Re: God or not?
On 25 December 2013 19:29, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: Why not define God as the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe and Everything Else that is or may exist? On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 4:20 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Pantheism, Why didn't you just come out and say so? :-D -Original Message- From: Edgar Owen edgaro...@att.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: 24-Dec-2013 13:16:11 + Subject: God or not? All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 23 December 2013 09:10, Edgar Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. The concept of God seems to be reasonably similar in various religions. Samiya Illias' definition seems close to most of them... Why not define God as the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe and Everything Else that is or may exist? It's just the details that tend to differ from one religion to another. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. I don't see how this gets us anywhere, but then I don't see how any definition of God gets us anywhere. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 12/24/2013 5:26 PM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz states that Special relativity shows that there is no such thing as a common present moment. but this is incorrect. Actually special relativity shows exactly the opposite. In my book I explain how this works. It is well known, though little understood, that everything without exception continually travels through spacetime at the speed of light according to its own comoving clock. I call this the STc Principle. This is a well known consequence of special relativity but actually as I point out in my book this is an even more fundamental Principle than Special Relativity and Special Relativity is properly a consequence of it and can be derived from it. What the STc Principle says is that the total velocity through both space and through time of everything without exception is = to the speed of light. This is the reason that time slows on a clock moving with some relative spatial velocity, as Special Relativity tells us. It also demonstrates that the speed of light is properly understood as the speed of TIME. That's what c really is. Light just happens to move entirely in space according to its own comoving clock, therefore its entire spacetime velocity is in space only. Anyway it is precisely this STc Principle that puts both the arrow of time and a privileged present moment on a firm physical basis. Why? Because it requires that everything must be in one particular place in spacetime (the present moment) and moving at the speed of light (the arrow of time). This is the same approach used by Lewis Carroll Epstein in his excellent little book, Relativity Visualized. His diagrams of spacetime use the usual spacial coordinates, but instead of coordinate time the fourth axis is proper time. Since the proper velocity is always 1, a Lorentz boost just rotates this velocity so is has an increased space component and a reduced time component. As Epstein puts it, The reason we can't go faster than light is that we can't go slower. There is only one speed. Everything, including you, is always moving at the speed of light. However, that doesn't change the fact that space-like separate events can be seen to occur in either order depending on the choice of inertial frame, which is what is meant by the there is no global present. Brent So exactly contrary to your statement, it is precisely special relativity, properly understood, that puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis. This insight simultaneously solves two of the big problems of the philosophy of science, the source of the arrow of time, and the reason for a common present moment, though no one seems to have recognized this prior to my exposition in 1997 in my paper 'Spacetime and Consciousness'. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 25 December 2013 14:26, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: So exactly contrary to your statement, it is precisely special relativity, properly understood, that puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis. OK. I was just going by all the physics books I've read, which apparently claim there is no common present time. Obviously that Einstein chap and the authors of those books didn't understand the full implications of special relativity. This insight simultaneously solves two of the big problems of the philosophy of science, the source of the arrow of time, and the reason for a common present moment, though no one seems to have recognized this prior to my exposition in 1997 in my paper 'Spacetime and Consciousness'. I'm not convinced that there is a big philosophical problem with the arrow of time. If we don't introduce any new physics, the source of the arrow of time can be reduced to two questions - (a) is there any time asymmetry in the laws of physics? (and if there is, is it significant enough to account for eggs forming omelettes, people ageing, sugar dissolving in coffee, and so on) - and (b) are there any boundary conditions on the universe that are sufficient to impose a global time asymmetry on the matter and energy within it? Both these questions can be answered using our present knowledge of physics, and give answers that should be considered first in any discussion of the AOT, before any new physics is introduced. (a) Yes, there is *some* time asymmetry built into the laws of physics - the decay of k-mesons operates in a way that violates time symmetry. All other physical processes, viewed at a short enough distance (or equivalently, a high enough energy) are time-symmetric, as far as we know. It seems unlikely that kaon decay is responsible for the large scale entropy gradient observed in the universe, though it's at least possible it may be coupled to it in some as yet unknown way. (b) the elephant in the room in discussions of the AOT is the big bang, which introduces a global time asymmetry on the entire universe. Consideration of the processes which occurred shortly after the big bang leads to the sources of several forms of known time asymmetry. 1 - the formation of nucleons occurred when the energy density of the universe per unit volume fell below their binding energy due to the cosmic expansion. 2 - the formation of nuclei occurred when the energy density of the universe fell below their binding energy due to the cosmic expansion. 3 - the formation of neutral atoms (so called recombination)occurred when the energfy density of the universe fell below their binding energy due to the cosmic expansion. 4 - Stars and galaxies formed when the density of the universe fell enough for (originally small) density fluctuations to be amplified sufficiently to seed their formation. Hence it seems likely that we can get the AOT purely from the global boundary condition imposed by the expansion of the universe plus some uncontraversial, mainly time-symmetric physics. The formation of bound states like nuclei, atoms and stars can be traced back to the existence of a singularity at one temporal extremity, and the lack of one at the other temporal extremity. Since these bound states are a powerful source of negative entropy, this seems very likely to be the origin of the arrow of time. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Minds, Machines and Gödel
On 25 December 2013 16:51, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday, December 21, 2013 5:28:29 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Craig, Sorry, but I don't really understand what you are trying to get at. Your terminology is not giving me any clarity of what you are really trying to say... Edgar The condensed version of what I'm trying to say is that computation is less than real, reality combines experience and computation, and experience is greater than reality and does not depend on computation. Computation is less than real? - how so? And what is experience, in your view? -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: A proper definition of reality
On 24 Dec 2013, at 17:42, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Bruno, No. 17 is prime depends entirely on humans who invented the concept of prime numbers. Show me the dependence. I think you confuse the human math, with math. 17 is prime is defined without mentioning any humans. It just means that you cannot divide the line I in two or more smaller lines so as to make a rectangle. That's human not Reality math. It seems more real than humans to me. I can conceive a physical reality without human, but I cannot conceive any reality where 17 is not prime. If you can do that, please explain. The logico-mathematical system of reality has no such concept as a prime number. Why? Because reality doesn't care whether a number is prime or not. What do you mean by reality. It looks like physical reality, but with comp it is still an open problem to describe completely that physical reality appearance. We cannot invoke it as a primitive in an argument. You said that God = reality. I agree with this, but only because reality share with God the fact that we cannot invoke it in argument, nor even define it, etc. The computations of reality are probably pretty simple. For example one of the most basic computations is the conservation of particle properties in particle interactions. All that involves is simply keeping track of a relatively small set of natural numbers and rearranging them into valid particles except for the case of the dimensional particle properties such as energy and momenta which are not really continuous since reality is granular at the elemental level so there is no need for infinitesimals. ? Give me an example of a single physical (natural) process that says anything about primes? I could be wrong here but I can't think of a single example. Can you? But without the notion of prime number, arithmetic makes no sense at. And with comp we have to explain the physical from the arithmetical. Even if in the physical, prime numbers play no role, that would not invalidate the fact that physics emerges from arithmetic. All human doctors ARE digital. I meant digitalist doctor. Some doctor can be opposed to comp. They vary in competence. Judge them on their competence You state Because the first person indeterminacy is not computable, nor is its domain, and the physical laws rely on this. This doesn't compute for me. Please explain what you actually mean and why Read the first part of the sane2004 paper, and tell me what you don't understand. may be you could tell me if you can conceive (if only for the sake of the argumentation) that you might survive, in the usual clinical sense, with an artificial computer-brain-body? It seems to me that's just a human perspective of computable reality and thus the product of computations in mind. Church thesis makes the notion of computable into an non epistemic very solid mathematical notion. Finally you state But to define computation, you need to be realist on some part of arithmetic, including some non computable arithmetical assertions, that we can prove to exist. Again you are trying to impose results from human math on the computational system of reality to which they don't apply. It is human math bearing on universal, non human, truth. The definition of intuitively computable invoke humans, but the thesis of Church, Post, Turing makes it independent of human. Indeed with comp you can substitute human by universal (Löbian) numbers. Try to apply that to a running software program and no matter how much you try it still runs. Unless it stops, of course. here you are the one seeming to accept that a software run or stops independently of human, but this contradicts what you say above. Reality keeps running in spite of your human math telling you it can't run. ? the math shows that reality, viewed by machines or numbers, is beyond computation and numbers. Bruno Eppur si muove! Edgar On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 7:48:24 AM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, Both Roger and Bruno took issue with my definition of reality to include theories about reality. But the proper definition of reality is that reality includes everything that exists and theories of reality most certainly exist. Roger and Bruno seem to be coming from the old dualistic definition of reality in which some things (generally the 'physical' world) are real and some things aren't real (generally thoughts e.g. about the physical world). While this dualistic definition of reality may be useful in daily life it fails on the philosophical level. In truth the entirety of reality is computational and both 'physical' events and mental are both part of that same single computational nexus. Roger gives the example of hitting a table with his fist as something that is real as opposed to a theory
Re: A proper definition of reality
On 24 Dec 2013, at 18:18, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Tue, Dec 24, 2013 at 5:42 PM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Bruno, No. 17 is prime depends entirely on humans who invented the concept of prime numbers. That's human not Reality math. Really? Discovery channel would disagree with you ;-) Indeed :) In fact human is arguably a human invention. prime numbers is a modest discovery by some human mathematician, but the concept simply does not involve any dependence on humans. Edgar seems to take human and reality for granted, but those are quite higher order pattern in arithmetic viewed internally, with computationalism. Bruno The logico-mathematical system of reality has no such concept as a prime number. Why? Because reality doesn't care whether a number is prime or not. The computations of reality are probably pretty simple. For example one of the most basic computations is the conservation of particle properties in particle interactions. All that involves is simply keeping track of a relatively small set of natural numbers and rearranging them into valid particles except for the case of the dimensional particle properties such as energy and momenta which are not really continuous since reality is granular at the elemental level so there is no need for infinitesimals. Give me an example of a single physical (natural) process that says anything about primes? I could be wrong here but I can't think of a single example. Can you? Done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas All human doctors ARE digital. They vary in competence. Judge them on their competence You state Because the first person indeterminacy is not computable, nor is its domain, and the physical laws rely on this. This doesn't compute for me. Please explain what you actually mean and why It seems to me that's just a human perspective of computable reality and thus the product of computations in mind. Finally you state But to define computation, you need to be realist on some part of arithmetic, including some non computable arithmetical assertions, that we can prove to exist. Again you are trying to impose results from human math on the computational system of reality to which they don't apply. Try to apply that to a running software program and no matter how much you try it still runs. Reality keeps running in spite of your human math telling you it can't run. ? Perhaps you may choose to have a closer look at UDA and Bruno's other work, as you seem to sometimes be leaning towards it. It can take awhile to wrap ones head around First Person Indeterminacy and its implications, given comp hypothesis. A better understanding of it would, even if you disagree, avoid unfruitful discussions with Reality is such and such claims, as his work doesn't make those claims, nor seeks to support or negate that type of claim. To put it roughly from my perspective, Bruno's work concerns examining consequences of mechanist hypothesis against the backdrop of the discovery of universal machines and is not philosophical in the sense of defending some interpretation of Reality over others. True, he will argue that this or that ontology is not compatible with comp, but to mix this up with Philosophy as in defending an ontological stance, is to judge too quickly, even though understandable. PGC Eppur si muove! Edgar On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 7:48:24 AM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, Both Roger and Bruno took issue with my definition of reality to include theories about reality. But the proper definition of reality is that reality includes everything that exists and theories of reality most certainly exist. Roger and Bruno seem to be coming from the old dualistic definition of reality in which some things (generally the 'physical' world) are real and some things aren't real (generally thoughts e.g. about the physical world). While this dualistic definition of reality may be useful in daily life it fails on the philosophical level. In truth the entirety of reality is computational and both 'physical' events and mental are both part of that same single computational nexus. Roger gives the example of hitting a table with his fist as something that is real as opposed to a theory about reality which isn't but in fact the reality of the experience of both is electrical signals (information computations) in the brain. They are both computations in the brain. The proper definition is that everything that exists is real and therefore part of reality. Everything that exists is a computationally evolving information state in reality and that is why it is real, however its reality is exactly what it actually is, what its computational forms actually are, and this is true for everything including both what our minds interpret as 'physical' events and 'mental'. If you
Re: Minds, Machines and Gödel
On 21 Dec 2013, at 21:52, Edgar Owen wrote: Liz, No, that doesn't make Reality subject to the halting problem. The halting problem is when a computer program is trying to reach some independently postulated result and may or may not be able to reach it. Reality doesn't have any problem like this. It just computes the logical results of the evolution of the current information state of the universe. There are no independently postulated states that aren't directly computed by reality which reality then attempts to reach (prove). This contradicts both comp and QM. Bruno Edgar On Dec 21, 2013, at 3:26 PM, LizR wrote: Reality is analogous to a running software program. Godel's Theorem does not apply. A human could speculate as to whether any particular state of Reality could ever arise computationally and it might be impossible to determine that, but again that has nothing to do with the actual operation of Reality,since it is only a particular internal mental model of that reality. Wouldn't that make reality susceptible to the halting problem? ...hello, is anybody there? Why have all the stars gone out? -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How can a grown man be an atheist ?
