Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Brent Meeker]

On 2/27/2022 4:44 PM, Tomas Pales wrote:


On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 11:45:32 PM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com 
wrote:




On 2/27/2022 12:59 PM, Tomas Pales wrote:



On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 8:50:02 PM UTC+1
meeke...@gmail.com wrote:



On 2/27/2022 8:43 AM, Tomas Pales wrote:

On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 4:45:11 AM UTC+1
meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

This should be of interest to all the everythingists on
this list.  I'd especially like to hear what Bruno
thinks of it.  It's a bit expensive, so I may wait for
more reviews before I take it up.

/Birmingham-based philosopher Alastair Wilson has taken
up the Herculean task of putting modal realism and
many-worlds quantum theory together into a coherent,
unitary view of reality. The results of this effort have
been presented in several papers in recent years, and
are now assembled in this thought-provoking book. While,
as we will see, questions remain, Wilson has no doubt
managed to come up with ingenious new hypotheses and has
proposed solutions to existing problems and, more
generally, with a powerful new modal realist view. The
resulting perspective will certainly be of interest in
the coming years, especially for naturalistically
inclined philosophers, demanding that metaphysical
hypotheses be made as continuous with our best science
as possible./


https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-nature-of-contingency-quantum-physics-as-modal-realism/

From the review I take it that Wilson has missed the
intermediate kind of possibility, namely computability
which is between logical possibility and nomological
possibility.

Brent


I am not sure what is new here. Many-worlds interpretation
of QM is obviously an example of Lewis' modal realism in the
context of QM. As was discussed here some time ago, it may
not even involve splitting of worlds. That is, all the
quantum parallel worlds may be distinct worlds (objects)
even before a measurement; they are just exactly the same
before the measurement (exact copies of each other) and they
start to differ at the measurement event. A regularity in
the multiverse of these quantum worlds manifests in the fact
that the worlds start differing in proportions given by the
Born rule, based on the (same) state of the worlds at the
moment of measurement.

More generally about possible worlds or objects, I still see
no difference between a world that is logically possible
(consistent) and a world that "exists".


Really?  It is logically possible that you don't exist.  So
would the world without you have no difference from this world?


A world without me is possible (logically consistent). A world
with me is possible too, obviously. And so both worlds exist,
because they are both possible.


But they are certainly different.  You tried to infer that they
must both exist because there is no difference between the one
with you, which exists by observation, and the one without you.


No, I talked about two exactly same worlds (copies), with all the same 
properties, and I asked what it would even mean if one of them existed 
and the other didn't.



A logically possible world is a world that is identical to
itself, that is, it has the properties it has and does not have
the properties it does not have. If two worlds have all the same
properties except the property of existence (one exists and the
other doesn't) what does it even mean?


That only shows that a given world must either exist or not
exist.  Maybe only worlds with Tomas Pales in them exist.  That's
a different property.


It shows that if a given world is possible, it doesn't make sense to 
ask whether it exists. Because there is no difference between being 
possible and existing.


And you know this last how:?


Because I see no difference between being possible and existing.


So I see no alternative to modal realism.

If we want to go into more details we may ask what properties a
world or object may have and based on that we may differentiate
between different kinds of worlds or objects, for example
spatiotemporal worlds versus worlds that don't have a temporal
or spatial structure. An important kind of property is relations
between objects (relational properties), and the most general
kind of relation is similarity, which holds between any two
objects and thus is a necessary kind of relation. It just means
that two objects have certain common properties and certain
different properties. 

Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Brent Meeker]

On 2/27/2022 4:18 PM, Tomas Pales wrote:



On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 11:38:00 PM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com 
wrote:


How could a set of things produce contradictions. Contradiction is
a relation of propositions, not things. I'm surprised that you a
strong advocate of examples over definitions would not have
noticed that there are no examples of contradictory things.


Example of a contradictory (and thus logically impossible) thing: a 
square circle. A circle that is not a circle. A contradictory thing is 
such that it has a property that it does not have.


But what is a contradiction.  How do you know there is not a square 
circle.  The best you can do define square and circle, so all you've 
done is prove that to descriptions are contradictory.  This the way the 
scholastic philosophers thought they could discover truth by armchair 
thinking.  For example they thought that no object can be two different 
places at the same.  It was a law logic, implicit in the definition of 
"a thing".  But along came quantum mechanics and turned out nature 
didn't care about their definition.


Brent

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Re: Ukraine

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

I have read that they now fear a Putin invasion, being rather immanent. 


-Original Message-
From: Brent Meeker 
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, Feb 27, 2022 1:17 pm
Subject: Re: Ukraine

I agree.  I think the Ukranians may sustain a resistance which will 
eventually cause Russia to withdraw, but that will take time.  More 
immediately I wonder if Finland and Sweden will want to join NATO?

Brent

On 2/27/2022 3:11 AM, smitra wrote:
> We should have acted weeks earlier. When it became clear that Russia 
> was planning some sort of a large scale military assault, we should 
> have stopped Putin right there by sending large amounts of arms 
> including Patriot systems to Ukraine. Russia could then not have 
> launched the military assault it is engaging in now.
>
> Russian protests should have been rebuffed by saying that Ukraine is a 
> sovereign country and it is therefore allowed to request military 
> assistance. Also, Russia was at the time denying it was planning to 
> attack Ukraine, so why would they complain? We should then have 
> engaged with Russia about NATO membership and the military aid we were 
> giving. We should have made it clear to Russia that the military aid 
> would come with a military deployment, this would be limited to the 
> de-facto borders of Ukraine, so there would be no military action 
> against the Russian and rebel controlled parts.
>
> This intervention would thus have blocked the Russian military action, 
> it would have given the initiatives to the West about discussions 
> about the future of Ukraine, NATO membership for Ukraine etc. We could 
> have made a deal with Russia about Ukraine not becoming a NATO member 
> (this wasn't in the cards anytime soon anyway). Ukraine would likely 
> be more willing to voluntarily agree to not seek NATO membership if a 
> practical alternative that blocks Russian aggression was already 
> implemented. So, NATO would not have to change its stance about 
> sovereign countries being able to seek NATO membership.
>
> But it's now too late, Russia can only be slowed down a bit. Russia 
> has clearly underestimated the Ukrainian army. But it's also the case 
> that Russia has engaged Ukraine in a rather cautious way compared to 
> the way it was going about things in Syria and Chechnya. So, Russia 
> can escalate a whole lot more. Sanctions will cause economic problems 
> for Russia, but given that sanctions did little to stop Assad, even 
> Maduro is still in power despite the abject poverty in that country, 
> I'm not optimistic about sanctions against Russia being able to make 
> much of a difference.
>
> Basically, the doctrine we need to stick to is act from a position of 
> strength, hit hard when and where you can hit hard with maximum 
> effect. Also to avoid engaging from a position of weakness, and 
> fighting for ever smaller gains with more and more effort. We should 
> now let Putin fail in Ukraine by his own mistakes and focus our 
> attention to other potential flashpoints.
>
> Saibal
>
>
>
> On 27-02-2022 01:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 11:38 AM Brent Meeker 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> One problem is that the Russians won't know whether they are nukes
>>> or not until they explode.
>>
>> That problem can be overcome by simply telling them that the missiles
>> are not nuclear. There are channels of communication, after all.
>>
>>> I wonder how good our back channels are with the Russian military.
>>> I doubt that they are very happy with Putin.  The Ukranians seem
>>> very willing to fight and I'd bet they will be a lot more motivated
>>> than a bunch of Russian conscripts.  So I think if we keep them
>>> supplied they may make it too expensive in money, blood, and
>>> prestige.
>>>
>>> More worrying it what will we do when Xi starts massing troops on
>>> the mainland opposite Taiwan?  We're not in so good a position to
>>> impose economic pressure on China.
>>
>> I doubt that economic sanctions will do much good in the short term
>> with Russia, either. I think you are right -- the best bet is that the
>> Ukrainian resistance will wear the invaders down -- they expected a
>> short fight and easy victory, after all. Opposition is growing within
>> Russia itself. The dead bodies will be a big influence. Russia
>> will not want another Afghanistan, or Chechnya...
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>> On 2/26/2022 3:13 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:04 AM Brent Meeker
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> It's not a question of sympathy, but of utility.
>>>
>>> What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault
>>> on Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional. No
>>> "boots on the ground", but some serious rethinking needed on
>>> Russia's part. Just as the retaliatory British bombing of Berlin in
>>> WW2 caused Hitler to loose his cool and gave Britain an advantage.
>>> Of course, Putin might respond with a nuclear assault, but that
>>> 

Re: Ukraine

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Right now, it's time to remain easy, with an understanding that what occurred 
in Europe during Merkel's reign plus the US withdrawal in Afghanistan may have 
led to a change in perceptions in Moscow, and in Beijing. This is wholly 
Putin's war now, and from what I just read is not concerned with the 
re-establishment of the Soviet Union (as I had thought) but the 
re-establishment of the Russian Empire. We;ll see if this seems true, and what 
needs to be done to get us all into 'survival mode.'


