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Notes

[Notebook TTC, DB 54]

[Sunday 14 October 2001 - Saturday 20 October 2001]

[page 185]

Sunday 14 October 2001

The length of code does not tell you everything. Pieces of code have different

[page 186]

degree of deadliness. In the ideal situation, the complexity of the code exactly equals the complexity of the problem to be solved. In general code will err on the side of over complexity, dealing with all possible errors so creating a closed (non-bombing) piece of code that can go to and from every point in its memory space. On the other hand code may be less complex that the problem, and therefore VIOLENT.

Having started with the biggest available [space] the physics etc sections begin by cutting it right down to the quantum mechanical Hilbert space.

. . .

Monday 15 October 2001
Tuesday 16 October 2001

NAZISM - FUNDAMENTALISM - BLACK HOLE

Wednesday 17 October 2001

The 'fathers' went to the desert

[page 187]

because they were illegals. Where did I read that? It is a feature of most human groups from couples through tribes to nations that they are exclusive. Exclusion in a space of exclusives makes one a refugee in need of nurturing space. the planet is also to some extent exclusive in that it is occupied with only those who can stand the selection pressure (ie are not weeded out by the selection committee).

Restructuring the websites is a bit like restructuring a set of merged entities, seeking out common processes and putting them closer to the root depending on how common they are.

A series is a set of values of a function at discrete points. Fourier's idea: (almost) all functions can be represented by a Fourier series. We begin with the idea of an ordered set.

Thursday 18 October 2001
Friday 19 October 2001
Saturday 20 October 2001

[page 188]

MODEL INTRO:

It has long been a scientific commonplace [that] knowledge is a creative process. It has also long been philosophical lore that we see only the surface of things. These two ideas are easily connected by the artistic form we call drama. As we stand before stage or screen we see a lot of moving surfaces and hear sounds through which we discern (using our experience of life as a model) the feelings and motivations of the characters in the drama. As Shakespeare and Galileo noted in their respective ways, all the world's a stage. For Galileo the motivations in the drama of the world were to be read in the book of nature. He saw also that the book of nature is written in mathematics where human dramas are written (or otherwise remembered) in all the languages of earth. Lonergan claims that there is no meaning in mathematics [no need for exegesis] (? ref Method in Theology). Lonergan, p 153

Where does creation come in? Our models

[page 189]

of the world are creative fictions. Why did they fall in love? Human nature? skin colour? Why did she kill him? jealousy? anger? money? Each of these potential answers is a socially transmitted model represented by the world we use to name the model. As we grow older and more experienced the set of circumstances modelled by each word, eg envy [becomes greater]. Now it is about these models (which are the meaning of language and so in effect the wave function of the language).

Never delete anything?

Basically the search for the meaning of a particular set of phenomena is the search for a representation in which these phenomena fit together, and are all solved. Reverse engineering (investigating a computer chip as a black box, ie finding a way to reproduce all its inputs and outputs). Best model is the one with the least arbitrary assumptions.

[page 190]

We begin with story - SERIES, NARRATIVE

A symbol is represented by a vector (that is a point relative to some origin in Hilbert space).

This is a circular definition, but that is the way of the world . . .

Our model of the world is mathematics and so we begin our modelling exercise with a brief expose of mathematics. Since mathematics is perhaps the richest and most global endeavour of the human spirit, this survey must be very succinct.

Mass, energy, momentum and time are very abstract (simple, low resolution) elements of the Universe which are symmetrical throughout, providing the basic constraints on the structure of

[page 191]

god's body. Like other abstract things they exist in a concrete embodiment, a mind or machine . . .

ENTROPY, ACTION, ENERGY, MOMENTUM, SPACETIME

Spacetime is the most abstract feature of the whole, the System.

Physics is the most abstract of sciences. Physics hovers around the simple end of the transfinite tree, whereas theology deals with the whole, the System composed of systems.

Systems analysis.

The Universe is closed in the sense that there is nothing outside it so that it is subject to no outside influence, but open in the sense than any level of complexity is merely a foundation for an even more complex system.

Related sites:


Concordat Watch
Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty

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Lonergan, Bernard J F, Method in Theology, University of Toronto Press for Lonergan Research Institute 1996 Introduction: 'A theology mediates between a cultural matrix and the signifcance and role of religion in that matrix. ... When the classicist notion of culture prevails, theology is conceived as a permanent achievement, and then one discourses on its nature. When culture is conceived empirically, theology is known to be an ongoing process, and then one writes on its method. Method ... is a framework for collaborative creativity.' 
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