On 23 Dec 2013, at 12:59, Edgar Owen wrote: Jason, John, and Bruno, One must distinguish here between consciousness itself (the subject of the Hard Problem), and the contents of consciousness and their structure (the subjects of the Easy Problems). The contents and their structure are most certainly computed by the minds of organisms, but the fact that the results of these computations are conscious is due to the self-manifesting immanent nature of reality as I explained in more detail in a post yesterday That is where we might agree. It works with reality = arithmetical truth (when assuming comp). The immanent truth is just that proposition like the machine i stops on argument j are true independent of me, like 17 is prime. Bruno Edgar On Dec 22, 2013, at 10:41 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 6:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 21 Dec 2013, at 17:09, John Mikes wrote: 'Implicit assumptions'? Jason seems to me as standing on the platform of physical sciences - I let Jason answer, but this is not my feeling. It seems to me that Jason is quite cautious on this, and open to put physics on an arithmetical platform instead. John's initial critique was that I seemed to be assuming a lot that he doe not. I replied to ask what specifically he thinks I am assuming which he was not. To clarify, I was assuming arithmetical truth and the idea that the correct computation can instantiate our consciousness. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 22 Dec 2013, at 21:10, Edgar Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. The physical universe? the mathematical universe, the arithmetical universe? First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist In the comp theory, the physical universe is not the origin. It emanates from something else. (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. Only if you are aware that the physical universe appearance is either an assumption, or a theorem. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago I have less problem with fairy tales dogma (not taken seriously by any scientists), and the naturalist dogma, which are harder to fight with, as they are more deeply hardwired in our brains than the fairy tales. But for many people, the existence of a primitive universe is just a dogma. They can't doubt it. Can you? Bruno Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Bruno's mathematical reality
On 22 Dec 2013, at 19:20, Edgar Owen wrote: Bruno, Thanks for your comments. However I think you are coming at Reality from the POV of human logico-mathematical theory whose results you are trying to impose on reality. See previous answer to this. Church thesis makes computations as solid as numbers, and those does not depend on humans at all, or show me the dependence (and define humans). My approach is to closely examine reality Physical reality, mathematical reality, arithmetical reality? They all kicks back. and then try to figure out how it works and what ITS innate rules and structures are. I would probably agree with much of what you say, if you were saying it about human logico-mathematical structures, but the logico- mathematical structure of reality is not bound by human rules. That's my point. It runs according to its own logic and science is the process of trying to figure out what those rules are and how they work... For this we have to agree on some independent truth. Mine are simple and precise; basically logic + the axiom of elementary arithmetic. For example, reality is clearly a computational process, That is refuted by the UDA. and it runs against pure information which is the fundamental stuff of the universe. There is simply no other way current information states of reality could result from previous ones other than by a computational process. Some solution of differential equation can be non computable. then with comp, some physical facts emerge in a non computable manner. How that computational process works must be determined by examining reality itself. How could we examine reality itself. We measure numbers and correlation between some of those numbers, the rest is in big parts in our (real) imagination. We may try to make sense of it in terms of traditional human math theory, but when there are differences then reality always trumps human math theory, which applies to human math rather than reality's logico-mathematical system. You seem to be anti-realist in math. This means comp should not even have any sense. I am not sure what you mean by computational. I use it in its standard sense of Turing computable. I delete Turing using Church Turing thesis. Bruno Edgar On Dec 22, 2013, at 6:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Dec 2013, at 00:52, Edgar Owen wrote: All, The fundamental nature of reality is examined in detail in my recent book on Reality available on Amazon under my name. Marchal is on the right track, but reality consists not just of numbers (math) Arithmetic is not just numbers, but numbers + some laws (addition and multiplication). but is a running logical structure analogous to software When you have the laws (addition and multiplication), it can be shown that a tiny part of arithmetic implement all possible computations (accepting Church thesis). Without Church thesis, you can still prove that that tiny part of arithmetic emulates (simulate exactly) all Turing (or all known) computations. that continually computes the current state of the universe. You mean the physical universe. Have you read my papers or posts? if we are machine, there is no physical reality that we can assume. the whole of physics must be derived from arithmetic. Just as software includes but doesn't consist only of numbers and math, so does reality. It depends on your initial assumption. In fact the equations of physical science make sense only when embedded in a logical structure just as is the case in computational reality. The computational reality is a tiny part of arithmetic. Logic is just a tool to explore such realities. Modern science has a major lacuna, the notion that all of reality is mathematical, Most scientists do not believe this, and indeed criticize my work for seeming to go in that direction. Then term like reality and mathematical are very fuzzy. Now, if we are machine, then it can be shown that for the ontology we need arithmetic, or any equivalent Turing universal system, and we *cannot* assume anything more (that is the key non obvious point). Then, it is shown that the physical reality is: 1) an internal aspect of arithmetic 2) despite this, it is vastly bigger than arithmetic and even that any conceivable mathematics. That is why I insist that the reality we can access to is not mathematical, but theological. It contains many things provably escaping all possible sharable mathematics. That arithmetic is (much) bigger viewed from inside than viewed from outside is astonishing, and is a sort of Skolem paradox (not a contradiction, just a weirdness). that prevents science from grasping the complete nature of reality. In truth all of reality is logical, as is software, and the mathematics is just a subset of the logic. I disagree, with all my respect. Even
Re: God or not?
On 25 Dec 2013, at 07:29, Samiya Illias wrote: Why not define God as the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe and Everything Else that is or may exist? With comp, this will be non distinguishable from arithmetical truth. I am OK with that definition, but from the machine's first person point of view, there will still be a difference. God = arithmetical truth, if true, is a secret of God. All we can say is that IF comp is true, THEN possibly (God = arithmetical truth), but the machine cannot believe or justify this,. This is a bit like it is true that Bp and (Bp p) proves the same arithmetical propositions, but the machine cannot justify this, as the machine cannot confuse its 1p (related to arithmetical truth) with any 3p description. Bruno On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 4:20 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Pantheism, Why didn't you just come out and say so? :-D -Original Message- From: Edgar Owen edgaro...@att.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: 24-Dec-2013 13:16:11 + Subject: God or not? All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 25 Dec 2013, at 09:18, LizR wrote: On 23 December 2013 09:10, Edgar Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. The concept of God seems to be reasonably similar in various religions. Samiya Illias' definition seems close to most of them... Why not define God as the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe and Everything Else that is or may exist? It's just the details that tend to differ from one religion to another. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. I don't see how this gets us anywhere, but then I don't see how any definition of God gets us anywhere. I think it is a good term to point on a (transcendental) reality, when we are in the state of mind of doubting if it is a thing, or a person, or a physical object, or a mathematical process, etc. It is what is fundamental and that we might be ignoring. It is what we search, and it is not necessarily the physical universe, although it could be, in some theological theory. Bruno -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 24 Dec 2013, at 17:24, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: My iteration is simply this: How does this help our species, how might this all change the human condition? My interruption in this flow of rational, logical, and analytical reasoning. I am sorry if this offends, but like Dr. Suess's Who's in Whoville, The Horton Hears a Who, and not the Grinch one, I must rudely, ask,, how this could help us? Science is the search of truth, even if the truth is not helpful. That is why science needs more courage than anything else. It is a cure of wishful thinking a priori. The separation of theology from science has abandoned the field to the wishful thinking and its political exploitation by those who want think at our place in the fundamental matter (life and death, and health). In that sense, coming back to modest scientific interrogative thinking in theology, could help everybody in front of the truth, especially if truth appears to be not as friendly as we would have liked. Bruno Us, the pitiful, violent, human species. God, Mind, Consciousness, and all that? It needs to be asked, although, yes, some efforts are purely intellectual. I always home in, the Existential. Sincerely, Mitch -Original Message- From: Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Dec 24, 2013 11:12 am Subject: Re: God or not? Bruno, No. The totality of reality must be logically consistent and logically complete if it is computational (for which there is overwhelming evidence) because if it wasn't it would fall apart at the inconsistencies and pause at the incompletenesses and could not exist. Thus since it does exist it must be logically consistent and logically complete. True that only direct experience is certain on the most fundamental level, but it is also clear upon consistent examination that direct experience is never as it seems to be in the sense that there is clearly a deeper reality that is obscured by direct experience. If we accept that reality is logical, which it must be to exist, then all else follows and we can continue to discuss. Otherwise all would be meaningless and futile which it clearly and self-evidently is not, since if reality was not logical we could not function within it which we do to varying degrees of competence. Therefore our direct experience tells us that reality is a consistent logical structure. We can simply define what reality is = everything that exists. We don't have to search for reality since it is everywhere and cannot be escaped. What we search for is not reality, but its structural details. Lastly no, I do not believe in any primitive physical reality. Not at all. At its fundamental level reality is information running in ontological energy which is not anything physical, it's simply my name for the actuality and presence of existence which is information and realness in the present moment rather than anything physical. It is the actuality and presence of reality which manifests as a present moment in which everything, including ourselves, exists. It is the locus of reality which conveys actual reality upon the computationally evolving information forms within it. Because of its non-physical nature OE is difficult to properly describe as Lao Tse noted about the Tao which was his take on OE. Edgar On Monday, December 23, 2013 1:48:40 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group,
Re: Bruno's mathematical reality
On 22 Dec 2013, at 20:04, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your theory comes from Von Neumann, and Chaitin, and Wolfram, does it not, Edgar? That everything is a program or cellular automata, and in the beginning was a program. Following along, what is this Logic comprised of (sort of like SPK's query) is it electrons, is it virtual particles, is it field lines? Where doth the logical structure sleep? In Planck Cells? I apologize if my questions annoy, but where is the computer network that computes the current state of the universe. In the arithmletical reality which probably emulates all computations (in the standard sense of computer science). But the Wolfram theory is incorrect, as it assumes comp, and don't take the FPI into account (nor even the quantum one). Bruno Can we get MIT physicist Seth Lloyd to shake a stick or a laser pointer, or otherwise, display, where this abacus dwells? Thanks, Mitch -Original Message- From: Stephen Paul King stephe...@charter.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Dec 22, 2013 1:36 pm Subject: Re: Bruno's mathematical reality Dear Edger, Where does the fire come from that animates the logic? On Friday, December 20, 2013 6:52:54 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The fundamental nature of reality is examined in detail in my recent book on Reality available on Amazon under my name. Marchal is on the right track, but reality consists not just of numbers (math) but is a running logical structure analogous to software that continually computes the current state of the universe. Just as software includes but doesn't consist only of numbers and math, so does reality. In fact the equations of physical science make sense only when embedded in a logical structure just as is the case in computational reality. Modern science has a major lacuna, the notion that all of reality is mathematical, that prevents science from grasping the complete nature of reality. In truth all of reality is logical, as is software, and the mathematics is just a subset of the logic. After all, modern science with its misguided insistence that all of reality is mathematical, has had nothing useful to say about the nature of either consciousness or the present moment, the two most fundamental aspects of experience. However I present a computational based information approach to these in my book among many other things. The second clarification that needs to be made to the post on Marchal's work is that human math and logic are distinct from the actual math and logic that computes reality. The human version is a generalized and extended approximation of the actual that differs from the actual logico-mathematical structure of reality in important ways (e.g. infinities and infinitesimals which don't actually exist in external reality). I can explain further if anyone is interested, or you can read about it in my book... Edgar Owen -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
I am sympathetic to your defense of the search for truth. I would differ with you, however, and probably everyone on this list, in stating that science must have a goal. Some Transhumanists are ok with the entire human endeavor turned over to the Machines, and this includes Science. It may be inevitable, in fact. I disagree, and believe that science needs to be harnessed for human betterment (I am sure we all do) and, perhaps, diminishing what some theologians have called, The Human Condition. I am all for directing some of the scientific search bent towards things that benefit our species, in profound ways. Everyone, on this mailing list disagrees with me and has no interest or wanting to waste valuable time with such a pursuit. But, as the old English children's' song goes, The Cheese Stands alone. Apologies, if I am coming across as limburger ;-) Joyes Noel, to all, (Tho' tis' not my faith). Mitch -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Dec 25, 2013 6:14 am Subject: Re: God or not? On 24 Dec 2013, at 17:24, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: My iteration is simply this: How does this help our species, how might this all change the human condition? My interruption in this flow of rational, logical, and analytical reasoning. I am sorry if this offends, but like Dr. Suess's Who's in Whoville, The Horton Hears a Who, and not the Grinch one, I must rudely, ask,, how this could help us? Science is the search of truth, even if the truth is not helpful. That is why science needs more courage than anything else. It is a cure of wishful thinking a priori. The separation of theology from science has abandoned the field to the wishful thinking and its political exploitation by those who want think at our place in the fundamental matter (life and death, and health). In that sense, coming back to modest scientific interrogative thinking in theology, could help everybody in front of the truth, especially if truth appears to be not as friendly as we would have liked. Bruno Us, the pitiful, violent, human species. God, Mind, Consciousness, and all that? It needs to be asked, although, yes, some efforts are purely intellectual. I always home in, the Existential. Sincerely, Mitch -Original Message- From: Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Dec 24, 2013 11:12 am Subject: Re: God or not? Bruno, No. The totality of reality must be logically consistent and logically complete if it is computational (for which there is overwhelming evidence) because if it wasn't it would fall apart at the inconsistencies and pause at the incompletenesses and could not exist. Thus since it does exist it must be logically consistent and logically complete. True that only direct experience is certain on the most fundamental level, but it is also clear upon consistent examination that direct experience is never as it seems to be in the sense that there is clearly a deeper reality that is obscured by direct experience. If we accept that reality is logical, which it must be to exist, then all else follows and we can continue to discuss. Otherwise all would be meaningless and futile which it clearly and self-evidently is not, since if reality was not logical we could not function within it which we do to varying degrees of competence. Therefore our direct experience tells us that reality is a consistent logical structure. We can simply define what reality is = everything that exists. We don't have to search for reality since it is everywhere and cannot be escaped. What we search for is not reality, but its structural details. Lastly no, I do not believe in any primitive physical reality. Not at all. At its fundamental level reality is information running in ontological energy which is not anything physical, it's simply my name for the actuality and presence of existence which is information and realness in the present moment rather than anything physical. It is the actuality and presence of reality which manifests as a present moment in which everything, including ourselves, exists. It is the locus of reality which conveys actual reality upon the computationally evolving information forms within it. Because of its non-physical nature OE is difficult to properly describe as Lao Tse noted about the Tao which was his take on OE. Edgar On Monday, December 23, 2013 1:48:40 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there