-Original Message-
From: Lawrence Crowell 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Sun, Feb 27, 2022 7:34 am
Subject: Re: Ukraine

If American or NATO forces start shooting with Russian military it would 
project us into a new world. The whole situation could easily escalate into a 
nuclear conflict. The problem is that given the rapid technology involved there 
would be a compulsion to act swiftly and pre-emptively.
LC

On Saturday, February 26, 2022 at 5:13:41 PM UTC-6 Bruce wrote:

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:04 AM Brent Meeker  wrote:

  It's not a question of sympathy, but of utility.


What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault on Moscow 
and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional. No "boots on the ground", but 
some serious rethinking needed on Russia's part. Just as the retaliatory 
British bombing of Berlin in WW2 caused Hitler to loose his cool and gave 
Britain an advantage. Of course, Putin might respond with a nuclear assault, 
but that would certainly render his empire plans futile. It would be a gamble, 
but I think the odds would be in favour of making Putin pause rather than 
escalating further.
Bruce
 
 Brent
 
 On 2/26/2022 2:58 PM, John Clark wrote:
  
   On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 5:41 PM Brent Meeker  wrote:

  
  > I'm fine with seizing the money of Putin and his oligarch buddies.  I'm 
less sanguine about just impoverishing the Russian people.  
 
  When one country decides to make war on it's neighbor misery is the 
inevitable result, certainly the people of Ukraine are feeling it and I'm 
certain the people of Russia will too. Call me a monster if you want but at 
this moment I feel far less sympathy for the invading country than the country 
being invaded.


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Re: An Ululation. Who Stole the Sabbath? WHAMP-the-Ingrate

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Of course he is wrong because don't we all know photons have no mass? (Insert 
laughter). Basically Ben combines a hodge podge of ideas which don't have 
symmetry,and call it a theory. The puzzle pieces don click together. Not 
everyone who opposes you is a satanist, or hate's western, anglo-saxon ideals. 
These ideals don't necessarily conform to modern physics either, and numbers 
are just numbers, whomever does the calculation. On the other hand sometimes it 
is within physics to lay out a conformal view, and sometimes this is helpful, 
and often not at all. Personally, I am more concerned about the survival of the 
species in the next few days rather than the conduct of the cosmos. 

-Original Message-
From: Lawrence Crowell 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Sun, Feb 27, 2022 7:31 am
Subject: Re: An Ululation. Who Stole the Sabbath? WHAMP-the-Ingrate

Ben is a complete nutcase. I am not sure what this psychiatric misfit is doing 
on a list that is supposed to be about physics or I guess a theory of 
everything. His idea here is about consciousness having mass, which I garner 
from the smoke screen of nonsense he writes. There have been many attempts to 
measure this with null results. 
LC

On Friday, February 25, 2022 at 10:13:58 PM UTC-6 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

 
 
 On 2/25/2022 5:41 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
  
 
 I read a lot about Euro history and the Middle Ages is that it wasn't getting 
religion that made people behave better, it simply didn't seem to make a 
difference. It provided order, but then the Roman pagans also had order. 
Slavery did last for 500 years after the establishment of a State religion, but 
unless slaves were working on these Latina Fundia (big plantations) the Roman 
system* couldn't complete against local, family farming or even, working on a 
Manor, which was obligatory for the peasants in exchange for using the manor's 
oven for baking bread, or using it's mills to grind grains. My view is that 
Christianity didn't really get nice-nice till the 19th century. We see this in 
Charles Dickens's writings and the emphasis from reverrands, preachers, and 
ministers sermons'. What changed? The emphasis with Jesus not simply being a 
savior and punisher, but savior and forgiver.  
 
 The Catholic Church had been selling forgiveness for centuries.  And slavery 
in Greece and Rome and even in Mesopotamia was unrelated to guilt and 
forgiveness.  It was a economic arrangement.  In Babylonia a man went into 
slavery to pay his debts.  Capture enemies in war became slaves to provide 
labor.  It was only later that slavery came to be justified by "inferior races".
 
 Brent
 
 


 The change to forgiver or pardoner can't be over emphasized enough. When Jesus 
became nicer, it was then America had a change of heart and fought a civil war 
to Yes, prove that states rights have their limit, but Yes to free the slaves. 
Why die or get your leg amputated for people simply wanting to separate? 
Liberation, on the other hand was a big selling point inspired by Jesus the 
Forgiver.  
  *One of the things I found interesting was that even after the final fall of 
Rome in 476, the land owners who owned the Latina Fundia plantations has been 
for centuries, Roman Senators. the big shots, royalty. These were the exact, 
same, families of wealth, that produced the Bishops and then Cardinals of the 
Roman Empire and centuries afterwards. No wonder that these people who founded 
the Papacy did so on the Roman Empire model?  
  So what about science and religion? Well, using Frank Herbert's DUNE as a 
guide, why not expect new religions arising ands adapting from the old faiths? 
I'm talking about 10-34 K years for Christ sakes (pun). Even this one sounds 
interesting to me, though I doubt Philip would agree? 
   - The Jesuitical Evolutionist Church of Chardin
 Perhaps the late, Phillip K. Dicke would?
 -Original Message-
 From: John Clark 
 To: 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
 Cc: general...@googlegroups.com 
 Sent: Fri, Feb 25, 2022 12:26 pm
 Subject: Re: An Ululation. Who Stole the Sabbath? WHAMP-the-Ingrate
 
 
On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 11:44 AM Philip Benjamin  
wrote:
  
  
> Is the West Becoming Pagan Again?
 
  I sure hope so, I'm getting tired of pain in the ass Christianity. Paganism  
may be just as stupid as Christianity but to me it seems like a lot more fun 
and a hell of a lot less cruel.  
  
> Bio dark-matter chemistry = Chemical bonds = Spin governed particle 
> configurations of duet and octet.
 AC = Awakened or Augustinian Consciousness by instrumentality of the 
Scriptures (Patriarchal, Prophetic, Apostolic).    
 UC = Un-awakened or Un-Augustinian Consciousness, governed by natural 
inclinations.
 
  That's not right, that's not even wrong, it's the sort of thing that gives 
gibberish a bad name.   
  John K Clark  

  
  
  
  
    

 
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Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Tomas Pales]

On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 11:45:32 PM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

