Notes
[Notebook Turkey, DB 55]
[Sunday 9 February 2003 - Saturday 15 February 2003]
[page 150]
Sunday 9 February 2003
Monday 10 February 2003
Tuesday 11 February 2003
Wednesday 12 February 2003
Most human trouble seems to be caused by
[page 151]
pigheadedness. Pigheadedness is picturesque language for narrowness of view. We wish to postulate a correspondence between the lively gossip about pigheadedness and the mathematical/physical concept of entropy. As will be explained, broadness and narrowness of view can be related to high and low entropy. The well established slogan 'entropy never decreases' can be taken to mean that the broad view rarely gives way to the narrow, and, on the other hand, the narrow less rarely gives way to the broad. This is a mathematical expression of the heart of the liberal creed: left to themselves, points of view grow broader. But not fast enough for many people. There are still plenty of tyrants around the place who manage to impose their own narrow views on a potential broad church of individuals.
As with any other path, we must go slowly when our way is not clear, for fear of loss or becoming lost. As our vision clears, so our rate of progress can increase, because we have the information to assess and avoid the hazards of the way. The purpose of this enterprise is to interpret the idea of increasing entropy in theological terms. That such an interpretation is possible is itself an example of the increase in entropy that comes from the universal creative force we call insight.
It is a fact of life that on the average a well organized process is much more likely to survive that a random one. As the disciplined powers showed us during the centuries of conquest, a well organized army can usually defeat an ad hoc militia. This fact does not apply to physical military force alone, but at all levels of life. A well organized agriculture is more secure than dependence on the fluctuating bounty of nature.
[page 152]
This fact is the key to peace and breadth of vision. We model the growth of entropy by the Cantor Universe.
Two views of number, Peano and Cantor, give us a system which we have to learn to model.
CLOSED = COMPLETE - the complete is the dynamic heart of the incomplete, ie CONSISTENCY CREATES, INCONSISTENCY DESTROYS.
FAMINE: "After four days in that reign we came to Kazan which lay under a heavy mantle of snow. It was now the capital of the Tartar republic - a province of Soviet Russia - and was at the head of the richest grain growing district of the Volga valley. Now there was no grain because it has been burnt out by a terrible drought, leaving the peasants without food because their reserves has been taken up by the Red Army." Philip Gibbs in Carey page 493.
An army marches on an idea. We hope that these ideas do not inspire any armies!
How can breadth of vision save us when our assertions are directly opposed? Given a finite amount of food (or any other essential commodity) more people means less each and, if the hypothesis is fulfilled and the food supply dwindles to starvation level, murderous violence inspired by the desire to survive at the expense of others can easily become epidemic.
Here we may see that the mathematics of epidemics and the mathematics of religious competition have something in common.
Peano: kinematics
Cantor: dynamics.
[page 153]
I love to dream of you, but it is physics that controls the realization of my dream. It can happen if it is practical, ie consistent with existing realities and not otherwise (depending though on the level of complexity that one is prepared to descent to in order to achieve a result, eg murder, ie destruction of capital.
The global epitome of the narrowness that leads to war is the Roman Catholic Church, it is a very ancient organization whose philosophies are rooted in the Roman Empire with its divine emperors and military cast of government.
Entropy, and its mirror, energy, are the fundamental resources of the Universe, by which all else comes into being. [this is a model dependent point of view, but then that is our model, and we hope that ultimately it lacks no generality.]
The peace theorem: organization has a selective advantage over disorganization; and its converse, disorganization is more probable than organization? it is a matter of durability. In fact, although organization is rare, it is by definition durable, so it tends to be what we see. Even the random is organized [organic] in the sense that it may only occur once, but it is nevertheless a valid (though non-periodic) event in the system.
AGRICULTURE: a) more food; b) more reliable harvest.
[page 154]
CULTURE - PHYSICAL CULTURE (eg AGRICULTURE) / SPIRITUAL CULTURE (eg RELIGION)
We are looking at the difference between random search and heuristically guided search.
Driving a nail is a quantum of action (a discrete set of activity) - {action}. How many Planck quanta does it take to drive a nail say 30 seconds at 200 watts = 6kJ = 1037 h.
The basic function of clergymen has been to tell people stories to make them feel netter. They are in the same position as medicos in the days before effective disease control and treatment.
'A theological application of recursive function theory in the transfinite domain.'
1. Galileo - separation of theology and science
2. Writing - the invention and the uses to which it was put,
law/accounting.
3. Parmenides and Zeno
4. Newton and calculus - the problems of infinitesimals and
continuity
5. Fourier
6. Cantor
7. Paradoxes, axiomatisation and Hilbert's program
8. Gödel
9. Turing and the Turing machine
10. Hypercomputation
11. The transfinite network
12. Quantum mechanics
13. Theology
14. Conclusions
[page 155]
Parable: is a corporation like a tree whose leaves are people. Each tree (deciduous or not) goes through a lot of leaves in a lifetime.