Re: A proper definition of reality
More to the point, the product of the two cycles gives a much greater period than what their predators can track - in effect implementing the linear congruential pseudo random number generation algorithm. Evolution is very smart! Cheers On Tue, Dec 24, 2013 at 12:43:01PM -0600, Jason Resch wrote: There is also a 13 year cicada. Is it a coincidence they cycle their mass appearances on large prime numbers? It is thought that this strategy prevents predators from tuning their population cycles to those of the cicadas. Jason On Dec 24, 2013, at 12:19 PM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Cowboy, The fact that cicadas tend to emerge at 17 year intervals has nothing at all to do with the fact that 17 is a prime number. It's simply counting. If I find 17 cents in my pocket that's just counting - nothing at all to do with primes or prime theory. That should be obvious... Edgar On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 7:48:24 AM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, Both Roger and Bruno took issue with my definition of reality to include theories about reality. But the proper definition of reality is that reality includes everything that exists and theories of reality most certainly exist. Roger and Bruno seem to be coming from the old dualistic definition of reality in which some things (generally the 'physical' world) are real and some things aren't real (generally thoughts e.g. about the physical world). While this dualistic definition of reality may be useful in daily life it fails on the philosophical level. In truth the entirety of reality is computational and both 'physical' events and mental are both part of that same single computational nexus. Roger gives the example of hitting a table with his fist as something that is real as opposed to a theory about reality which isn't but in fact the reality of the experience of both is electrical signals (information computations) in the brain. They are both computations in the brain. The proper definition is that everything that exists is real and therefore part of reality. Everything that exists is a computationally evolving information state in reality and that is why it is real, however its reality is exactly what it actually is, what its computational forms actually are, and this is true for everything including both what our minds interpret as 'physical' events and 'mental'. If you must make that distinction then of course everything without exception in our thoughts and experience is mental, but the deeper truth is that its all computationally evolving information however it's interpreted by our minds. Thus the only philosophically consistent definition of reality includes everything that exists without exception, including thoughts and theories. But there is a deeper truth here in that reality itself exists independently of its particular contents as a thing in itself. In fact prior to the big bang it was empty of any actualized information at all, but it still existed in a state similar to a generalized quantum vacuum. This reality itself is what makes the computations that occur within it real and actual and have being, it is what gives them life. It is what I call 'Ontological Energy' which is simply the (non-physical) space of reality whose presence manifests as the present moment in which we and everything exists. All the computationally evolving information that exists exists like waves, ripples and currents in the sea of existence itself, in the ocean of ontological energy, the logical space or locus of reality and actuality. Reality is a single ocean of ontological energy and everything that exists exists as a computationally evolving information form within it. There is nothing outside of it because there is no outside. Therefore there is no possibility of anything being 'not real' or not part of reality. There is only the different categories of reality of different information forms within reality. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. --
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
Brent, I agree up until your last sentence. There you ignore the fact that the different orders of events are seen by both observers in the exact same common present moment. This can only be understood when two kinds of time are accepted and the difference between clock time (different for different observers) and P-time, the time of the present moment, are recognized. See my new topic on 2 different kinds of time for an explanation Edgar On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 8:26:00 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz states that Special relativity shows that there is no such thing as a common present moment. but this is incorrect. Actually special relativity shows exactly the opposite. In my book I explain how this works. It is well known, though little understood, that everything without exception continually travels through spacetime at the speed of light according to its own comoving clock. I call this the STc Principle. This is a well known consequence of special relativity but actually as I point out in my book this is an even more fundamental Principle than Special Relativity and Special Relativity is properly a consequence of it and can be derived from it. What the STc Principle says is that the total velocity through both space and through time of everything without exception is = to the speed of light. This is the reason that time slows on a clock moving with some relative spatial velocity, as Special Relativity tells us. It also demonstrates that the speed of light is properly understood as the speed of TIME. That's what c really is. Light just happens to move entirely in space according to its own comoving clock, therefore its entire spacetime velocity is in space only. Anyway it is precisely this STc Principle that puts both the arrow of time and a privileged present moment on a firm physical basis. Why? Because it requires that everything must be in one particular place in spacetime (the present moment) and moving at the speed of light (the arrow of time). So exactly contrary to your statement, it is precisely special relativity, properly understood, that puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis. This insight simultaneously solves two of the big problems of the philosophy of science, the source of the arrow of time, and the reason for a common present moment, though no one seems to have recognized this prior to my exposition in 1997 in my paper 'Spacetime and Consciousness'. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Why there is something rather than nothing...
All, As I state in my book on Reality in Part I: Fundamentals, Existence MUST exist because non-existence canNOT exist. That is why there was never a nothing out of which something appeared. Therefore there is no need for a creator nor a creation event. The very notion is illogical and impossible This is the solution to the most basic of philosophical/scientific questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? This is the fundamental self-necessitating axiom of Reality upon which all else is based. It is the bottom turtle in the stack! Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
Bruno, There simply is no physical universe. The universe is information being computed in OE only. Physical universes are interpretations of the actual information universe in organismic minds. That is their only reality. They are mental models or simulations of the actual information reality, and they also as parts of that information reality are themselves also only information. Edgar On Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:10:30 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
Bruno, and Samiya, Because there can be no creator sustainer God that stands outside the universe. Where would he/it stand? That's an irrational belief from millennia ago. The universe by definition is all that exists... Edgar On Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:10:30 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
Why and How does all exist? Samiya On 25-Dec-2013, at 8:21 PM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Bruno, and Samiya, Because there can be no creator sustainer God that stands outside the universe. Where would he/it stand? That's an irrational belief from millennia ago. The universe by definition is all that exists... Edgar On Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:10:30 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
All, ST=spacetime, c=speed of light, thus STc Principle. To answer some of Jason's questions. Block time is wrong. Only the common present moment exists. All the comments Jason makes refer only to differences in clock times which are well known, but the important point is that all those differences in clock time occur in the SAME common present moment.. I find it difficult to understand why so many people can't get their minds around the difference which proves there are two distinct kinds of time. The past exists only as inferences from the present as to what states would have resulted in the present according to the currently known laws of physics. Therefore the past is actually determined by the present state of reality from the perspective of the present which is the only valid perspective. Therefore the logical network of past and present is absolute 100% exact and could not have been different in even the slightest detail. The actual currently state of the universe falsifies the very possibility of other pasts. This is another difficult concept for many. Only the future is probabilistic because it does not yet exist and has never been computed. But the past - present logical state has been actually computed and thus is completely deterministic now that it exists and it could not have been different in any minute detail at all. This solves the problem of the original fine tuning. Given the current state of reality which is all that exists, all other conceivable fine tunings are impossible. This is what I call the 'Super Anthropic Principle', and it negates the necessity and probably the actuality of postulating any multiverses and strongly implies our observable universe is most probably the only one that exists. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Privacy
Liz: W E A R E . On Tue, Dec 24, 2013 at 4:33 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I trust everyone is celebrating Newton-mas today? One of the greatest men of the past 2000 years, without whom we would probably still be ignorant peasants ruled by clergy and kings... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
Ok, so the Quantum needs an Observer. Who are the Observers, Boltzmann Brains. When intelligent Observers croak, Boltzmann Brains, Humans, The Intelligent Octopii, from the Sombrero Galaxy, should not the universe (one universe) collapse or devolve into chaos (particle probabilities)? Am I too insipid for addressing this? -Original Message- From: Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Dec 25, 2013 11:52 am Subject: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely All, ST=spacetime, c=speed of light, thus STc Principle. To answer some of Jason's questions. Block time is wrong. Only the common present moment exists. All the comments Jason makes refer only to differences in clock times which are well known, but the important point is that all those differences in clock time occur in the SAME common present moment.. I find it difficult to understand why so many people can't get their minds around the difference which proves there are two distinct kinds of time. The past exists only as inferences from the present as to what states would have resulted in the present according to the currently known laws of physics. Therefore the past is actually determined by the present state of reality from the perspective of the present which is the only valid perspective. Therefore the logical network of past and present is absolute 100% exact and could not have been different in even the slightest detail. The actual currently state of the universe falsifies the very possibility of other pasts. This is another difficult concept for many. Only the future is probabilistic because it does not yet exist and has never been computed. But the past - present logical state has been actually computed and thus is completely deterministic now that it exists and it could not have been different in any minute detail at all. This solves the problem of the original fine tuning. Given the current state of reality which is all that exists, all other conceivable fine tunings are impossible. This is what I call the 'Super Anthropic Principle', and it negates the necessity and probably the actuality of postulating any multiverses and strongly implies our observable universe is most probably the only one that exists. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 25 Dec 2013, at 12:39, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: I am sympathetic to your defense of the search for truth. I would differ with you, however, and probably everyone on this list, in stating that science must have a goal. Some Transhumanists are ok with the entire human endeavor turned over to the Machines, and this includes Science. It may be inevitable, in fact. I disagree, and believe that science needs to be harnessed for human betterment (I am sure we all do) and, perhaps, diminishing what some theologians have called, The Human Condition. I am all for directing some of the scientific search bent towards things that benefit our species, in profound ways. Everyone, on this mailing list disagrees with me and has no interest or wanting to waste valuable time with such a pursuit. But, as the old English children's' song goes, The Cheese Stands alone. Apologies, if I am coming across as limburger ;-) Joyes Noel, to all, (Tho' tis' not my faith). That is very honorable from you. I think that honest research of the truth can help here, but indirectly, perhaps through examples. I think that most human suffering due to humans is a product of moral and altruism: hell is really paved with the good intention. Comp has some quasi-ethic, like don't ever do moral (uncommunicable of course, as it would be a moral). Comp might help also, in the sense that if the humans are encouraged to listen to the machines, they will be encouraged to listen to the humans. Then it can help (or perturb) by making us realize how ignorant we are in the fundamental questions. Science has simply not yet really begun, for a computationalist. Truth is not enough for the good, but it light be necessary. Bruno Mitch -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Dec 25, 2013 6:14 am Subject: Re: God or not? On 24 Dec 2013, at 17:24, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: My iteration is simply this: How does this help our species, how might this all change the human condition? My interruption in this flow of rational, logical, and analytical reasoning. I am sorry if this offends, but like Dr. Suess's Who's in Whoville, The Horton Hears a Who, and not the Grinch one, I must rudely, ask,, how this could help us? Science is the search of truth, even if the truth is not helpful. That is why science needs more courage than anything else. It is a cure of wishful thinking a priori. The separation of theology from science has abandoned the field to the wishful thinking and its political exploitation by those who want think at our place in the fundamental matter (life and death, and health). In that sense, coming back to modest scientific interrogative thinking in theology, could help everybody in front of the truth, especially if truth appears to be not as friendly as we would have liked. Bruno Us, the pitiful, violent, human species. God, Mind, Consciousness, and all that? It needs to be asked, although, yes, some efforts are purely intellectual. I always home in, the Existential. Sincerely, Mitch -Original Message- From: Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Dec 24, 2013 11:12 am Subject: Re: God or not? Bruno, No. The totality of reality must be logically consistent and logically complete if it is computational (for which there is overwhelming evidence) because if it wasn't it would fall apart at the inconsistencies and pause at the incompletenesses and could not exist. Thus since it does exist it must be logically consistent and logically complete. True that only direct experience is certain on the most fundamental level, but it is also clear upon consistent examination that direct experience is never as it seems to be in the sense that there is clearly a deeper reality that is obscured by direct experience. If we accept that reality is logical, which it must be to exist, then all else follows and we can continue to discuss. Otherwise all would be meaningless and futile which it clearly and self-evidently is not, since if reality was not logical we could not function within it which we do to varying degrees of competence. Therefore our direct experience tells us that reality is a consistent logical structure. We can simply define what reality is = everything that exists. We don't have to search for reality since it is everywhere and cannot be escaped. What we search for is not reality, but its structural details. Lastly no, I do not believe in any primitive physical reality. Not at all. At its fundamental level reality is information running in ontological energy which is not anything physical, it's simply my name for the actuality and presence of existence which is information and realness in the present moment rather than anything physical. It is