>
>
> On 2/27/2022 12:59 PM, Tomas Pales wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 8:50:02 PM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 2/27/2022 8:43 AM, Tomas Pales wrote:
>>
>> On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 4:45:11 AM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This should be of interest to all the everythingists on this list.  I'd 
>>> especially like to hear what Bruno thinks of it.  It's a bit expensive, so 
>>> I may wait for more reviews before I take it up.
>>>
>>> *Birmingham-based philosopher Alastair Wilson has taken up the Herculean 
>>> task of putting modal realism and many-worlds quantum theory together into 
>>> a coherent, unitary view of reality. The results of this effort have been 
>>> presented in several papers in recent years, and are now assembled in this 
>>> thought-provoking book. While, as we will see, questions remain, Wilson has 
>>> no doubt managed to come up with ingenious new hypotheses and has proposed 
>>> solutions to existing problems and, more generally, with a powerful new 
>>> modal realist view. The resulting perspective will certainly be of interest 
>>> in the coming years, especially for naturalistically inclined philosophers, 
>>> demanding that metaphysical hypotheses be made as continuous with our best 
>>> science as possible.*
>>>
>>>
>>> https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-nature-of-contingency-quantum-physics-as-modal-realism/
>>>
>>> From the review I take it that Wilson has missed the intermediate kind 
>>> of possibility, namely computability which is between logical possibility 
>>> and nomological possibility.
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>
>> I am not sure what is new here. Many-worlds interpretation of QM is 
>> obviously an example of Lewis' modal realism in the context of QM. As was 
>> discussed here some time ago, it may not even involve splitting of worlds. 
>> That is, all the quantum parallel worlds may be distinct worlds (objects) 
>> even before a measurement; they are just exactly the same before the 
>> measurement (exact copies of each other) and they start to differ at the 
>> measurement event. A regularity in the multiverse of these quantum worlds 
>> manifests in the fact that the worlds start differing in proportions given 
>> by the Born rule, based on the (same) state of the worlds at the moment of 
>> measurement. 
>>
>> More generally about possible worlds or objects, I still see no 
>> difference between a world that is logically possible (consistent) and a 
>> world that "exists". 
>>
>>
>> Really?  It is logically possible that you don't exist.  So would the 
>> world without you have no difference from this world?
>>
>
> A world without me is possible (logically consistent). A world with me is 
> possible too, obviously. And so both worlds exist, because they are both 
> possible.
>
>
> But they are certainly different.  You tried to infer that they must both 
> exist because there is no difference between the one with you, which exists 
> by observation, and the one without you.
>

No, I talked about two exactly same worlds (copies), with all the same 
properties, and I asked what it would even mean if one of them existed and 
the other didn't.

 

> A logically possible world is a world that is identical to itself, that 
> is, it has the properties it has and does not have the properties it does 
> not have. If two worlds have all the same properties except the property of 
> existence (one exists and the other doesn't) what does it even mean? 
>
>
> That only shows that a given world must either exist or not exist.  Maybe 
> only worlds with Tomas Pales in them exist.  That's a different property.
>

It shows that if a given world is possible, it doesn't make sense to ask 
whether it exists. Because there is no difference between being possible 
and existing.


And you know this last how:?
>

Because I see no difference between being possible and existing.

 

So I see no alternative to modal realism.
>
> If we want to go into more details we may ask what properties a world or 
> object may have and based on that we may differentiate between different 
> kinds of worlds or objects, for example spatiotemporal worlds versus worlds 
> that don't have a temporal or spatial structure. An important kind of 
> property is relations between objects (relational properties), and the most 
> general kind of relation is similarity, which holds between any two objects 
> and thus is a necessary kind of relation. It just means that two objects 
> have certain common properties and certain different properties. 
> Mathematics as the most general study of relations explores the similarity 
> relation as morphism in category theory and has reduced it to the set 
> membership relation in set theory. Set theory is interesting to me in that 
> it grounds mathematics in concrete worlds made of collections (sets), as 
> opposed to abstract relations like numbers, 

Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Tomas Pales]

On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 11:38:00 PM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

> How could a set of things produce contradictions.  Contradiction is a 
> relation of propositions, not things.  I'm surprised that you a strong 
> advocate of examples over definitions would not have noticed that there are 
> no examples of contradictory things.
>

Example of a contradictory (and thus logically impossible) thing: a square 
circle. A circle that is not a circle. A contradictory thing is such that 
it has a property that it does not have.
 

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Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[John Clark]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 5:38 PM Brent Meeker  wrote:

>> I would say a useful definition of "possible" is the set of things or
>> relationships that do not produce contradictions.
>
>
>
>
> * How could a set of things produce contradictions.  Contradiction is a
> relation of propositions, not things.  I'm surprised that you a strong
> advocate of examples over definitions would not have noticed that there are
> no examples of contradictory things.*
>

You can't have relationships if there are no things, but you're right, I
should've used the word "and", not "or".

  John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis


an0

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Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Brent Meeker]

On 2/27/2022 12:59 PM, Tomas Pales wrote:



On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 8:50:02 PM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:



On 2/27/2022 8:43 AM, Tomas Pales wrote:

On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 4:45:11 AM UTC+1
meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

This should be of interest to all the everythingists on this
list.  I'd especially like to hear what Bruno thinks of it. 
It's a bit expensive, so I may wait for more reviews before I
take it up.

/Birmingham-based philosopher Alastair Wilson has taken up
the Herculean task of putting modal realism and many-worlds
quantum theory together into a coherent, unitary view of
reality. The results of this effort have been presented in
several papers in recent years, and are now assembled in this
thought-provoking book. While, as we will see, questions
remain, Wilson has no doubt managed to come up with ingenious
new hypotheses and has proposed solutions to existing
problems and, more generally, with a powerful new modal
realist view. The resulting perspective will certainly be of
interest in the coming years, especially for naturalistically
inclined philosophers, demanding that metaphysical hypotheses
be made as continuous with our best science as possible./


https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-nature-of-contingency-quantum-physics-as-modal-realism/

From the review I take it that Wilson has missed the
intermediate kind of possibility, namely computability which
is between logical possibility and nomological possibility.

Brent


I am not sure what is new here. Many-worlds interpretation of QM
is obviously an example of Lewis' modal realism in the context of
QM. As was discussed here some time ago, it may not even involve
splitting of worlds. That is, all the quantum parallel worlds may
be distinct worlds (objects) even before a measurement; they are
just exactly the same before the measurement (exact copies of
each other) and they start to differ at the measurement event. A
regularity in the multiverse of these quantum worlds manifests in
the fact that the worlds start differing in proportions given by
the Born rule, based on the (same) state of the worlds at the
moment of measurement.

More generally about possible worlds or objects, I still see no
difference between a world that is logically possible
(consistent) and a world that "exists".


Really?  It is logically possible that you don't exist. So would
the world without you have no difference from this world?


A world without me is possible (logically consistent). A world with me 
is possible too, obviously. And so both worlds exist, because they are 
both possible.


But they are certainly different.  You tried to infer that they must 
both exist because there is no difference between the one with you, 
which exists by observation, and the one without you.






A logically possible world is a world that is identical to
itself, that is, it has the properties it has and does not have
the properties it does not have. If two worlds have all the same
properties except the property of existence (one exists and the
other doesn't) what does it even mean?


That only shows that a given world must either exist or not
exist.  Maybe only worlds with Tomas Pales in them exist.  That's
a different property.


It shows that if a given world is possible, it doesn't make sense to 
ask whether it exists. Because there is no difference between being 
possible and existing.


And you know this last how:?





So I see no alternative to modal realism.

If we want to go into more details we may ask what properties a
world or object may have and based on that we may differentiate
between different kinds of worlds or objects, for example
spatiotemporal worlds versus worlds that don't have a temporal or
spatial structure. An important kind of property is relations
between objects (relational properties), and the most general
kind of relation is similarity, which holds between any two
objects and thus is a necessary kind of relation. It just means
that two objects have certain common properties and certain
different properties. Mathematics as the most general study of
relations explores the similarity relation as morphism in
category theory and has reduced it to the set membership relation
in set theory. Set theory is interesting to me in that it grounds
mathematics in concrete worlds made of collections (sets), as
opposed to abstract relations like numbers, functions, symmetries
etc.

But if all mathematically (structurally) and consistently
characterized worlds/objects exist, it seems surprising that we
live in a world with quite stable laws of physics that persist in
time 

Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Brent Meeker]

On 2/27/2022 12:52 PM, John Clark wrote:



On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 2:50 PM Brent Meeker  
wrote:


/<"Possible" is a rather ill defined concept and "everything
possible" is even worse. /


I would say a useful definition of "possible" is the set of things or 
relationships that do not produce contradictions.


How could a set of things produce contradictions.  Contradiction is a 
relation of propositions, not things.  I'm surprised that you a strong 
advocate of examples over definitions would not have noticed that there 
are no examples of contradictory things.


Brent

I would also say it's easier to describe everything than to describe a 
particular smaller subset of the possible, for example less 
information is required to describe all the infinite digits of π than 
to describe only the first trillion digits of π and no more. And 
nobody knows if the laws of physics that are different from those that 
we observe (such as by having different fundamental constants) produce 
contradictions or not, nobody knows if that's possible.
John K Clark    See what's on my new list at Extropolis 


gco



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Re: Ukraine

[John Clark]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 4:52 PM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

*> Perhaps the old saying: "Better dead than red." is relevant here.*
>

I have no objection if you wish to take that course of action, but I do
object to you forceing others, and in particular me, to die along with you.

