universal, part of arithmetical truth describes (faithfully) all possible computational relations. Such universal machine cannot distinguish the infinitely many computations going through its computational states, so that its consciousness is distributed on the projection of infinitely many computations, and that ... leads to awfully complex mathematical problems. Yet, ideally correct machine (number) can reflect (proves, relatively asserts) that problem relatively to themselves, and extract the logic obeyed by such projection. Let us write Bp for the machine proves (asserts and justified if asked) p. Obviously Bp - p. Because we restrict ourself to correct machine. But the machine cannot always prove Bp - p. It would prove Bf - f (f = the constant false of propositional logic, or 0 = 1 from elementary arithmetic). But (elementary classical logic: Bf - f is equivalent with ~Bf, (~ = NOT), which asserts self-consistency, and correct classical machines can't do that (Gödel's second incompleteness theorem). Now machine can reflect that: they can prove their own second incompleteness theorem for example. They can prove: ~Bf - ~B(~Bf) = As far as I
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
On 21 Jun 2010, at 12:43, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear Bruno, I am learning something very valuable from this experience. I think that, coming from different backgrounds, if we want to have an exchange of ideas we need to create a common language. My lack of a common language with you prevents me to follow you through your argumentations. I sense that what you say is important and interesting, but we seem to speak in different languages. A way to move forward could be not to take for granted that the other is familiar with our concepts. If you explain a concept at a time it would be also very helpful for me. I have worked a long time alone. Eventually I need only zero, succession, addition and multiplication, beyond some imagination to grasp the idea that relative local 'consciousness' is invariant for a digital substitution made at some level. There is a long reasoning implying yourself and then a translation in arithmetic. The most difficult steps have been handled by mathematicians, notably Gödel, Löb and Solovay. Strictly speaking there is nothing new. It is a common theory among mystics and it has been study all along a path from Pythagoras to Damacius in Occident, with Plotinus and his students as a peak in clarity, imo. In about 500, such thinking has been prohibited in Occident, and much later in the Orient. All self-honest people looking inward can discover that, indeed all universal machines can. The christians will saved a part of that heritage thanks to Augustin and some followers, but it will never be the main line. The same with judaism, where that heritage which be saved through the Kabbalah (but not Maimonides already to much blinded by Aristotelianism, I would say); and the Muslims where it will be saved among the Sufi. I'm afraid it will be also hidden, due to its necessary secrecy (at different levels). In India, it is well represented in many schools, but not all. My favorite text is 'The Question of King Milindha' (Milindapanha). This text makes the relation with mechanism, using chariot instead of computer, but the idea of substitution is used to illustrate the relativity of identity. Milinda is supposed to be the Greek King Menander, and he made a rather big impression on the rather sleepy (at that time) buddhist 'theologians'. I can try to sum up, but to understand it is also a chapter of mathematics, once we interpret 'belief' by 'formal (3-person sharable) proof', some investment in math is unavoidable. I am ready to answer any question if you are interested. I can also provide title on some good books. The greeks were aware that to study theology, you have to master big classical filed like, Logic, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, ... Best regards, Bruno On Jun 19, 9:26 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Jun 2010, at 17:03, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear George, Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of Genesis). By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root Seper is related to the words letter, number and speech). This 10 Sefirot are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part of) God. I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Well that is exactly what the digital, or numerical, mechanist hypothesis provide. The choice between letter or number is not relevant. You can choose for the ontology the formal existential quantifier on any term
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Telmo, I'm having a hard time understanding this particular statement: The lobian error is that prohibition at the start deprive its target of its responsibility. Eventually it dissolves irresponsibility in a unsustainable economical pyramidal power which can only crash. Better to stop that asap! It is foolish to believe that some people can decide at your place what they estimate to be good or bad. For you! It makes you irresponsible adult. It is a lack of respect of all *person* in general. It is spiritually foolish. It is also a typical technic for taking power on others. Indeed, it allows a collectivity (apparently) to think for you (instead as acting along a social contract), and thus to control you. It leads to pyramidal economical structure where the upper part benefit strongly (in the short run) of lies which kill the foundation (the people) at the base of the pyramid. The problem today is planetary. Democracy is the right tool, but it works only through some amount of trust, (and thus honesty, playing fair), and powers regulation and independence. This need some amount of self-honesty (which is about the same as Löbianity, in the world of universal machines). Honesty leads to more money to your descendants. Dishonesty can strongly benefit locally from such money, but at the expense of your descendants. Descendant in a large sense, it may be you older. Things accelerate. You might be interested in this 1-year old article from Time, discussing how drug use decriminalization in my home country (Portugal) resulted in a decrease in said drug use: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html Thanks. It is interesting. To be sure I share the views of the cops in the LEAP videos. Although decriminalization is a big step in harm (and drugs) reduction, it does not solve the problem, at his root. The black money fluxes and the merchandising remains opaque and this remains both socially fragile and economically dangerous. You are in advance compared to many countries, but the big step, legalization, remains to be done. What I would like to suggest would be to legalize all drugs, and to tax them with respect to their damages. I am pretty sure alcohol and tobacco will very soon be the most expensive one, and that after some time, the insurance company would *pay* you to smoke marijuana and salvia divinorum ;-) Best, Bruno 78 % of the heroin consumers have begin with cannabis. This is a confusion between A = B and B = A, or A included in B with B included in A. To see if the consumption of substance A leads to the consumption of substance B, you have to look at the proportion of the consumers of B among A; not at the proportion of the consumers of A among B. You could as well say water is a gateway drug, given that 100% of the heroin consumers have begun with water. I have a paper in a magazine with a big title: 'the first death by salvia divinorum. It relates the case of a guy who get an heart attack when smoking salvia. I let you see it is the same error as above (together with the non genuine idea of using a sample with only one element). The same error are done, even by expert in the relation made between cannabis and lung cancer, or cannabis and (Mexican) violence. Another example, one day a car accident nearby involved three drivers having smoked cannabis, and already some minister said we have to be more though on drugs. Again to derive this you have to look at the quantity of car accident among those who smoked cannabis, not at the quantity of smokers of cannabis among those who have a car accident. It is always a confusion between A included in B and B included in A. That same error occurs pretty everywhere, and I think purely associative neural nets does that error. It is easy to do that error, as implication is a not so intuitive concept. Note that *in the circumstance of prohibition*, cannabis is indeed a gateway drug. A non negligible number of cannabis smoker get addicted to tobacco by their first joints. That number decreases thanks to the legality of ... tobacco. That legality makes transparent 'soon or later' the 'truth' about the product. We know today (smoked) tobacco is killer one in the world. To add tobacco to cannabis consists to put a toxic and addictive product to enjoy a product which by itself has never been found to led to any problem. Also, the prohibition of cannabis makes it available only in underground market where sellers don't ask your ID, and could add addictive product to cannabis for making you coming back, or just may advertise you on other drugs. So prohibition of cannabis, or anything, leads to gateway effect. The evidence are on the side that cannabis and salvia are among the safest and most efficacious known medication. In the Netherlands and in France, some study seems to show that