Re: Bruno's mathematical reality
Are we not presuming, structure, or a-priori, existence of something, doing this processing, this work? Idea-wise, Wolfram and Von Neumann's cellular automata, also known as programs. I am not saying there is a programmer (like Herr Doctor Scmidhuber has pondered) but there seems to be a pre-existing program, producing your Arithmetic. Platonism is great, but I am doubtful that the magic of self organization can come up with forms all on its own. Before the chicken came the animal that preceded the chicken-maybe a raptor, forget the egg. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Dec 25, 2013 6:18 am Subject: Re: Bruno's mathematical reality On 22 Dec 2013, at 20:04, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your theory comes from Von Neumann, and Chaitin, and Wolfram, does it not, Edgar? That everything is a program or cellular automata, and in the beginning was a program. Following along, what is this Logic comprised of (sort of like SPK's query) is it electrons, is it virtual particles, is it field lines? Where doth the logical structure sleep? In Planck Cells? I apologize if my questions annoy, but where is the computer network that computes the current state of the universe. In the arithmletical reality which probably emulates all computations (in the standard sense of computer science). But the Wolfram theory is incorrect, as it assumes comp, and don't take the FPI into account (nor even the quantum one). Bruno Can we get MIT physicist Seth Lloyd to shake a stick or a laser pointer, or otherwise, display, where this abacus dwells? Thanks, Mitch -Original Message- From: Stephen Paul King stephe...@charter.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sun, Dec 22, 2013 1:36 pm Subject: Re: Bruno's mathematical reality Dear Edger, Where does the fire come from that animates the logic? On Friday, December 20, 2013 6:52:54 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The fundamental nature of reality is examined in detail in my recent book on Reality available on Amazon under my name. Marchal is on the right track, but reality consists not just of numbers (math) but is a running logical structure analogous to software that continually computes the current state of the universe. Just as software includes but doesn't consist only of numbers and math, so does reality. In fact the equations of physical science make sense only when embedded in a logical structure just as is the case in computational reality. Modern science has a major lacuna, the notion that all of reality is mathematical, that prevents science from grasping the complete nature of reality. In truth all of reality is logical, as is software, and the mathematics is just a subset of the logic. After all, modern science with its misguided insistence that all of reality is mathematical, has had nothing useful to say about the nature of either consciousness or the present moment, the two most fundamental aspects of experience. However I present a computational based information approach to these in my book among many other things. The second clarification that needs to be made to the post on Marchal's work is that human math and logic are distinct from the actual math and logic that computes reality. The human version is a generalized and extended approximation of the actual that differs from the actual logico-mathematical structure of reality in important ways (e.g. infinities and infinitesimals which don't actually exist in external reality). I can explain further if anyone is interested, or you can read about it in my book... Edgar Owen -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to
Re: Yes, my book 'Reality' does cover quantum reality.
On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 04:15:13PM -0800, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, Someone asked somewhere if I cover quantum theory in my book. Yes, I do. The entire 'Part III: Elementals' of the book covers reality at its finest scale, the quantum world. I'll summarize here but can only gloss over some of the main points. As stated before reality, at its most fundamental level, consists of pure computationally evolving information only. It is not physical. Thus there is no dimensional spacetime. Dimensional spacetime is in fact something that arises from quantum events, e.g. the conservation of particle properties as they are computed in particle interactions that specify the dimensional relationships between particles emerging from particle interactions, such as relative energies and momenta. It is these purely numeric NON-physical computed dimensional relationships that are part of the fundamental computational reality. Thus instead of a single pre-existing all pervading spacetime that exists as a background to all events, what really happens is that many independent mini-spacetimes arise from networks of particle interactions. It is only when these networks connect via common events that their spacetimes merge into larger mini-spacetimes, and the spacetime that we think we inhabit is actually the end result of the merging of innumerable mini-spacetimes as the result of all the billions of particle level events we continually interact with, e.g. all the photons impinging on our retinas. These continual particle level interactions build up the simulacrum of a classical spacetime and our minds then interpolate that and mentally construct a fixed, pre-existing common spacetime that does not actually exist in external reality itself even though our minds convince us that it does. Now there is plenty of evidence this view is correct, part of which is that it solves two of the most profound problems of physics. The beauty of this insight is that it enables two very important advances. 1. First it enables the conceptual unification of general relativity and quantum theory because the reason they seem incompatible is precisely the pre-existing all pervading spacetime that quantum theory mistakenly assumes. When it is understood that spacetime emerges from quantum events rather than being a pre-existing background to them this incompatibility vanishes and in fact it is easy to get the curved spacetime of general relativity directly from this emergence by simply taking the mass-energy particle property as the scale of the spacetime that emerges. 2. In one fell swoop it eliminates ALL quantum paradox. Why? Because quantum processes only seem paradoxical again with respect to the pre-existing fixed common spacetime mistakenly assumed. When the way spacetime emerges FROM quantum processes is understood all the paradoxical nature of quantum theory vanishes. Now, I know this probably seems counter intuitive and is a lot to get one's mind around in one post which is not as clearly stated as I'd like but I'd be happy to explain further or you can read my book available on Amazon under my name. When it is properly understood it becomes quite clear and very obvious and it is so simple and straightforward one wonders why no one discovered it before Edgar Hi Edgar, In principle, this strikes me as being right. Spacetime must be emergent from quantum interactions via the process of observation, but getting the mathematical details right is tricky. I know of the PaW model, for example, which attempts to do this (eg see arXiv:1310.4691), but haven't really grokked the details. Is you model related, and do you have a shorter paper where you give the mathematical details? Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 25 Dec 2013, at 16:15, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Bruno, There simply is no physical universe. We might agree, if you use physical universe in the Aristotelian sense. The universe is information being computed in OE only. OE? Can you make precise what you mean by information being computed? Physical universes are interpretations of the actual information universe in organismic minds. What are organismic minds? Bruno That is their only reality. They are mental models or simulations of the actual information reality, and they also as parts of that information reality are themselves also only information. Edgar On Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:10:30 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
Amen on most points, Edgar. I also have misgivings about the existence of the multiverse for different reasons that this posting is not the place to vent. But, for we humans, the present moment exists for each of us. Your "common present moment" is an assumption that all x, y, and z of this 3-D realm experience simultaneity, even though every local set of coordinates, for instance, x1, y1, z1, if they have a self-aware structure (SAS), i.e. an observer, will have different experiences - albeit, even if only that the coordinates are different. You are trying to make your "common present moment" an axiom of reality that, for all x, y, and z, there is only one t. Though it makes common sense for a strictly Newtonian universe, when one adds relativistic considerations of the connectivity of space and time into a space-time continuum, your axiom of a common present may not hold. I am, BTW, a physicist by education. I don't post much. Howard Marks Certainly, your assumption can be made and explored. On 12/25/2013 10:52 AM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, ST=spacetime, c=speed of light, thus STc Principle. To answer some of Jason's questions. Block time is wrong. Only the common present moment exists. All the comments Jason makes refer only to differences in clock times which are well known, but the important point is that all those differences in clock time occur in the SAME common present moment.. I find it difficult to understand why so many people can't get their minds around the difference which proves there are two distinct kinds of time. The past exists only as inferences from the present as to what states would have resulted in the present according to the currently known laws of physics. Therefore the past is actually determined by the present state of reality from the perspective of the present which is the only valid perspective. Therefore the logical network of past and present is absolute 100% exact and could not have been different in even the slightest detail. The actual currently state of the universe falsifies the very possibility of other pasts. This is another difficult concept for many. Only the future is probabilistic because it does not yet exist and has never been computed. But the past - present logical state has been actually computed and thus is completely deterministic now that it exists and it could not have been different in any minute detail at all. This solves the problem of the original fine tuning. Given the current state of reality which is all that exists, all other conceivable fine tunings are impossible. This is what I call the 'Super Anthropic Principle', and it negates the necessity and probably the actuality of postulating any multiverses and strongly implies our observable universe is most probably the only one that exists. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why there is something rather than nothing...
On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 10:05 AM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrot As I state in my book on Reality in Part I: Fundamentals, Existence MUST exist because non-existence canNOT exist. [...] The very notion is illogical and impossible Provided of course that the laws of logic exist. there is no need for a creator Postulating the existence of God would just make the problem of explaining existence worse. If science can't explain everything it would be nuts to turn to religion which has a track record of never being able of explaining anything; or rather it would be nuts provided that the laws of logic exist. nor a creation event. I'm not so sure about that, most astronomers would disagree with you. And happy Newton's birthday everybody! 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 25 Dec 2013, at 16:21, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Bruno, and Samiya, Because there can be no creator sustainer God that stands outside the universe. Where would he/it stand? That's an irrational belief from millennia ago. The universe by definition is all that exists... But what exists need to be define in some TOE. God created the natural numbers, all the rest belongs to natural numbers dreams (paraphrasing Kronecker again). The physical reality is a first person statistics on cohering dreams. Normally. My point is that this can be made precise (thanks to computer science) and tested experimentally (and somehow QM weirdness get easily explained, but the classical, symplectic, part of physics is much harder. Bruno Edgar On Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:10:30 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
The notion that everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light was popularized by Brian Greene, but it only works if you choose a rather odd definition of speed through spacetime, one which I haven't seen any other physicists make use of. See my post #3 on the thread at http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=59901 where I quote Greene's explanation of the math behind his statement and explain why this terminology seems counter-intuitive and not particularly illuminating to me. In any case, you haven't really addressed the basic argument in SR that there is no single objective present--the principle of the relativity of simultaneity. In relativity there are different inertial reference frames, and the two basic postulates of relativity are that the laws of physics must work exactly the same in each inertial frame (so if you were in a windowless room moving inertially in space, there'd be no experiment you could do that would give different results depending on what inertial frame you were at rest in), and the speed of light must be measured to be c in every inertial frame--see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postulates_of_special_relativity From these two postulates you can derive the fact that different frames must judge simultaneity differently. For example, suppose I am standing on a space station watching you travel by me on a spaceship, with one wall transparent so I can see what's going on inside your ship. Suppose you set off a flash of light at the exact center of your ship, and I measure the time it takes in my frame for the light from the flash to hit the front and back walls of your ship. At the moment the flash happened it was equidistant from the front and back wall, but since the ship is moving forwards in my frame, the back wall is moving *towards* the photons that are heading in the direction of the back wall, while the front wall is moving *away* from the photons that are heading in the direction of the front wall. So, if both sets of photons move at the same speed relative to *my* frame, I must conclude that the photons will reach the back wall at an earlier time than the photons reach the front wall. On the other hand, in your rest frame the ship is simply at rest, so neither wall is moving towards or away from the point where the flash happened, and it's still true that both walls are equidistant from the flash. So if both sets of photons move at the same speed as measured in your frame, then it must be true that in your frame the photons reach the front and back walls simultaneously. So, in this way we can see that the basic postulates imply that different frames cannot agree about the simultaneity of events that happen at different locations in spacetime, like photons hitting two different walls (though all frames do agree about events that coincide in space and time, like two twins comparing ages at the moment they reunite). There's a good youtube video illustrating a somewhat similar argument involving lightning hitting two ends of a moving train at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wteiuxyqtoM Anyway, the upshot is that in SR, if Alice and Bob are moving away from each other at some significant fraction of lightspeed, you can have a situation where in Alice's frame, the event of her 40th birthday happens simultaneously with the event of Bob's 32nd birthday, but in Bob's frame the event of Alice's 40th birthday is simultaneous with his own 50th birthday. Unless you are claiming that the same present moment can include both the event of Bob celebrating his 32nd birthday and the event of him celebrating his 50th birthday, it seems that your notion of a privileged present moment must pick one frame's definition of simultaneity out as the correct one while others are incorrect. But all of relativistic physics is derived from the basic postulates which say the laws of physics are the same in all frames, so unless the equations derived this way are fundamentally incorrect, there can be absolutely no experimental way to distinguish one frame as more correct than any other. So, the only way you can have a true present compatible with the experimental accuracy of relativity is to say the there is some kind of metaphysically preferred definition of simultaneity which has no experimental consequences whatsoever. This wouldn't contradict any known physics, but it seems kind of ad hoc...it seems a lot more parsimonious to assume metaphysics lines up with physics in this case, so that a lack of any physically preferred definition of simultaneity would imply a lack of a metaphysically preferred definition too, which would mean the philosophy of time known as eternalism or block time (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time) ) would have to be favored over the philosophy known as presentism which you seem to advocate (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(philosophy_of_time) ) Finally, note that special relativity already has built into it some
Re: God or not?