*> The brave people of Ukraine are facing this decision every day -- do
> they resist, and throw Molotov cocktails at tanks in the knowledge that
> they may be shot? Or do they lie down and submit to Putin's tyranny?*


If my own city was being attacked by Putin I might be throwing Molotov
cocktails at tanks too, but it is not so I'm not willing to risk my life ,
much less the life of the entire human race, on schemes that are not well
thought out.

*> Or do they lie down and submit to Putin's tyranny?*


Of course not, nobody is suggesting we just lie down and submit to Putin,
there are things that I think would be affective that we can do to oppose
him and I've already listed several of them on this list, like stopping the
transmission of goods from Russia that go thru Poland, and going after the
hundreds of billions of dollars Putin and his cronies have have embezzled
and stashed in western countries. And those measures don't seem likely to
start World War III.  And of course we should continue to send arms to help
the Ukrainians defend themselves.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

iac




>

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Re: Ukraine

[Bruce Kellett]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:37 PM John Clark  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 6:13 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
> *> What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault on
>> Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional.*
>>
>
> The short answer is I don't know. Nobody can say for sure what would
> happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault on Moscow and
> Petersburg, just as nobody can say for sure what would happen if Russia
> launched a all-out cruise missile attack on Manhattan and Chicago, but one
> outcome that is not at all unlikely is that it would start World War III
> and result in the destruction of civilization and possibly the extinction
> of the entire human race. I am not a big enough gambler to want to take
> that risk.
>
> *> Putin might respond with a nuclear assault, but that would certainly
>> render his empire plans futile.*
>
>
> It's true that starting World War III would not be in Putin's long-term
> best interests, but recent events indicate that Putin may no longer be an
> entirely rational actor. And for some dictators bringing about the
> extinction of the human race would be less undesirable than being
> personally embarrassed, and at this point backing down would be personally
> embarrassing for Putin.
>
> *> I think the odds would be in favour of making Putin pause rather than
>> escalating further.*
>
>
> Perhaps so, but what are the odds that what you think is correct? And are
> you willing to face the consequences if you are wrong?  Are you so sure
> that you're correct that you're willing to bet your life and the life of
> everybody you know on it?
>


Perhaps the old saying: "Better dead than red." is relevant here.
Appeasement of tyrants is never in the best interests of anyone. The brave
people of Ukraine are facing this decision every day -- do they resist, and
throw Molotov cocktails at tanks in the knowledge that they may be shot? Or
do they lie down and submit to Putin's tyranny?

Bruce

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Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Tomas Pales]

On Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 8:50:02 PM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

>
>
> On 2/27/2022 8:43 AM, Tomas Pales wrote:
>
> On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 4:45:11 AM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>
>> This should be of interest to all the everythingists on this list.  I'd 
>> especially like to hear what Bruno thinks of it.  It's a bit expensive, so 
>> I may wait for more reviews before I take it up.
>>
>> *Birmingham-based philosopher Alastair Wilson has taken up the Herculean 
>> task of putting modal realism and many-worlds quantum theory together into 
>> a coherent, unitary view of reality. The results of this effort have been 
>> presented in several papers in recent years, and are now assembled in this 
>> thought-provoking book. While, as we will see, questions remain, Wilson has 
>> no doubt managed to come up with ingenious new hypotheses and has proposed 
>> solutions to existing problems and, more generally, with a powerful new 
>> modal realist view. The resulting perspective will certainly be of interest 
>> in the coming years, especially for naturalistically inclined philosophers, 
>> demanding that metaphysical hypotheses be made as continuous with our best 
>> science as possible.*
>>
>>
>> https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-nature-of-contingency-quantum-physics-as-modal-realism/
>>
>> From the review I take it that Wilson has missed the intermediate kind of 
>> possibility, namely computability which is between logical possibility and 
>> nomological possibility.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
> I am not sure what is new here. Many-worlds interpretation of QM is 
> obviously an example of Lewis' modal realism in the context of QM. As was 
> discussed here some time ago, it may not even involve splitting of worlds. 
> That is, all the quantum parallel worlds may be distinct worlds (objects) 
> even before a measurement; they are just exactly the same before the 
> measurement (exact copies of each other) and they start to differ at the 
> measurement event. A regularity in the multiverse of these quantum worlds 
> manifests in the fact that the worlds start differing in proportions given 
> by the Born rule, based on the (same) state of the worlds at the moment of 
> measurement. 
>
> More generally about possible worlds or objects, I still see no difference 
> between a world that is logically possible (consistent) and a world that 
> "exists". 
>
>
> Really?  It is logically possible that you don't exist.  So would the 
> world without you have no difference from this world?
>

A world without me is possible (logically consistent). A world with me is 
possible too, obviously. And so both worlds exist, because they are both 
possible.
 

>
>
> A logically possible world is a world that is identical to itself, that 
> is, it has the properties it has and does not have the properties it does 
> not have. If two worlds have all the same properties except the property of 
> existence (one exists and the other doesn't) what does it even mean? 
>
>
> That only shows that a given world must either exist or not exist.  Maybe 
> only worlds with Tomas Pales in them exist.  That's a different property.
>

It shows that if a given world is possible, it doesn't make sense to ask 
whether it exists. Because there is no difference between being possible 
and existing.
 

>
>
> So I see no alternative to modal realism.
>
> If we want to go into more details we may ask what properties a world or 
> object may have and based on that we may differentiate between different 
> kinds of worlds or objects, for example spatiotemporal worlds versus worlds 
> that don't have a temporal or spatial structure. An important kind of 
> property is relations between objects (relational properties), and the most 
> general kind of relation is similarity, which holds between any two objects 
> and thus is a necessary kind of relation. It just means that two objects 
> have certain common properties and certain different properties. 
> Mathematics as the most general study of relations explores the similarity 
> relation as morphism in category theory and has reduced it to the set 
> membership relation in set theory. Set theory is interesting to me in that 
> it grounds mathematics in concrete worlds made of collections (sets), as 
> opposed to abstract relations like numbers, functions, symmetries etc.
>
> But if all mathematically (structurally) and consistently characterized 
> worlds/objects exist, it seems surprising that we live in a world with 
> quite stable laws of physics that persist in time (along the time dimension 
> of spacetime). Since reality is a mess of everything possible 
>
>
> "Possible" is a rather ill defined concept and "everything possible" is 
> even worse.  "Logically possible" doesn't fix the problem.  Logic is about 
> language and propositions.  What is logically possible depends on what 
> rules of logic one adopts.  Is it logically possible that Sherlock Holmes 
> companion is both John 

Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[John Clark]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 2:50 PM Brent Meeker  wrote:

*<"Possible" is a rather ill defined concept and "everything possible" is
> even worse. *


I would say a useful definition of "possible" is the set of things or
relationships that do not produce contradictions. I would also say it's
easier to describe everything than to describe a particular smaller subset
of the possible, for example less information is required to describe all
the infinite digits of π than to describe only the first trillion digits of
π and no more.  And nobody knows if the laws of physics that are different
from those that we observe (such as by having different fundamental
constants) produce contradictions or not, nobody knows if that's possible.
John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

gco


>
>

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Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Brent Meeker]

On 2/27/2022 8:43 AM, Tomas Pales wrote:
On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 4:45:11 AM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com 
wrote:


This should be of interest to all the everythingists on this
list.  I'd especially like to hear what Bruno thinks of it.  It's
a bit expensive, so I may wait for more reviews before I take it up.

/Birmingham-based philosopher Alastair Wilson has taken up the
Herculean task of putting modal realism and many-worlds quantum
theory together into a coherent, unitary view of reality. The
results of this effort have been presented in several papers in
recent years, and are now assembled in this thought-provoking
book. While, as we will see, questions remain, Wilson has no doubt
managed to come up with ingenious new hypotheses and has proposed
solutions to existing problems and, more generally, with a
powerful new modal realist view. The resulting perspective will
certainly be of interest in the coming years, especially for
naturalistically inclined philosophers, demanding that
metaphysical hypotheses be made as continuous with our best
science as possible./


https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-nature-of-contingency-quantum-physics-as-modal-realism/

From the review I take it that Wilson has missed the intermediate
kind of possibility, namely computability which is between logical
possibility and nomological possibility.