On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. God noun A noise many members of the Everything list still insist on making with their mouth even though they've long ago abandoned the idea behind it. John K Clark Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Minds, Machines and Gödel
On 25 Dec 2013, at 16:18, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Wednesday, December 25, 2013 5:07:22 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 24 Dec 2013, at 17:31, Craig Weinberg wrote: It's straighforward I think. What you are saying is that this semantic trick prevents us from seeing that the truth does not agree with the theory. ? (sorry but I still fail to see the connection). I am just saying that the discovery of the many non computable attribute of machine makes invalid the reasoning against comp invoking non computable aspect of the human mind. What I'm saying is that the reference to non-computable phenomena means that they are not likely to be attributes of machines. Yes, that is what you were saying, and my point is that this is not valid. Most machine's or number's attributes are not computable. In fact, it is the price of the consistency of Church thesis, as I have often explained in detail. If interested I could show it to you. Comp has no right to ever mention non computable attributes of anything and still be comp. ? Comp is I am a machine (3-I). This does not entail that everything is computable. Worse, the price of universality entails that many things *about* machine will necessarily be non-computable. A large part of computability theory is really incomputability theory, the studies of the complex hierarchies of non computability and non solvability in arithmetic and computer science. It would have to explain how non-computable phenomena are derived from computation and what that can even mean. I can do that. I can prove that if a universal number exists, then non computable relation between numbers exists. Löbian numbers can actually already prove that about themselves. For comp to be consistent, it can only ask 'what do you mean 'non- computable?'. For finite to be consistent, it can only ask what do you mean by infinite? Well, OK. But we can do that. Even with the intuitive definition, we can do that. A function (from N to N) is computable iff you can explain in a finite numbers of words, in a non ambiguous grammar, to a reasonably dumb fellow, how to compute it, in a finite time, for each of its finite argument. Now, a function is not computable, if you cannot do that, even assuming you are immortal. Church thesis say the number LAMDDA is a universal number. This simplifies non computability. A function is not computable if you cannot program it in LAMBDA. The universal number LAMBDA cannot simulate that function. If I had a theory of autovehicularism in which cars drive themselves, I can't then claim that these soft things that sit behind the wheel inside the car are non-vehicular attributes of cars. If there can be non-vehicular attributes of cars then any autovehicular theory of cars is false. It means also that most proposition *about* machine, cannot be found in a mechanical way. The simplest examples are that no machine can decide if some arbitrary machine will stop not, or no machine can decide if two arbitrary machine compute or not the same function, etc. If there is no complete theories for machines and/or numbers, it makes harder to defend non-comp, etc. How can computationalism support the idea of there being a non- mechanical way though? What other way is there? Computation with oracle for non computable arithmetical truth, or just some non computable arithmetical truth. Arithmetic is full of them. You are telling me that arithmetic is full of non-arithmetic, No. Full of non computable relations between number. If they are not computable, how do you know they are part of arithmetic rather than physics or sense? Because I work in arithmetic. I use Gödel's arithmetization of meta- arithmetic. In AUDA, I never leave arithmetic. Most of arithmetic is not computable. Truth escapes proof, and many computations do not stop, without us able to prove this in advance in any specific way. I'm afraid you are unaware of computer science. I told you to be cautious with machines and numbers, because since Gödel we know that we know about nothing on them. so therefore your computationalism - the idea that consciousness and physics develop from unconscious computation, includes (unspecified, unknowable) non-computationalism too. I don't see what you mean by includes non-computationalism. I can try to make sense. yes, the arithmetical reality is 99,999...% non computable. But computationalism is not the thesis that everything is computable. It is the thesis that the working of my brain can be imitate enough closely by a digital machine so that my first person experience will not see any difference. If only 0.000...1% of arithmetic truth is computable, why would a digital computation be enough to imitate anything other than another digital computation? It can't, indeed. Computation and imitation or simulation, or
Re: Yes, my book 'Reality' does cover quantum reality.
Hi Russell, Glad you agree with my approach here. No, I haven't worked out the mathematical details and that certainly should be on science's 'to do' list. However there is considerable more detail on how this works and how General Relativity emerges automatically from quantum events in my book 'Reality' on Amazon. I can discuss more details here if they come up... Best, Edgar On Monday, December 23, 2013 7:15:13 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, Someone asked somewhere if I cover quantum theory in my book. Yes, I do. The entire 'Part III: Elementals' of the book covers reality at its finest scale, the quantum world. I'll summarize here but can only gloss over some of the main points. As stated before reality, at its most fundamental level, consists of pure computationally evolving information only. It is not physical. Thus there is no dimensional spacetime. Dimensional spacetime is in fact something that arises from quantum events, e.g. the conservation of particle properties as they are computed in particle interactions that specify the dimensional relationships between particles emerging from particle interactions, such as relative energies and momenta. It is these purely numeric NON-physical computed dimensional relationships that are part of the fundamental computational reality. Thus instead of a single pre-existing all pervading spacetime that exists as a background to all events, what really happens is that many independent mini-spacetimes arise from networks of particle interactions. It is only when these networks connect via common events that their spacetimes merge into larger mini-spacetimes, and the spacetime that we think we inhabit is actually the end result of the merging of innumerable mini-spacetimes as the result of all the billions of particle level events we continually interact with, e.g. all the photons impinging on our retinas. These continual particle level interactions build up the simulacrum of a classical spacetime and our minds then interpolate that and mentally construct a fixed, pre-existing common spacetime that does not actually exist in external reality itself even though our minds convince us that it does. Now there is plenty of evidence this view is correct, part of which is that it solves two of the most profound problems of physics. The beauty of this insight is that it enables two very important advances. 1. First it enables the conceptual unification of general relativity and quantum theory because the reason they seem incompatible is precisely the pre-existing all pervading spacetime that quantum theory mistakenly assumes. When it is understood that spacetime emerges from quantum events rather than being a pre-existing background to them this incompatibility vanishes and in fact it is easy to get the curved spacetime of general relativity directly from this emergence by simply taking the mass-energy particle property as the scale of the spacetime that emerges. 2. In one fell swoop it eliminates ALL quantum paradox. Why? Because quantum processes only seem paradoxical again with respect to the pre-existing fixed common spacetime mistakenly assumed. When the way spacetime emerges FROM quantum processes is understood all the paradoxical nature of quantum theory vanishes. Now, I know this probably seems counter intuitive and is a lot to get one's mind around in one post which is not as clearly stated as I'd like but I'd be happy to explain further or you can read my book available on Amazon under my name. When it is properly understood it becomes quite clear and very obvious and it is so simple and straightforward one wonders why no one discovered it before Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
Hi Howard, Your comments pertain (correctly) to clock time but not to P-time, the time of the present moment. It is clear that the t's of clock time differ between clocks according to relativistic conditions. You need to understand that the present moment is independent of any particular clock time, it is the common present moment WITHIN which all clock times may have different t values. When the space traveling twins reunite with different clock time t values they ALWAYS reunite in the exact same present moment. That's the key insight I'm trying to get across. Edgar On Wednesday, December 25, 2013 11:52:10 AM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, ST=spacetime, c=speed of light, thus STc Principle. To answer some of Jason's questions. Block time is wrong. Only the common present moment exists. All the comments Jason makes refer only to differences in clock times which are well known, but the important point is that all those differences in clock time occur in the SAME common present moment.. I find it difficult to understand why so many people can't get their minds around the difference which proves there are two distinct kinds of time. The past exists only as inferences from the present as to what states would have resulted in the present according to the currently known laws of physics. Therefore the past is actually determined by the present state of reality from the perspective of the present which is the only valid perspective. Therefore the logical network of past and present is absolute 100% exact and could not have been different in even the slightest detail. The actual currently state of the universe falsifies the very possibility of other pasts. This is another difficult concept for many. Only the future is probabilistic because it does not yet exist and has never been computed. But the past - present logical state has been actually computed and thus is completely deterministic now that it exists and it could not have been different in any minute detail at all. This solves the problem of the original fine tuning. Given the current state of reality which is all that exists, all other conceivable fine tunings are impossible. This is what I call the 'Super Anthropic Principle', and it negates the necessity and probably the actuality of postulating any multiverses and strongly implies our observable universe is most probably the only one that exists. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why there is something rather than nothing...
John, Yes, you are absolutely correct it depends on the universe being a logical structure. That 2nd fundamental Axiom is in my book on Reality also. However there is overwhelming evidence for that... You slightly misunderstand my statement that 'there is no need for a creation event'. Of course it is clear the big bang occurred but that was not a creation event so much as an actualization event out of a state of existence similar to a generalized quantum vacuum which existed 'prior' (in single quotes since there was no clock time then so prior is misleading in that sense) to the big bang and in fact must have always existed and still exists as the substrate, or logical space of reality, in which the information of the actualized universe continually computes its current state. Hope that clarifies things... Never fear, I agree with you and the astronomers there was a big bang! Edgar On Wednesday, December 25, 2013 10:05:34 AM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, As I state in my book on Reality in Part I: Fundamentals, Existence MUST exist because non-existence canNOT exist. That is why there was never a nothing out of which something appeared. Therefore there is no need for a creator nor a creation event. The very notion is illogical and impossible This is the solution to the most basic of philosophical/scientific questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? This is the fundamental self-necessitating axiom of Reality upon which all else is based. It is the bottom turtle in the stack! Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
Jesse, Good physics based post. Yes, Brian Greene mentions everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light in both his books but only in passing as a curiosity without recognizing its profound significance. Thanks for your link to your physicsforums post. The meaning of 'speed through time' is actually pretty clear as it's based on the universally accepted fundamental equation for 4-d spacetime in which the t variable has to be multiplied by c to make sense. That has to be accepted if we accept that spacetime is a single 4-dimensional structure which everyone agrees is fundamental to relativity theory. The equation for velocity through spacetime works the same way and has to be accepted for the same reason. Once you accept time as distance along a 4th dimension you have to accept velocity through time and all the math of relativity works fine and is consistent. I don't think there should be any reservations about this. The problem with all your other comments (which I agree with as I scanned them) is they refer to clock time, not the P-time of the present moment. Of course clock time t values vary in a number of ways, but the key insight is they always vary in the exact same present moment which is proved by the time traveling twins reuniting with different clock time t's but always in the exact same present moment. This proves there is a single common universal present moment in which all clock time variations occur. And as you infer proper time is the direct experience of P-time which is the same for all observers even as their clock times are running at different relativistic rates. Edgar On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 8:26:00 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz states that Special relativity shows that there is no such thing as a common present moment. but this is incorrect. Actually special relativity shows exactly the opposite. In my book I explain how this works. It is well known, though little understood, that everything without exception continually travels through spacetime at the speed of light according to its own comoving clock. I call this the STc Principle. This is a well known consequence of special relativity but actually as I point out in my book this is an even more fundamental Principle than Special Relativity and Special Relativity is properly a consequence of it and can be derived from it. What the STc Principle says is that the total velocity through both space and through time of everything without exception is = to the speed of light. This is the reason that time slows on a clock moving with some relative spatial velocity, as Special Relativity tells us. It also demonstrates that the speed of light is properly understood as the speed of TIME. That's what c really is. Light just happens to move entirely in space according to its own comoving clock, therefore its entire spacetime velocity is in space only. Anyway it is precisely this STc Principle that puts both the arrow of time and a privileged present moment on a firm physical basis. Why? Because it requires that everything must be in one particular place in spacetime (the present moment) and moving at the speed of light (the arrow of time). So exactly contrary to your statement, it is precisely special relativity, properly understood, that puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis. This insight simultaneously solves two of the big problems of the philosophy of science, the source of the arrow of time, and the reason for a common present moment, though no one seems to have recognized this prior to my exposition in 1997 in my paper 'Spacetime and Consciousness'. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
Hi Edgar, thanks for the reply. But do you agree or disagree with the point that since different frames are considered equally valid and they define simultaneity differently, either there would have to be no experimental means to determine which frame's definition of simultaneity is correct (so that the assumption of a true definition of simultaneity would be a purely metaphysical postulate with no experimental significance), or else we would have to discover new physics that violates the two postulates of special relativity? If you disagree I think you are misunderstanding something basic about relativity...on the other hand, if you agree, then which of those two options are you arguing for? Also, what do you think of my point that relativity already has a notion of time separate from proper time, namely coordinate time, and that this allows physicists to make sense of the notion that the two twins meet and compare ages simultaneously even though their ages are different, without requiring us to choose presentism over eternalism/block time? Since the block time view treats time as analogous to a fourth spatial dimension, a spatial analogy might come in handy here. If we have various paths of some kind (roads, say) on a 2D surface, we have a notion of path length between any two points along a given road, which could be measured for example by a car driving along the road with its odometer running. This is analogous to the proper time along a given worldline in relativity. But we could also have a Cartesian coordinate grid on the surface, so that any two points could be labeled with an x and a y coordinate. Then if we have roads that start from the same point A, diverge, then reconverge at some other point B (akin to the world-lines of the twins who depart at some point A in spacetime and reunite at some other point B), we can assign x,y coordinates to both the divergence point and the reconvergence point. If one road was a straight line between A and B while another had some changes in direction, we will see that the straight-line path always has the shorter path length (analogous to the fact that the inertial twin always has a *larger* elapsed proper time--the reason it's larger rather than shorter is because path length for a straight segment of a path in Euclidean space is calculated by sqrt[(change in x coordinate)^2 + (change in y coordinate)^2], whereas proper time for an inertial segment of a path in spacetime is calculated by sqrt[(change in t coordinate)^2 - (change in position coordinates)^2]...the fact that you have a minus sign in the square root rather than a plus sign turns out to imply that in spacetime, a straight path between points is the *longest*, not the shortest). But despite the fact that the two roads have different path lengths between A and B, so that cars that started from A and took each road would reunite with different odometer readings, the two cars do meet at the same x or y coordinate (either one can be treated as analogous to the t-coordinate in spacetime). Clearly this does not imply that other earlier parts of the road have ceased to exist when the cars meet, they're just at a different spatial position; and similarly a block time advocate can say that even though the twins do meet at the same t-coordinate, this doesn't mean that earlier segments of their worldline have ceased to exist as a presentist would believe, they're just at a different position in spacetime than the event of their meeting. Jesse On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Jesse, Good physics based post. Yes, Brian Greene mentions everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light in both his books but only in passing as a curiosity without recognizing its profound significance. Thanks for your link to your physicsforums post. The meaning of 'speed through time' is actually pretty clear as it's based on the universally accepted fundamental equation for 4-d spacetime in which the t variable has to be multiplied by c to make sense. That has to be accepted if we accept that spacetime is a single 4-dimensional structure which everyone agrees is fundamental to relativity theory. The equation for velocity through spacetime works the same way and has to be accepted for the same reason. Once you accept time as distance along a 4th dimension you have to accept velocity through time and all the math of relativity works fine and is consistent. I don't think there should be any reservations about this. The problem with all your other comments (which I agree with as I scanned them) is they refer to clock time, not the P-time of the present moment. Of course clock time t values vary in a number of ways, but the key insight is they always vary in the exact same present moment which is proved by the time traveling twins reuniting with different clock time t's but always in the exact same present moment. This proves there is a single common
Bruno's fundamental mistake (IMHO)
Bruno, Correct me if I'm wrong about where you are coming from in your basic approach. Bruno seems to believe that mathematicians discover a math that already exists in reality (as opposed to math being a human invention which is the alternative view). Thus he believes that reality itself is a mathematical structure which 'contains' in some sense all of the math that mathematicians have come up with, and no doubt much more to be discovered. Thus he believes that ANY correct mathematical theory can be validly applied to reality to generate true results, which he does with facility. However there are a number of problems with this theory. For one thing the edifice of human math is static, it just sits there waiting for humans to apply it to something, whereas the math that actually computes reality is active and continuously runs like software. There is, in my view, no evidence at all for any math in reality at all except for what is actually running and computing reality's current state. Therefore most of human math is NOT going to be applicable to the math of reality. One can't just apply the results of any human math theory to reality and expect it accurately describe reality. Instead of trying to applying Godel, Church, etc. etc. etc. to reality one has to actually look at the actual computations reality is executing and see what they tell US, as opposed to what mathematicians try to tell them. This is basic scientific method and is the correct approach. So my repeated point is that human math and reality math are different. Of course they share some fundamental logic. But human math is a structure that was first approximated from the math of reality, but then widely generalized and extended far beyond what reality math is actually computing in the process losing some of the actual essentials of reality math. For example all computations in reality math are finite with no infinities nor infinitesimals since reality is granular at its elemental level and nothing actual can be infinite. The human math number system is a generalized extension of reality's number system which is more subtle as there are no numbers that just keep going forever (pi) to greater and greater accuracies far greater than the scale of the universe. And there may well be no zeros in reality math, since we could expect reality math to compute only what actually exists. Basically reality math is a particular program running in reality that computes the current state of reality. All the other programs that don't actually run and whatever math or logical results they may be based upon have no relevance and cannot be blindly applied to reality math. Therefore let me respectfully suggest that Bruno needs to examine the actual math of reality that is actually computing reality, and use his mathematical skills to elucidate that, rather than automatically trying to apply the results of human math without examining whether they actually apply. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
Hi Jesse, Thanks for your thoughtful reply again. Your notion of 'simultaneity' in your first paragraph is clock time simultaneity (same clock time readings), not the common actual present moment of P-time. Big difference. So it doesn't apply to my points. Coordinate time is clock time, proper time is P-time, at least as I interpret it. Note the important, crucial, point that clocks measure only clock time. P-time can't be measured by clocks but it is measurable by Omega, the curvature of the universe (see below). However P-time is experienced, and in fact our consciousness of the present moment is the basic experience of our existence. Yes, block time treats time as a 4th dimension. That's correct so far as it goes, but since only the present moment exists that 4th dimension is actually only a surface, not a whole time dimension extending into past and future. Specifically it's the 4th dimension is only present time moment of our 4-dimensional hypersphere in which our 3-dimensions are the surface, and non-existent past time back to the big bang the radius. It is the continual extension of that radius that is the source of the passage and arrow of time and the present moment. And again most of your last paragraph discusses clock time phenomena rather than the common present moment in which those all play out. Best, Edgar On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 8:26:00 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz states that Special relativity shows that there is no such thing as a common present moment. but this is incorrect. Actually special relativity shows exactly the opposite. In my book I explain how this works. It is well known, though little understood, that everything without exception continually travels through spacetime at the speed of light according to its own comoving clock. I call this the STc Principle. This is a well known consequence of special relativity but actually as I point out in my book this is an even more fundamental Principle than Special Relativity and Special Relativity is properly a consequence of it and can be derived from it. What the STc Principle says is that the total velocity through both space and through time of everything without exception is = to the speed of light. This is the reason that time slows on a clock moving with some relative spatial velocity, as Special Relativity tells us. It also demonstrates that the speed of light is properly understood as the speed of TIME. That's what c really is. Light just happens to move entirely in space according to its own comoving clock, therefore its entire spacetime velocity is in space only. Anyway it is precisely this STc Principle that puts both the arrow of time and a privileged present moment on a firm physical basis. Why? Because it requires that everything must be in one particular place in spacetime (the present moment) and moving at the speed of light (the arrow of time). So exactly contrary to your statement, it is precisely special relativity, properly understood, that puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis. This insight simultaneously solves two of the big problems of the philosophy of science, the source of the arrow of time, and the reason for a common present moment, though no one seems to have recognized this prior to my exposition in 1997 in my paper 'Spacetime and Consciousness'. Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Bruno's fundamental mistake (IMHO)
On 26 December 2013 09:35, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Bruno, Correct me if I'm wrong about where you are coming from in your basic approach. See below. Bruno seems to believe that mathematicians discover a math that already exists in reality (as opposed to math being a human invention which is the alternative view). Thus he believes that reality itself is a mathematical structure which 'contains' in some sense all of the math that mathematicians have come up with, and no doubt much more to be discovered. Thus he believes that ANY correct mathematical theory can be validly applied to reality to generate true results, which he does with facility. This approach has worked extremely well for the last 400 years. And it explains the famous unreasonable effectiveness of maths in the physical sciences (some have taken issue with this, but not very effectively imho). However there are a number of problems with this theory. For one thing the edifice of human math is static, it just sits there waiting for humans to apply it to something, whereas the math that actually computes reality is active and continuously runs like software. There is, in my view, no evidence at all for any math in reality at all except for what is actually running and computing reality's current state. To be exact, if maths does anything (and leaving aside whether it is an ontolgical basis of reality) - it describes the state of reality. That is what it was developed for, at least. For example, the inverse square law describes the attraction between two objects. The inverse sqIt's quite capable of doing this across time while not actually being in time itself, e.g. through differential equations. This is equally true of software, which just sits there (unless it is self-modifying code) and which is effectively read by the processor's instruction pointer one instruction at a time. Hence software is like a recipe and the processor is like a chef. No reason to think that maths requires any internal dynamism, any more than a recipe or computer progamme does. Time and change emerge naturally from the static structure. Therefore most of human math is NOT going to be applicable to the math of reality. One can't just apply the results of any human math theory to reality and expect it accurately describe reality. Instead of trying to applying Godel, Church, etc. etc. etc. to reality one has to actually look at the actual computations reality is executing and see what they tell US, as opposed to what mathematicians try to tell them. This is basic scientific method and is the correct approach. This is true. Maths is far greater than (our) reality, a fact which makes Max Tegmark's ideas of a mathematical multiverse seem more plausible. So my repeated point is that human math and reality math are different. Of course they share some fundamental logic. But human math is a structure that was first approximated from the math of reality, but then widely generalized and extended far beyond what reality math is actually computing in the process losing some of the actual essentials of reality math. Begs the question of why human maths still works so well. It contains many results that have been discovered independently, for example, and plenty of results that can be applied to either abstract or real world problems *outside* the fundamental description of reality. This is a false dichotomy imho. For example all computations in reality math are finite with no infinities nor infinitesimals since reality is granular at its elemental level and nothing actual can be infinite. The human math number system is a generalized extension of reality's number system which is more subtle as there are no numbers that just keep going forever (pi) to greater and greater accuracies far greater than the scale of the universe. And there may well be no zeros in reality math, since we could expect reality math to compute only what actually exists. We don't know that reality is granular. Recent results suggest it isn't, in fact. What actually exists is unknown, and if there is a mathematical multiverse there is a good reason why we don't have access to all of reality maths (which in this case is all of maths). As for infinity, our universe may in fact be infinite, and if it is then transfinite numbers could be generated, for example, by drawing lines across the universe and treating the distribution of matter along them as bits. These lines would in actual fact be infinite, and reality would in actual fact contain transcendental numbers. Similarly if space-time is actually a continuum. Even more so if it's an infinite continuum (OK maybe not even more so, but I do like a transfinite cardinal, especially at Christmas!) Basically reality math is a particular program running in reality that computes the current state of reality. All the other programs that don't actually run and whatever math or logical results
Re: Bruno's fundamental mistake (IMHO)
Oops, the browser seems to have decided to post before I did. Oh well, I must have hit the wrong key. I'd almost finished but I see there's a bit of a muck up in one place. ERRATUM :) The inverse * sqIt's *quite capable of doing this across time while not actually being in time itself, e.g. through differential equations. Should be the inverse *square law's* quite capable of... and I may have rephrased the whole sentence actually, but I guess I'll let it stand. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why there is something rather than nothing...