Brent


I am not sure what is new here. Many-worlds interpretation of QM is 
obviously an example of Lewis' modal realism in the context of QM. As 
was discussed here some time ago, it may not even involve splitting of 
worlds. That is, all the quantum parallel worlds may be distinct 
worlds (objects) even before a measurement; they are just exactly the 
same before the measurement (exact copies of each other) and they 
start to differ at the measurement event. A regularity in the 
multiverse of these quantum worlds manifests in the fact that the 
worlds start differing in proportions given by the Born rule, based on 
the (same) state of the worlds at the moment of measurement.


More generally about possible worlds or objects, I still see no 
difference between a world that is logically possible (consistent) and 
a world that "exists".


Really?  It is logically possible that you don't exist.  So would the 
world without you have no difference from this world?


A logically possible world is a world that is identical to itself, 
that is, it has the properties it has and does not have the properties 
it does not have. If two worlds have all the same properties except 
the property of existence (one exists and the other doesn't) what does 
it even mean?


That only shows that a given world must either exist or not exist. Maybe 
only worlds with Tomas Pales in them exist.  That's a different property.



So I see no alternative to modal realism.

If we want to go into more details we may ask what properties a world 
or object may have and based on that we may differentiate between 
different kinds of worlds or objects, for example spatiotemporal 
worlds versus worlds that don't have a temporal or spatial structure. 
An important kind of property is relations between objects (relational 
properties), and the most general kind of relation is similarity, 
which holds between any two objects and thus is a necessary kind of 
relation. It just means that two objects have certain common 
properties and certain different properties. Mathematics as the most 
general study of relations explores the similarity relation as 
morphism in category theory and has reduced it to the set membership 
relation in set theory. Set theory is interesting to me in that it 
grounds mathematics in concrete worlds made of collections (sets), as 
opposed to abstract relations like numbers, functions, symmetries etc.


But if all mathematically (structurally) and consistently 
characterized worlds/objects exist, it seems surprising that we live 
in a world with quite stable laws of physics that persist in time 
(along the time dimension of spacetime). Since reality is a mess of 
everything possible


"Possible" is a rather ill defined concept and "everything possible" is 
even worse.  "Logically possible" doesn't fix the problem.  Logic is 
about language and propositions.  What is logically possible depends on 
what rules of logic one adopts.  Is it logically possible that Sherlock 
Holmes companion is both John Watson and James Watson?  Does a 
contradiction imply everything?


we might expect that the regularities (laws) of our world may change 
or disappear any second, which apparently doesn't happen. Hume put it 
as "the constant conjunction between causes and effects." The fact 
that the laws of physics in our world have been stable for billions of 
years may be explained by the anthropic principle: we could have 
evolved only in a world with such a long term stability. But it may 
not be obvious why such a stability 

Re: Ukraine

[Henrik Ohrstrom]

Well, not really but Tsar Putin might succeed in changing a lot of minds
We are obviously sending arms for free to Ukraine right now.
Interesting times indeed.
/henrik


Den sön 27 feb. 2022 kl 19:17 skrev Brent Meeker :

> I agree.  I think the Ukranians may sustain a resistance which will
> eventually cause Russia to withdraw, but that will take time.  More
> immediately I wonder if Finland and Sweden will want to join NATO?
>
> Brent
>
> On 2/27/2022 3:11 AM, smitra wrote:
> > We should have acted weeks earlier. When it became clear that Russia
> > was planning some sort of a large scale military assault, we should
> > have stopped Putin right there by sending large amounts of arms
> > including Patriot systems to Ukraine. Russia could then not have
> > launched the military assault it is engaging in now.
> >
> > Russian protests should have been rebuffed by saying that Ukraine is a
> > sovereign country and it is therefore allowed to request military
> > assistance. Also, Russia was at the time denying it was planning to
> > attack Ukraine, so why would they complain? We should then have
> > engaged with Russia about NATO membership and the military aid we were
> > giving. We should have made it clear to Russia that the military aid
> > would come with a military deployment, this would be limited to the
> > de-facto borders of Ukraine, so there would be no military action
> > against the Russian and rebel controlled parts.
> >
> > This intervention would thus have blocked the Russian military action,
> > it would have given the initiatives to the West about discussions
> > about the future of Ukraine, NATO membership for Ukraine etc. We could
> > have made a deal with Russia about Ukraine not becoming a NATO member
> > (this wasn't in the cards anytime soon anyway). Ukraine would likely
> > be more willing to voluntarily agree to not seek NATO membership if a
> > practical alternative that blocks Russian aggression was already
> > implemented. So, NATO would not have to change its stance about
> > sovereign countries being able to seek NATO membership.
> >
> > But it's now too late, Russia can only be slowed down a bit. Russia
> > has clearly underestimated the Ukrainian army. But it's also the case
> > that Russia has engaged Ukraine in a rather cautious way compared to
> > the way it was going about things in Syria and Chechnya. So, Russia
> > can escalate a whole lot more. Sanctions will cause economic problems
> > for Russia, but given that sanctions did little to stop Assad, even
> > Maduro is still in power despite the abject poverty in that country,
> > I'm not optimistic about sanctions against Russia being able to make
> > much of a difference.
> >
> > Basically, the doctrine we need to stick to is act from a position of
> > strength, hit hard when and where you can hit hard with maximum
> > effect. Also to avoid engaging from a position of weakness, and
> > fighting for ever smaller gains with more and more effort. We should
> > now let Putin fail in Ukraine by his own mistakes and focus our
> > attention to other potential flashpoints.
> >
> > Saibal
> >
> >
> >
> > On 27-02-2022 01:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> >> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 11:38 AM Brent Meeker 
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> One problem is that the Russians won't know whether they are nukes
> >>> or not until they explode.
> >>
> >> That problem can be overcome by simply telling them that the missiles
> >> are not nuclear. There are channels of communication, after all.
> >>
> >>> I wonder how good our back channels are with the Russian military.
> >>> I doubt that they are very happy with Putin.  The Ukranians seem
> >>> very willing to fight and I'd bet they will be a lot more motivated
> >>> than a bunch of Russian conscripts.  So I think if we keep them
> >>> supplied they may make it too expensive in money, blood, and
> >>> prestige.
> >>>
> >>> More worrying it what will we do when Xi starts massing troops on
> >>> the mainland opposite Taiwan?  We're not in so good a position to
> >>> impose economic pressure on China.
> >>
> >> I doubt that economic sanctions will do much good in the short term
> >> with Russia, either. I think you are right -- the best bet is that the
> >> Ukrainian resistance will wear the invaders down -- they expected a
> >> short fight and easy victory, after all. Opposition is growing within
> >> Russia itself. The dead bodies will be a big influence. Russia
> >> will not want another Afghanistan, or Chechnya...
> >>
> >> Bruce
> >>
> >>> Brent
> >>>
> >>> On 2/26/2022 3:13 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:04 AM Brent Meeker
> >>>  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> It's not a question of sympathy, but of utility.
> >>>
> >>> What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault
> >>> on Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional. No
> >>> "boots on the ground", but some serious rethinking needed on
> >>> Russia's part. Just as the retaliatory 

Re: Ukraine

[Brent Meeker]

I agree.  I think the Ukranians may sustain a resistance which will 
eventually cause Russia to withdraw, but that will take time.  More 
immediately I wonder if Finland and Sweden will want to join NATO?


Brent

On 2/27/2022 3:11 AM, smitra wrote:
We should have acted weeks earlier. When it became clear that Russia 
was planning some sort of a large scale military assault, we should 
have stopped Putin right there by sending large amounts of arms 
including Patriot systems to Ukraine. Russia could then not have 
launched the military assault it is engaging in now.


Russian protests should have been rebuffed by saying that Ukraine is a 
sovereign country and it is therefore allowed to request military 
assistance. Also, Russia was at the time denying it was planning to 
attack Ukraine, so why would they complain? We should then have 
engaged with Russia about NATO membership and the military aid we were 
giving. We should have made it clear to Russia that the military aid 
would come with a military deployment, this would be limited to the 
de-facto borders of Ukraine, so there would be no military action 
against the Russian and rebel controlled parts.