On 12/25/2013 7:05 AM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, As I state in my book on Reality in Part I: Fundamentals, Existence MUST exist because non-existence canNOT exist. That is why there was never a nothing out of which something appeared. Therefore there is no need for a creator nor a creation event. The very notion is illogical and impossible This is the solution to the most basic of philosophical/scientific questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? This is the fundamental self-necessitating axiom of Reality upon which all else is based. It is the bottom turtle in the stack! What is there? Everything! So what isn't there? Nothing! --- Norm Levitt, after Quine -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
On 26 December 2013 04:21, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Bruno, and Samiya, Because there can be no creator sustainer God that stands outside the universe. Where would he/it stand? That's an irrational belief from millennia ago. The universe by definition is all that exists... ...and not merely everything we observe to exist, which after all keeps expanding as we learn new ways of looking. It's only 100 years since the discovery of the rest of the universe!!! I exaggerate slightly. It's actually only 86 years since Lemaitre postulated that the universe might be expanding. Some people alive today were born when we didn't even know about the cosmological redshift...! Then there was the discovery of radio astronomy and quasars and pulsars and dark energy, missing out a few steps along the way. Whether we have finished yet seems unlikely. So who knows whether there is somewhere for God to stand ? Seems unlikely, but maybe we aint seen nuffin yet. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
I use my fingers. On 26 December 2013 07:26, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. God noun A noise many members of the Everything list still insist on making with their mouth even though they've long ago abandoned the idea behind it. John K Clark Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: God or not?
What is OE? In New Zealand that stands for Overseas Experience when you go off in your gap year to travel. Or is it Owen, Edgar?! :) Again this begs the question of how and where and when are these computations occurring? This implies a time external to the universe, at the very least, computations being dynamic processes. On 26 December 2013 06:57, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 25 Dec 2013, at 16:15, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Bruno, There simply is no physical universe. We might agree, if you use physical universe in the Aristotelian sense. The universe is information being computed in OE only. OE? Can you make precise what you mean by information being computed? Physical universes are interpretations of the actual information universe in organismic minds. What are organismic minds? Bruno That is their only reality. They are mental models or simulations of the actual information reality, and they also as parts of that information reality are themselves also only information. Edgar On Sunday, December 22, 2013 3:10:30 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: All, The question of whether God exists is meaningless without first giving some definition of what is meant by God, of how God is defined. Otherwise everyone is talking about different things and nothing will go anywhere. If you need a God there is only one possible rational definition and that is to just define God as the universe itself. First there is now absolute certainty that God does exist (all the interminable meaningless arguments vanish), and second his attributes now become the proper subject matter of science and reason rather than ideology, faith or myth. But most certainly the dogmas of all the organized religions are all atavistic myths in the same category as Zeus and Odin which, like them, should have been discarded millennia ago Edgar -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
All this stuff about time is attempting to solve a problem that doesn't exist, or at least hasn't been shown to exist. No one has yet shown what is wrong with the relativity of simultaneity and the block universe (or multiverse). -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 26 December 2013 07:23, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: The notion that everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light was popularized by Brian Greene, but it only works if you choose a rather odd definition of speed through spacetime, one which I haven't seen any other physicists make use of. Mainly because it doesn't make sense. Speed is change of position with time, hence speed in spacetime equates to the angle a world-line makes relative to some world-line chosen as a basis, e.g. the rest frame of the Hubble flow. Things don't move through space-time, they move through space. They are 4 dimensional objects embedded in space-time. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Why there is something rather than nothing...
Arithmetical reality theories like comp and Tegmark's MUH assume that the only things that exist are those that must exist (in this case some simple numerical relations). This seems to me to be a good starting hypothesis - show that some specific thing must exist, such as the facts of simple arithmetic, and see what happens. Descartes tried this when he started with his own thoughts (i.e., as we generally assume, with the idea of computation). Which is pretty darn close to assuming just abstract relations exist... My favourite answer to the question Why is there something rather than nothing? is There isn't! (See Theory of nothing for more details.) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
On 12/25/2013 11:29 AM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Hi Howard, Your comments pertain (correctly) to clock time but not to P-time, the time of the present moment. It is clear that the t's of clock time differ between clocks according to relativistic conditions. You need to understand that the present moment is independent of any particular clock time, it is the common present moment WITHIN which all clock times may have different t values. When the space traveling twins reunite with different clock time t values they ALWAYS reunite in the exact same present moment. Seems like a mere definition. What's the operational meaning? All clocks measure propertime along their worldlines. What measure's P-time? Your examples only imply that two people *at the same place* can agree on now. But it doesn't follow that they can agree about now on Jupiter. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Fwd: Better late than never? Turing has been pardoned.
Me too. Brent Original Message There are also brighter theories; I personally hope this one was true: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092 -- Mike Stay -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 12/25/2013 12:59 PM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Coordinate time is clock time, proper time is P-time, at least as I interpret it. Note the important, crucial, point that clocks measure only clock time. ?? Clock is proper-time along the worldline of the clock. P-time can't be measured by clocks but it is measurable by Omega, the curvature of the universe (see below). So you're taking the FRW spherical, homogeneous cosmology as the clock that measures P-time. And then coordinates in which the cosmic microwave background is isotropic are privileged. However P-time is experienced, and in fact our consciousness of the present moment is the basic experience of our existence. But we, the Earth, is not this privileged frame. There is a dipole temperature gradient in the observed CMB due to motion of the Earth. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 12/25/2013 2:45 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 07:23, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com mailto:laserma...@gmail.com wrote: The notion that everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light was popularized by Brian Greene, but it only works if you choose a rather odd definition of speed through spacetime, one which I haven't seen any other physicists make use of. Mainly because it doesn't make sense. Speed is change of position with time, hence speed in spacetime equates to the angle a world-line makes relative to some world-line chosen as a basis, e.g. the rest frame of the Hubble flow. Things don't move through space-time, they move through space. They are 4 dimensional objects embedded in space-time. But when you are standing still your time coordinate keeps increasing. Your 4-velocity in your own inertial frame is always (1 0 0 0). Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 12/25/2013 11:59 AM, Edgar L. Owen wrote: The problem with all your other comments (which I agree with as I scanned them) is they refer to clock time, not the P-time of the present moment. Of course clock time t values vary in a number of ways, but the key insight is they always vary in the exact same present moment which is proved by the time traveling twins reuniting with different clock time t's but always in the exact same present moment. But reuniting in the exact same present moment is not a global time. It's an EVENT and it has no extent in space or time. If the two persons are moving relative to one another then they have different spacelike hypersurfaces of constant time. Einstein rejected the idea of preferring one person's time over the other. You apparently think that one of them might agree with P-time (however that is defined) while the other did not. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Bruno's fundamental mistake (IMHO)
On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Bruno, Correct me if I'm wrong about where you are coming from in your basic approach. Bruno seems to believe that mathematicians discover a math that already exists in reality (as opposed to math being a human invention which is the alternative view). Thus he believes that reality itself is a mathematical structure which 'contains' in some sense all of the math that mathematicians have come up with, and no doubt much more to be discovered. Thus he believes that ANY correct mathematical theory can be validly applied to reality to generate true results, which he does with facility. However there are a number of problems with this theory. For one thing the edifice of human math is static, it just sits there waiting for humans to apply it to something, whereas the math that actually computes reality is active and continuously runs like software. From the perspective of the software traces existing in arithmetic, it seems like it is running. It is known that no software can ever determine the true hardware it runs on. Thus from the point-of-view of some software running on a human laptop, or some software running in a platonic, statically existing Turing machine, if it is the same software things look the same. You add nothing to the computation by dematerializing past states of the machine in some effort to make it active. A machine in which all states continue to exist is no less of a computation than one in which past states disappear. There is, in my view, no evidence at all for any math in reality at all except for what is actually running and computing reality's current state. Does your theory account for what runs these computations? Therefore most of human math is NOT going to be applicable to the math of reality. One can't just apply the results of any human math theory to reality and expect it accurately describe reality. Instead of trying to applying Godel, Church, etc. etc. etc. to reality one has to actually look at the actual computations reality is executing and see what they tell US, as opposed to what mathematicians try to tell them. This is basic scientific method and is the correct approach. So my repeated point is that human math and reality math are different. Of course they share some fundamental logic. But human math is a structure that was first approximated from the math of reality, but then widely generalized and extended far beyond what reality math is actually computing in the process losing some of the actual essentials of reality math. For example all computations in reality math are finite with no infinities nor infinitesimals since reality is granular at its elemental level and nothing actual can be infinite. The human math number system is a generalized extension of reality's number system which is more subtle as there are no numbers that just keep going forever (pi) to greater and greater accuracies far greater than the scale of the universe. And there may well be no zeros in reality math, since we could expect reality math to compute only what actually exists. Basically reality math is a particular program running in reality that computes the current state of reality. You really ought to read the UDA... All the other programs that don't actually run and whatever math or logical results they may be based upon have no relevance and cannot be blindly applied to reality math. How can we be so sure those other programs don't run? Why do you suppose they don't? Therefore let me respectfully suggest that Bruno needs to examine the actual math of reality that is actually computing reality, and use his mathematical skills to elucidate that, He has. He's even written the program that (possibly) computes reality. rather than automatically trying to apply the results of human math without examining whether they actually apply. What other math can we use if not human math? Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 26 December 2013 15:56, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/25/2013 2:45 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 07:23, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: The notion that everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light was popularized by Brian Greene, but it only works if you choose a rather odd definition of speed through spacetime, one which I haven't seen any other physicists make use of. Mainly because it doesn't make sense. Speed is change of position with time, hence speed in spacetime equates to the angle a world-line makes relative to some world-line chosen as a basis, e.g. the rest frame of the Hubble flow. Things don't move through space-time, they move through space. They are 4 dimensional objects embedded in space-time. But when you are standing still your time coordinate keeps increasing. Your 4-velocity in your own inertial frame is always (1 0 0 0). If you insist on using this velocity through space-time view, yes. But if you consider yourself to be a worldline then you have no 4-velocity, only a 3-velocity, which is measured as the angle your worldline makes to the vertical axis (modulo the usual caveats about there being no preferred reference frames). Here is a diagram of how time isn't... [image: Inline images 1] And here's a diagram of how it actually is... [image: Inline images 2] ...both are from Chapter 11 of FOR. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: All, ST=spacetime, c=speed of light, thus STc Principle. To answer some of Jason's questions. Block time is wrong. Can you explain your justification for this assertion? Only the common present moment exists. All the comments Jason makes refer only to differences in clock times which are well known, but the important point is that all those differences in clock time occur in the SAME common present moment.. How can there be a single common present if relativity says one person can consistently believe that A happens before B, while, another person, every bit as consistent, could believe that B happens before A. If anything like a present exists, there must be at least two of them (one for each person in this example), and they must each be different in their content. Relativity of simultaneity absolutely rules out the notion of a single objective present. The only alternatives are: 1. a present for each inertial reference frame, 2. four dimensionalism (block time / eternalism). I find it difficult to understand why so many people can't get their minds around the difference which proves there are two distinct kinds of time. The past exists only as inferences from the present as to what states would have resulted in the present according to the currently known laws of physics. If there are two observers in relative motion to each other, Alice and Bob, then Alice's present contains things that exist in both Bob's future, and Bob's past. How can something exist in Alice's present which supposedly stopped existing for Bob, and how can something exist in Alice's present which hasn't yet happened, from Bob's point of view? I think this is clear evidence that all points in time exist. They don't stop existing just because we can't see them--to me this seems a head-in-the-sand mentality, i.e. if I can't see it, it mustn't be there. If a theory explains why we can't see some particular thing, our inability to see that thing should not be considered evidence against that thing (within that theory). Therefore the past is actually determined by the present state of reality from the perspective of the present which is the only valid perspective. What if multiple possibilities exist for the present moment, such as after a quantum erasure. Could there be more than one past moment consistent with the current present moment? Therefore the logical network of past and present is absolute 100% exact and could not have been different in even the slightest detail. How does this work with QM? You expressed distaste for multiverse theories, but quantum mechanics is not 100% exact and predictable under single-universe interpretations. The actual currently state of the universe falsifies the very possibility of other pasts. Say there are two very similar but different universes, one in which a photon took path A, and another where it took path B. However, mirrors are arranged such that regardless of which path is taken, the photon bounces to the same spot. After this happens the two universes are in identical states. Could either Edgar Owen (in either of the two universes) rule out the idea of multiple pasts consistent with their present? This is another difficult concept for many. Only the future is probabilistic because it does not yet exist If Julius Caesar still exists (in a point in space time some 2000 light years away), nothing changes in the laws of physics, and yet the future would seem just as as probabalistic and unpredictable from his point of view as it seems to us in ours. We can't use the presumed lack of existence as an explanation for the unpredictability of the future. Actually, we can entirely explain the unpredictability of the future from thermodynamics. Storing information requires energy, and energy can only be used to perform useful work in the direction of time through which entropy increases. Therefore no machine, brain, etc. can operate backwards in time and store information about future events, as it would represent a thermodynamically impossible system. Imagine a device using energy to store memories running backwards in time (from our point of view). It would be expending energy to store those bits, but from out perspective, expending energy in a useful way (backwards in time) from our perspective, appears as gather energy from the environment. It would be like seeing light bounce randomly off all the walls in the room to focus on the filament of a flashlight and recharge its batteries. It's physically possible but extremely unlikely. If no (likely) process can possess information stored about the future, then we have an explanation for our inability to know future outcomes. and has never been computed. But the past - present logical state has been actually computed and thus is completely deterministic now that it exists and it could not have been different in