This intervention would thus have blocked the Russian military action, 
it would have given the initiatives to the West about discussions 
about the future of Ukraine, NATO membership for Ukraine etc. We could 
have made a deal with Russia about Ukraine not becoming a NATO member 
(this wasn't in the cards anytime soon anyway). Ukraine would likely 
be more willing to voluntarily agree to not seek NATO membership if a 
practical alternative that blocks Russian aggression was already 
implemented. So, NATO would not have to change its stance about 
sovereign countries being able to seek NATO membership.


But it's now too late, Russia can only be slowed down a bit. Russia 
has clearly underestimated the Ukrainian army. But it's also the case 
that Russia has engaged Ukraine in a rather cautious way compared to 
the way it was going about things in Syria and Chechnya. So, Russia 
can escalate a whole lot more. Sanctions will cause economic problems 
for Russia, but given that sanctions did little to stop Assad, even 
Maduro is still in power despite the abject poverty in that country, 
I'm not optimistic about sanctions against Russia being able to make 
much of a difference.


Basically, the doctrine we need to stick to is act from a position of 
strength, hit hard when and where you can hit hard with maximum 
effect. Also to avoid engaging from a position of weakness, and 
fighting for ever smaller gains with more and more effort. We should 
now let Putin fail in Ukraine by his own mistakes and focus our 
attention to other potential flashpoints.


Saibal



On 27-02-2022 01:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 11:38 AM Brent Meeker 
wrote:


One problem is that the Russians won't know whether they are nukes
or not until they explode.


That problem can be overcome by simply telling them that the missiles
are not nuclear. There are channels of communication, after all.


I wonder how good our back channels are with the Russian military.
I doubt that they are very happy with Putin.  The Ukranians seem
very willing to fight and I'd bet they will be a lot more motivated
than a bunch of Russian conscripts.  So I think if we keep them
supplied they may make it too expensive in money, blood, and
prestige.

More worrying it what will we do when Xi starts massing troops on
the mainland opposite Taiwan?  We're not in so good a position to
impose economic pressure on China.


I doubt that economic sanctions will do much good in the short term
with Russia, either. I think you are right -- the best bet is that the
Ukrainian resistance will wear the invaders down -- they expected a
short fight and easy victory, after all. Opposition is growing within
Russia itself. The dead bodies will be a big influence. Russia
will not want another Afghanistan, or Chechnya...

Bruce


Brent

On 2/26/2022 3:13 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:04 AM Brent Meeker
 wrote:

It's not a question of sympathy, but of utility.

What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault
on Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional. No
"boots on the ground", but some serious rethinking needed on
Russia's part. Just as the retaliatory British bombing of Berlin in
WW2 caused Hitler to loose his cool and gave Britain an advantage.
Of course, Putin might respond with a nuclear assault, but that
would certainly render his empire plans futile. It would be a
gamble, but I think the odds would be in favour of making Putin
pause rather than escalating further.

Bruce

Brent

On 2/26/2022 2:58 PM, John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 5:41 PM Brent Meeker 
wrote:

_ > I'm fine with seizing the money of Putin and his oligarch
buddies.  I'm less sanguine about just impoverishing the Russian
people. _

When one country decides to make 

Re: The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism

[Tomas Pales]

On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 4:45:11 AM UTC+1 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

> This should be of interest to all the everythingists on this list.  I'd 
> especially like to hear what Bruno thinks of it.  It's a bit expensive, so 
> I may wait for more reviews before I take it up.
>
> *Birmingham-based philosopher Alastair Wilson has taken up the Herculean 
> task of putting modal realism and many-worlds quantum theory together into 
> a coherent, unitary view of reality. The results of this effort have been 
> presented in several papers in recent years, and are now assembled in this 
> thought-provoking book. While, as we will see, questions remain, Wilson has 
> no doubt managed to come up with ingenious new hypotheses and has proposed 
> solutions to existing problems and, more generally, with a powerful new 
> modal realist view. The resulting perspective will certainly be of interest 
> in the coming years, especially for naturalistically inclined philosophers, 
> demanding that metaphysical hypotheses be made as continuous with our best 
> science as possible.*
>
>
> https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-nature-of-contingency-quantum-physics-as-modal-realism/
>
> From the review I take it that Wilson has missed the intermediate kind of 
> possibility, namely computability which is between logical possibility and 
> nomological possibility.
>
> Brent
>

I am not sure what is new here. Many-worlds interpretation of QM is 
obviously an example of Lewis' modal realism in the context of QM. As was 
discussed here some time ago, it may not even involve splitting of worlds. 
That is, all the quantum parallel worlds may be distinct worlds (objects) 
even before a measurement; they are just exactly the same before the 
measurement (exact copies of each other) and they start to differ at the 
measurement event. A regularity in the multiverse of these quantum worlds 
manifests in the fact that the worlds start differing in proportions given 
by the Born rule, based on the (same) state of the worlds at the moment of 
measurement. 

More generally about possible worlds or objects, I still see no difference 
between a world that is logically possible (consistent) and a world that 
"exists". A logically possible world is a world that is identical to 
itself, that is, it has the properties it has and does not have the 
properties it does not have. If two worlds have all the same properties 
except the property of existence (one exists and the other doesn't) what 
does it even mean? So I see no alternative to modal realism.

If we want to go into more details we may ask what properties a world or 
object may have and based on that we may differentiate between different 
kinds of worlds or objects, for example spatiotemporal worlds versus worlds 
that don't have a temporal or spatial structure. An important kind of 
property is relations between objects (relational properties), and the most 
general kind of relation is similarity, which holds between any two objects 
and thus is a necessary kind of relation. It just means that two objects 
have certain common properties and certain different properties. 
Mathematics as the most general study of relations explores the similarity 
relation as morphism in category theory and has reduced it to the set 
membership relation in set theory. Set theory is interesting to me in that 
it grounds mathematics in concrete worlds made of collections (sets), as 
opposed to abstract relations like numbers, functions, symmetries etc.

But if all mathematically (structurally) and consistently characterized 
worlds/objects exist, it seems surprising that we live in a world with 
quite stable laws of physics that persist in time (along the time dimension 
of spacetime). Since reality is a mess of everything possible we might 
expect that the regularities (laws) of our world may change or disappear 
any second, which apparently doesn't happen. Hume put it as "the constant 
conjunction between causes and effects." The fact that the laws of physics 
in our world have been stable for billions of years may be explained by the 
anthropic principle: we could have evolved only in a world with such a long 
term stability. But it may not be obvious why such a stability would 
continue into the future.  In fact, it may seem that such a stability in 
the future is very unlikely because there are many ways our world could be 
in the future but only one way in which it would be a deterministic 
extension of the world it has been until now. Maybe the future stability 
can be explained by Solomonoff induction, which seems to imply the 
opposite: it is more likely that laws of physics will continue to hold. 
Why? Because *given the way our world has been until now*, this world is 
more simple if its regularities (such as laws of physics) continue than if 
they are discontinued, and more simple worlds are more likely (more 
frequent in the collection of all possible worlds) than more complex 
worlds. (A simpler 

RE: Ukraine

[Philip Benjamin]

[Philip Benjamin]
There is no place for regrets in life especially in leadership and 
governmental authority, only warnings and consequences. The lessons of cowardly 
appeasements of tyrants are aplenty. However they are inapplicable to the 
brains of Marxist pagans with UC such as the WAMP. There are politicians today 
who were once classical Liberals (not necessarily pagans) but became promoters 
of the KKK, lynching, slavery, segregation, discrimination, Civil War etc., but 
have now morphed into baby-lynching, Progressivism, antagonism for religious 
freedom, intolerant of free speech, free enterprise etc. except for themselves. 
These are really fellow travelers with Marxist pagans with UC, who will agin 
produce pagan tyrants like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. They hate freedom 
loving citizens with AC!! Such corrupt imbecilic politicians at the helm of 
affairs in a nation that is the product of "Two Great Awakenings" (historical 
and historic) deceive and fool naive public with never feasible freebees and 
government largesse. And the result is Afghan fiasco and Ukrainian tragedy- 
both creations of the products of WAMP.
Philip Benjamin
Non-Conformist

everything-list@googlegroups.com; Subject: Re: Ukraine
[Saibal]
We should have acted weeks earlier. When it became clear that Russia was 
planning some sort of a large scale military assault, we should have stopped 
.Russian protests should have been rebuffed by saying that Ukraine is a 
sovereign country and it is therefore allowed to request military assistance. 

We should have made it clear to Russia that the military aid would come with a 
military deployment, .
But it's now too late, Russia can only be slowed down a bit. Russia has clearly 
underestimated the Ukrainian army. .
Basically, the doctrine we need to stick to is act from a position of strength, 
hit hard when and where you can hit hard with maximum effect. 
Also to avoid engaging from a position of weakness, .We should now let 
Putin fail in Ukraine by his own mistakes and focus our attention to other 
potential flashpoints.

Saibal



On 27-02-2022 01:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 11:38 AM Brent Meeker 
> wrote:
> 
>> One problem is that the Russians won't know whether they are nukes or 
>> not until they explode.
> 
> That problem can be overcome by simply telling them that the missiles 
> are not nuclear. There are channels of communication, after all.
> 
>> I wonder how good our back channels are with the Russian military.
>> I doubt that they are very happy with Putin.  The Ukranians seem very 
>> willing to fight and I'd bet they will be a lot more motivated than a 
>> bunch of Russian conscripts.  So I think if we keep them supplied 
>> they may make it too expensive in money, blood, and prestige.
>> 
>> More worrying it what will we do when Xi starts massing troops on the 
>> mainland opposite Taiwan?  We're not in so good a position to impose 
>> economic pressure on China.
> 
> I doubt that economic sanctions will do much good in the short term 
> with Russia, either. I think you are right -- the best bet is that the 
> Ukrainian resistance will wear the invaders down -- they expected a 
> short fight and easy victory, after all. Opposition is growing within 
> Russia itself. The dead bodies will be a big influence. Russia 
> will not want another Afghanistan, or Chechnya...
> 
> Bruce
> 
>> Brent
>> 
>> On 2/26/2022 3:13 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
>> 
>> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:04 AM Brent Meeker  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> It's not a question of sympathy, but of utility.
>> 
>> What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault 
>> on Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional. No "boots 
>> on the ground", but some serious rethinking needed on Russia's part. 
>> Just as the retaliatory British bombing of Berlin in
>> WW2 caused Hitler to loose his cool and gave Britain an advantage.
>> Of course, Putin might respond with a nuclear assault, but that would 
>> certainly render his empire plans futile. It would be a gamble, but I 
>> think the odds would be in favour of making Putin pause rather than 
>> escalating further.
>> 
>> Bruce
>> 
>> Brent
>> 
>> On 2/26/2022 2:58 PM, John Clark wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 5:41 PM Brent Meeker 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> _ > I'm fine with seizing the money of Putin and his oligarch 
>> buddies.  I'm less sanguine about just impoverishing the Russian 
>> people. _
>> 
>> When one country decides to make war on it's neighbor misery is the 
>> inevitable result, certainly the people of Ukraine are feeling it and 
>> I'm certain the people of Russia will too. Call me a monster if you 
>> want but at this moment I feel far less sympathy for the invading 
>> country than the country being invaded.
> 
>  --
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Re: Ukraine

[John Clark]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 6:11 AM smitra  wrote:


>
> *> Russian protests should have been rebuffed by saying that Ukraine is
> asovereign country and it is therefore allowed to request
> militaryassistance.*


Russian protests were rebuffed and America did send military aid to Ukraine
and is continuing to do so.


>
>
> *> We should have acted weeks earlier. When it became clear that Russia
> was planning some sort of a large scale military assault, we should have
> stopped Putin right there by sending large amounts of arms including
> Patriot systems to Ukraine.*


The latest iteration of the patriot missile system is a very sophisticated
piece of equipment that needs highly trained technicians to set up,
troubleshoot, and operate. No Ukrainian has received any training on it and
it would take not weeks but the better part of a year for anyone to get up
to speed. So if Patriot missiles are to be sent to Ukraine then American
soldiers will have to be sent too as they are the only ones that have
sufficient training. And American boots on the ground would be a huge step
along the escalation road that dead ends at total war.  It should be
remembered that although Russia is an economic pygmy with a GNP less than
that of California or even Texas, it's still a military superpower with
thousands of thermonuclear warheads at its disposal. And I also remind you
that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, it takes a unanimous vote to bring in
a new member, there are 30 members in NATO and as of today I don't believe
a single one would approve of Ukraine joining.

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

2to





>

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Re: two black holes

[Lawrence Crowell]

The actual physics is rather complex. They define locally an anti-de Sitter 
spacetime or vacuum between them. This region has hyperbolic geodesic paths 
which act as tidal acceleration that distend the horizons. This has 
interesting Casimir-like physics as the horizons get very close, but the 
details of this evolution are only understood in every higher order post 
Newtonian parameters.

LC

On Wednesday, February 23, 2022 at 5:14:36 PM UTC-6 meeke...@gmail.com 
wrote:

> No, their event horizons distort out toward one another and merge when 
> they are within about 1.5 radii of the smaller.
>
> Brent
>
>
> On 2/23/2022 4:24 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>
> Question for the resident physicists from a friend:
>
> Could two black holes orbit each other so closely that they would cancel 
> their event horizons?
>
> Cheers,
> Telmo
>
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>  
> 
> .
>
>
>

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Re: Ukraine

[Lawrence Crowell]

If American or NATO forces start shooting with Russian military it would 
project us into a new world. The whole situation could easily escalate into 
a nuclear conflict. The problem is that given the rapid technology involved 
there would be a compulsion to act swiftly and pre-emptively.

LC

On Saturday, February 26, 2022 at 5:13:41 PM UTC-6 Bruce wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:04 AM Brent Meeker  wrote:
>
>> It's not a question of sympathy, but of utility.
>>
>
> What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault on 
> Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional. No "boots on the 
> ground", but some serious rethinking needed on Russia's part. Just as the 
> retaliatory British bombing of Berlin in WW2 caused Hitler to loose his 
> cool and gave Britain an advantage. Of course, Putin might respond with a 
> nuclear assault, but that would certainly render his empire plans futile. 
> It would be a gamble, but I think the odds would be in favour of making 
> Putin pause rather than escalating further.
>
> Bruce
>
>>
>> Brent
>>
>> On 2/26/2022 2:58 PM, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 5:41 PM Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>
>> * > I'm fine with seizing the money of Putin and his oligarch buddies.  
>>> I'm less sanguine about just impoverishing the Russian people. *
>>>
>>
>> When one country decides to make war on it's neighbor misery is the 
>> inevitable result, certainly the people of Ukraine are feeling it and 
>> I'm certain the people of Russia will too. Call me a monster if you want 
>> but at this moment I feel far less sympathy for the invading country 
>> than the country being invaded.
>>
>>

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Re: An Ululation. Who Stole the Sabbath? WHAMP-the-Ingrate

[Lawrence Crowell]

Ben is a complete nutcase. I am not sure what this psychiatric misfit is 
doing on a list that is supposed to be about physics or I guess a theory of 
everything. His idea here is about consciousness having mass, which I 
garner from the smoke screen of nonsense he writes. There have been many 
attempts to measure this with null results. 