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 12:30 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: All, ST=spacetime, c=speed of light, thus STc Principle. To answer some of Jason's questions. Block time is wrong. Can you explain your justification for this assertion? Only the common present moment exists. All the comments Jason makes refer only to differences in clock times which are well known, but the important point is that all those differences in clock time occur in the SAME common present moment.. How can there be a single common present if relativity says one person can consistently believe that A happens before B, while, another person, every bit as consistent, could believe that B happens before A. If anything like a present exists, there must be at least two of them (one for each person in this example), and they must each be different in their content. Relativity of simultaneity absolutely rules out the notion of a single objective present. The only alternatives are: 1. a present for each inertial reference frame, 2. four dimensionalism (block time / eternalism). I find it difficult to understand why so many people can't get their minds around the difference which proves there are two distinct kinds of time. The past exists only as inferences from the present as to what states would have resulted in the present according to the currently known laws of physics. If there are two observers in relative motion to each other, Alice and Bob, then Alice's present contains things that exist in both Bob's future, and Bob's past. How can something exist in Alice's present which supposedly stopped existing for Bob, and how can something exist in Alice's present which hasn't yet happened, from Bob's point of view? I think this is clear evidence that all points in time exist. They don't stop existing just because we can't see them--to me this seems a head-in-the-sand mentality, i.e. if I can't see it, it mustn't be there. If a theory explains why we can't see some particular thing, our inability to see that thing should not be considered evidence against that thing (within that theory). Therefore the past is actually determined by the present state of reality from the perspective of the present which is the only valid perspective. What if multiple possibilities exist for the present moment, such as after a quantum erasure. Could there be more than one past moment consistent with the current present moment? Therefore the logical network of past and present is absolute 100% exact and could not have been different in even the slightest detail. How does this work with QM? You expressed distaste for multiverse theories, but quantum mechanics is not 100% exact and predictable under single-universe interpretations. The actual currently state of the universe falsifies the very possibility of other pasts. Say there are two very similar but different universes, one in which a photon took path A, and another where it took path B. However, mirrors are arranged such that regardless of which path is taken, the photon bounces to the same spot. After this happens the two universes are in identical states. Could either Edgar Owen (in either of the two universes) rule out the idea of multiple pasts consistent with their present? This is another difficult concept for many. Only the future is probabilistic because it does not yet exist If Julius Caesar still exists (in a point in space time some 2000 light years away), nothing changes in the laws of physics, and yet the future would seem just as as probabalistic and unpredictable from his point of view as it seems to us in ours. We can't use the presumed lack of existence as an explanation for the unpredictability of the future. Actually, we can entirely explain the unpredictability of the future from thermodynamics. Storing information requires energy, and energy can only be used to perform useful work in the direction of time through which entropy increases. Therefore no machine, brain, etc. can operate backwards in time and store information about future events, as it would represent a thermodynamically impossible system. Imagine a device using energy to store memories running backwards in time (from our point of view). It would be expending energy to store those bits, but from out perspective, expending energy in a useful way (backwards in time) from our perspective, appears as gather energy from the environment. It would be like seeing light bounce randomly off all the walls in the room to focus on the filament of a flashlight and recharge its batteries. It's physically possible but extremely unlikely. If no (likely) process can possess information stored about the future, then we have an explanation for our inability to know future outcomes. and has never been computed. But the past - present
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 12/25/2013 9:15 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 15:56, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/25/2013 2:45 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 07:23, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com mailto:laserma...@gmail.com wrote: The notion that everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light was popularized by Brian Greene, but it only works if you choose a rather odd definition of speed through spacetime, one which I haven't seen any other physicists make use of. Mainly because it doesn't make sense. Speed is change of position with time, hence speed in spacetime equates to the angle a world-line makes relative to some world-line chosen as a basis, e.g. the rest frame of the Hubble flow. Things don't move through space-time, they move through space. They are 4 dimensional objects embedded in space-time. But when you are standing still your time coordinate keeps increasing. Your 4-velocity in your own inertial frame is always (1 0 0 0). If you insist on using this velocity through space-time view, yes. Hey, it's not something I made up. Check Weinberg's Gravitation and Cosmology. He uses the 4-velocity frequently, e.g. in Ch9 eqn 9.8.1 thru 9.8.6 he writes the T^00 component of the stress energy tensor as rho*U^0U^0, where U^0 is the time-like component of the 4-velocity of a perfect fluid. Robert Wald does much the same in General Relativity. Or look at page 50 of Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler where they write,More fundamental than the components of a vector is the vector itself. It is a geometric object with a meaning independent of all coordinates. Thus a particle has a world line, P(tau), and a 4-velocity U=dP/dtau, that have nothing to do with any coordinates. But if you consider yourself to be a worldline then you have no 4-velocity, only a 3-velocity, which is measured as the angle your worldline makes to the vertical axis (modulo the usual caveats about there being no preferred reference frames). Here is a diagram of how time isn't... Inline images 1 And here's a diagram of how it actually is... Inline images 2 ...both are from Chapter 11 of FOR. First, I said nothing about a present moment; that's Edgar's concept. I referred to the 4-velocity. By treating the velocity as a 3-vector, instead of suppressing the 0-component, the above diagrams do not show how one's clock runs slower relative to the coordinate frame. When you use some of your 4-velocity to move thru space, there is less of it available to move you through time. So when you say it is the angle between the vertical axis and the world line, that's a statement in a specific coordinate system. But one's proper velocity is always 1, independent of coordinates. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: The 'Super Anthropic Principle' - why multiverses are not needed and thus very unlikely
On 26 December 2013 18:30, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: All, ST=spacetime, c=speed of light, thus STc Principle. To answer some of Jason's questions. Block time is wrong. Can you explain your justification for this assertion? Only the common present moment exists. All the comments Jason makes refer only to differences in clock times which are well known, but the important point is that all those differences in clock time occur in the SAME common present moment.. How can there be a single common present if relativity says one person can consistently believe that A happens before B, while, another person, every bit as consistent, could believe that B happens before A. This is the point at which Mr Owen's argument appears to fail. Until I hear a sensible answer to this objection, I can spare myself the necessity to waste my precious remaining worldline on the rest of his modest proposal about the nature of reality. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 26 December 2013 19:11, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/25/2013 9:15 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 15:56, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/25/2013 2:45 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 07:23, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: The notion that everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light was popularized by Brian Greene, but it only works if you choose a rather odd definition of speed through spacetime, one which I haven't seen any other physicists make use of. Mainly because it doesn't make sense. Speed is change of position with time, hence speed in spacetime equates to the angle a world-line makes relative to some world-line chosen as a basis, e.g. the rest frame of the Hubble flow. Things don't move through space-time, they move through space. They are 4 dimensional objects embedded in space-time. But when you are standing still your time coordinate keeps increasing. Your 4-velocity in your own inertial frame is always (1 0 0 0). If you insist on using this velocity through space-time view, yes. Hey, it's not something I made up. Check Weinberg's Gravitation and Cosmology. He uses the 4-velocity frequently, e.g. in Ch9 eqn 9.8.1 thru 9.8.6 he writes the T^00 component of the stress energy tensor as rho*U^0U^0, where U^0 is the time-like component of the 4-velocity of a perfect fluid. Robert Wald does much the same in General Relativity. Or look at page 50 of Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler where they write,More fundamental than the components of a vector is the vector itself. It is a geometric object with a meaning independent of all coordinates. Thus a particle has a world line, P(tau), and a 4-velocity U=dP/dtau, that have nothing to do with any coordinates. OK, Brent, my apologies if I have misread you. But you are supporting a view that doesn't make sense in terms of SR - nothing is actually moving through spacetime, and giving (apparent) support to the notion that it is isn't going to help. I don't have most of those books you mention, but I do have Gravitation (which my other half got for his 18th birthday in 1973) open to page 51, box 2.1 - Farewell to ict - and have just had my mind suitably boggled by reading about 4-velocities. Please note, everyone (I'm sure Brent knows this already) that these are NOT velocities *through* space-time, they are handy vectors for working out what is going on at a point along an object's world-line. The object doesn't move through space-time, it exists at various points in space-time which joined together make a 4 dimensional object known as a world line. One can draw vectors at points along this world line and use them to work out its 4-velocity, which I assume is a quantity useful for working out how its clock goes in relation to other objects, and/or how the various Lorentz transformations work - or something along these (world) lines - but this does *not* mean that things are moving through space-time or that there is a common present moment, or that the past doesn't exist, or any of the other things Mr Owen has claimed. I think Brent, who knows all this stuff backwards and sideways, is just toying with us naughty Mr Meeker. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: How the STc principle (special relativity) puts both the arrow of time and a common present moment on a firm physical basis.
On 12/25/2013 10:53 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 19:11, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/25/2013 9:15 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 15:56, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 12/25/2013 2:45 PM, LizR wrote: On 26 December 2013 07:23, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com mailto:laserma...@gmail.com wrote: The notion that everything travels through spacetime at the speed of light was popularized by Brian Greene, but it only works if you choose a rather odd definition of speed through spacetime, one which I haven't seen any other physicists make use of. Mainly because it doesn't make sense. Speed is change of position with time, hence speed in spacetime equates to the angle a world-line makes relative to some world-line chosen as a basis, e.g. the rest frame of the Hubble flow. Things don't move through space-time, they move through space. They are 4 dimensional objects embedded in space-time. But when you are standing still your time coordinate keeps increasing. Your 4-velocity in your own inertial frame is always (1 0 0 0). If you insist on using this velocity through space-time view, yes. Hey, it's not something I made up. Check Weinberg's Gravitation and Cosmology. He uses the 4-velocity frequently, e.g. in Ch9 eqn 9.8.1 thru 9.8.6 he writes the T^00 component of the stress energy tensor as rho*U^0U^0, where U^0 is the time-like component of the 4-velocity of a perfect fluid. Robert Wald does much the same in General Relativity. Or look at page 50 of Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler where they write,More fundamental than the components of a vector is the vector itself. It is a geometric object with a meaning independent of all coordinates. Thus a particle has a world line, P(tau), and a 4-velocity U=dP/dtau, that have nothing to do with any coordinates. OK, Brent, my apologies if I have misread you. But you are supporting a view that doesn't make sense in terms of SR - nothing is actually moving through spacetime, and giving (apparent) support to the notion that it is isn't going to help. I don't have most of those books you mention, but I do have Gravitation (which my other half got for his 18th birthday in 1973) open to page 51, box 2.1 - Farewell to ict - and have just had my mind suitably boggled by reading about 4-velocities. Please note, everyone (I'm sure Brent knows this already) that these are NOT velocities /through/ space-time, they are handy vectors for working out what is going on at a point along an object's world-line. The object doesn't move through space-time, it exists at various points in space-time which joined together make a 4 dimensional object known as a world line. One can draw vectors at points along this world line and use them to work out its 4-velocity, which I assume is a quantity useful for working out how its clock goes in relation to other objects, and/or how the various Lorentz transformations work - or something along these (world) lines - but this does /not/ mean that things are moving through space-time or that there is a common present moment, or that the past doesn't exist, or any of the other things Mr Owen has claimed. I think Brent, who knows all this stuff backwards and sideways, is just toying with us naughty Mr Meeker. There are other viewpoints though. QM makes for some interesting questions about time as raised in this speculative paper by a couple of top experimentalists: http://a-c-elitzur.co.il/uploads/articlesdocs/Elitzur-Dolev13.pdf A few discontents in present-day physics' account of time are pointed out, and a few novel quantum-mechanical results are described. Based on these, an outline for a new interpretation of QM is proposed, based on the assumption that spacetime itself is subject to incessant evolution. ... One of us (AE) owes this insight to a student's question about SchrÄodinger's cat. She argued that, if the box is opened after suąciently many hours, it should be possible to know whether the cat has been dead or alive during the preceding hours. If it has been alive, it would soil the box and leave scratches on its walls, whereas if it has been dead, it would show signs of decomposition. Here too, the measurement at the moment of opening the box must select not only the cat's state at the moment of opening the box but its entire history within the box. = Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