LC

On Friday, February 25, 2022 at 10:13:58 PM UTC-6 meeke...@gmail.com wrote:

>
>
> On 2/25/2022 5:41 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
>
>
> I read a lot about Euro history and the Middle Ages is that it wasn't 
> getting religion that made people behave better, it simply didn't seem to 
> make a difference. It provided order, but then the Roman pagans also had 
> order. Slavery did last for 500 years after the establishment of a State 
> religion, but unless slaves were working on these Latina Fundia (big 
> plantations) the Roman system* couldn't complete against local, family 
> farming or even, working on a Manor, which was obligatory for the peasants 
> in exchange for using the manor's oven for baking bread, or using it's 
> mills to grind grains. My view is that Christianity didn't really get 
> nice-nice till the 19th century. We see this in Charles Dickens's writings 
> and the emphasis from reverrands, preachers, and ministers sermons'. What 
> changed? The emphasis with Jesus not simply being a savior and punisher, 
> but savior and forgiver. 
>
>
> The Catholic Church had been selling forgiveness for centuries.  And 
> slavery in Greece and Rome and even in Mesopotamia was unrelated to guilt 
> and forgiveness.  It was a economic arrangement.  In Babylonia a man went 
> into slavery to pay his debts.  Capture enemies in war became slaves to 
> provide labor.  It was only later that slavery came to be justified by 
> "inferior races".
>
> Brent
>
> The change to forgiver or pardoner can't be over emphasized enough. When 
> Jesus became nicer, it was then America had a change of heart and fought a 
> civil war to Yes, prove that states rights have their limit, but Yes to 
> free the slaves. Why die or get your leg amputated for people simply 
> wanting to separate? Liberation, on the other hand was a big selling point 
> inspired by Jesus the Forgiver.  
>
> *One of the things I found interesting was that even after the final fall 
> of Rome in 476, the land owners who owned the Latina Fundia plantations has 
> been for centuries, Roman Senators. the big shots, royalty. These were the 
> exact, same, families of wealth, that produced the Bishops and then 
> Cardinals of the Roman Empire and centuries afterwards. No wonder that 
> these people who founded the Papacy did so on the Roman Empire model? 
>
> So what about science and religion? Well, using Frank Herbert's DUNE as a 
> guide, why not expect new religions arising ands adapting from the old 
> faiths? I'm talking about 10-34 K years for Christ sakes (pun). Even this 
> one sounds interesting to me, though I doubt Philip would agree?  
>
>- The Jesuitical Evolutionist Church of Chardin 
>
> Perhaps the late, Phillip K. Dicke would?
> -Original Message-
> From: John Clark 
> To: 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
> Cc: general...@googlegroups.com 
> Sent: Fri, Feb 25, 2022 12:26 pm
> Subject: Re: An Ululation. Who Stole the Sabbath? WHAMP-the-Ingrate
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 11:44 AM Philip Benjamin  
> wrote:
>
> > Is the West Becoming Pagan Again?
>
>
> I sure hope so, I'm getting tired of pain in the ass Christianity.
>  Paganism  may be just as stupid as Christianity but to me it seems like 
> a lot more fun and a hell of a lot less cruel. 
>
>
>
> *> Bio dark-matter chemistry = Chemical bonds = Spin governed particle 
> configurations of duet and octet. AC = Awakened or Augustinian 
> Consciousness by instrumentality of the Scriptures (Patriarchal, Prophetic, 
> Apostolic). UC = Un-awakened or Un-Augustinian Consciousness, governed 
> by natural inclinations.*
>
>
> That's not right, that's not even wrong, it's the sort of thing that 
> gives gibberish a bad name.  
>
> John K Clark  
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  
>
>
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>
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>  
> 
>  
> .
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>
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> 

Re: Ukraine

[John Clark]

On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 6:13 PM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

*> What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault on
> Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional.*
>

The short answer is I don't know. Nobody can say for sure what would happen
if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault on Moscow and
Petersburg, just as nobody can say for sure what would happen if Russia
launched a all-out cruise missile attack on Manhattan and Chicago, but one
outcome that is not at all unlikely is that it would start World War III
and result in the destruction of civilization and possibly the extinction
of the entire human race. I am not a big enough gambler to want to take
that risk.

*> Putin might respond with a nuclear assault, but that would certainly
> render his empire plans futile.*


It's true that starting World War III would not be in Putin's long-term
best interests, but recent events indicate that Putin may no longer be an
entirely rational actor. And for some dictators bringing about the
extinction of the human race would be less undesirable than being
personally embarrassed, and at this point backing down would be personally
embarrassing for Putin.

*> I think the odds would be in favour of making Putin pause rather than
> escalating further.*


Perhaps so, but what are the odds that what you think is correct? And are
you willing to face the consequences if you are wrong?  Are you so sure
that you're correct that you're willing to bet your life and the life of
everybody you know on it?

John K ClarkSee what's on my new list at  Extropolis

0oi

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Re: Ukraine

[smitra]

We should have acted weeks earlier. When it became clear that Russia was 
planning some sort of a large scale military assault, we should have 
stopped Putin right there by sending large amounts of arms including 
Patriot systems to Ukraine. Russia could then not have launched the 
military assault it is engaging in now.


Russian protests should have been rebuffed by saying that Ukraine is a 
sovereign country and it is therefore allowed to request military 
assistance. Also, Russia was at the time denying it was planning to 
attack Ukraine, so why would they complain? We should then have engaged 
with Russia about NATO membership and the military aid we were giving. 
We should have made it clear to Russia that the military aid would come 
with a military deployment, this would be limited to the de-facto 
borders of Ukraine, so there would be no military action against the 
Russian and rebel controlled parts.


This intervention would thus have blocked the Russian military action, 
it would have given the initiatives to the West about discussions about 
the future of Ukraine, NATO membership for Ukraine etc. We could have 
made a deal with Russia about Ukraine not becoming a NATO member (this 
wasn't in the cards anytime soon anyway). Ukraine would likely be more 
willing to voluntarily agree to not seek NATO membership if a practical 
alternative that blocks Russian aggression was already implemented. So, 
NATO would not have to change its stance about sovereign countries being 
able to seek NATO membership.


But it's now too late, Russia can only be slowed down a bit. Russia has 
clearly underestimated the Ukrainian army. But it's also the case that 
Russia has engaged Ukraine in a rather cautious way compared to the way 
it was going about things in Syria and Chechnya. So, Russia can escalate 
a whole lot more. Sanctions will cause economic problems for Russia, but 
given that sanctions did little to stop Assad, even Maduro is still in 
power despite the abject poverty in that country, I'm not optimistic 
about sanctions against Russia being able to make much of a difference.


Basically, the doctrine we need to stick to is act from a position of 
strength, hit hard when and where you can hit hard with maximum effect. 
Also to avoid engaging from a position of weakness, and fighting for 
ever smaller gains with more and more effort. We should now let Putin 
fail in Ukraine by his own mistakes and focus our attention to other 
potential flashpoints.


Saibal



On 27-02-2022 01:48, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 11:38 AM Brent Meeker 
wrote:


One problem is that the Russians won't know whether they are nukes
or not until they explode.


That problem can be overcome by simply telling them that the missiles
are not nuclear. There are channels of communication, after all.


I wonder how good our back channels are with the Russian military.
I doubt that they are very happy with Putin.  The Ukranians seem
very willing to fight and I'd bet they will be a lot more motivated
than a bunch of Russian conscripts.  So I think if we keep them
supplied they may make it too expensive in money, blood, and
prestige.

More worrying it what will we do when Xi starts massing troops on
the mainland opposite Taiwan?  We're not in so good a position to
impose economic pressure on China.


I doubt that economic sanctions will do much good in the short term
with Russia, either. I think you are right -- the best bet is that the
Ukrainian resistance will wear the invaders down -- they expected a
short fight and easy victory, after all. Opposition is growing within
Russia itself. The dead bodies will be a big influence. Russia
will not want another Afghanistan, or Chechnya...

Bruce


Brent

On 2/26/2022 3:13 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

On Sun, Feb 27, 2022 at 10:04 AM Brent Meeker
 wrote:

It's not a question of sympathy, but of utility.

What would happen if NATO launched an all-out cruise missile assault
on Moscow and Petersburg? Not nuclear, purely conventional. No
"boots on the ground", but some serious rethinking needed on
Russia's part. Just as the retaliatory British bombing of Berlin in
WW2 caused Hitler to loose his cool and gave Britain an advantage.
Of course, Putin might respond with a nuclear assault, but that
would certainly render his empire plans futile. It would be a
gamble, but I think the odds would be in favour of making Putin
pause rather than escalating further.

Bruce

Brent

On 2/26/2022 2:58 PM, John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 5:41 PM Brent Meeker 
wrote:

_ > I'm fine with seizing the money of Putin and his oligarch
buddies.  I'm less sanguine about just impoverishing the Russian
people. _

When one country decides to make war on it's neighbor misery is the
inevitable result, certainly the people of Ukraine are feeling it
and I'm certain the people of Russia will too. Call me a monster if
you want but at this moment I feel far less sympathy for the
invading country than