Notes
[Notebook: DB 58 Bringing god home]
[Sunday 28 May 2006 - Saturday 3 June 2006]
[page 148]
Sunday 28 May 2006
Network model of the world is concerned with the flow of information (entropy) as well as the flow of energy, momentum and action which are the subjects of physics. This may be the fundamental insight of natural theology.
SPACE => SPACETIME
ENTROPY => BANDWIDTH
Metaphysics: knowledge beyond experience: is all contained in the consistent formalisms that we apply to the understanding of our experience.
As part of the technology of survival and fitness, one continually takes inventory of one's economic and social assets and acts to protect and enlarge them where necessary and/or possible.
Much of the battle for survival is to express oneself in a form thought valuable by others, who therefore reward one for the expression, another way of saying 'to work for an income'.
[page 147]
Cercignani page 187: 'Boltzmann if of the opinion that the task of theory consists in constructing a picture of the external world that exists purely internally and must be our "guiding star" in all thought and experiment.' Cercignani
Boltzmann 'The immediate elaboration and constant perfection of this picture is then the chief test of theory. Imagination is always its cradle, and abstract understanding its tutor.'
IMAGINATION = PERMUTATION + SELECTION
Boltzmann page 188: ' . . . theory is the most practical thing conceivable . . . '
'Hegel is said to have regretted that nature was unable to realize his philosophical system in its full perfection.'
The practical output of theology is a set of models for human behaviour designed to achieve certain ends ranging from conquest to cooperation. These models form the backbone of religious practices in education and social engineering. History provides us with myriad instances of societies governed by different ruling ideas, and we can search for relationships between historical outcomes and the design of society. Diamond
. . .
At the heart of creativity is the exponential gain in power available when we exploit the permutations of alphabets of entities.
ENTITY = PARTICLE independent, observable.
We've constructed a gigantic monkey bar, now to play in it. By play we mean move from state to state.
[page 150]
The Universe is a string (in the computer sense) of strings.
By definition, a local entity has just one clock.
When permuting the notes of a piano, the next notes in a sequence is constrained by injunctions such as 'stay in the same key', and perhaps the classical rules of harmony, which may be followed or ignored depending on the requirements of the overall piece.
Permutations not combinations, because each note struck on a particular piano has an individual (piano #, time) address, so it is part of an infinite sequence whose possibilities are xh, where x is the number of note son the piano and h is the number of notes struck so far.
. . .
Global resistance to local aggression.
Sorry to have abandoned you, but self preservation seemed more important at the time - coupling constant.
Cantor sought to prove the continuum hypothesis by constructing a giant discrete space, which allowed an 'artificial definition' of continuity: that is continuous which is so finely divided that we cannot see its particles. Continuity becomes relative. Aleph(1 is continuous relative to ℵ0 but discrete relative to ℵ2.
Transfinite cardinal arithmetic has wonderful vagueness compared to the normal finite kind of arithmetic done by calculators.
[151]
POVERTY - INVESTMENT - COURAGE
Macquarie Dictionary: Courage n. 1. the quality of mind that enables one to encounter difficulties and danger with firmness or without fear, bravery.
Brave adj. 1. possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance.
There must be a 'balance of courage' between organization and the organized individuals, so that every section is equally loaded in just proportion to the overall load.
0! = 1
1! = 1
2! = 2
3 1= 6 - things begin to grow here and Cantor's theorem cuts in
This takes longer than the power set approach to exponential growth; in which P(x) > x at all times
p(0) = 1
P(1) = 2
P(2 = 4
Does this formal fact, so simple, mean anything?
PLATO FORM = STATE = ORDERED SET
DETERMINISTIC Determined by initial conditions
NON-DETERMINISTIC : May access any state.
Are we thee yet? The period from How Universal? to now seems impossibly long. I feel that I have been travelling at great speed, but have got almost nowhere.
[page 152]
So rewrite How Universal to get 'closure'.
Monday 29 May 2006
Dennet: Breaking the Spell: Religion as a natural Phenomenon. Dennett
Dennett page xiii: 'America is strikingly different from other First World nations in its attitude to religion, . . . . '
page 9: 'Legal protection, honour, prestige and a traditional exemption from certain sorts of analysis and criticism - a great deal hinged on how we define religion.'
Definition of religion: '. . . social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent of agents whose approval is to be sought. . . . a religion without God or gods is like a vertebrate without a backbone.
Does fighting injustice with violence work, Batman?
Wherever we stand in the transfinite network, we see the same thing, ie it is scale invariant. card(node) > card(link).
CANVAS is the Cantor Universe painted with a superposition of images which model this very life in the midst of which I am now. The Cantor Universe is big enough to model every event in the Universe. One to one correspondence : Cantor Universe to Quantum Mechanics,particle physics, relativity. My aim is to make a model so simple and intuitive that even I can understand it and use it to reach useful results on human stability.
Nature Morrison: Failure and how to avoid it. Morrison
Dennett page 3: 'If "survival of the fittest" has any validity as a slogan, then the Bible seems a fair candidate for the accolade of the fittest of texts'. Hugh Pyper, The Selfish Text: The Bible and Memetics. in Exum pp 70=90
[page 153]
Jesus preached the law of gravitation, attract one another, love one another.
Evolution is driven by accountability, every word we speak established some bond with the environment of the speaker. Bshary and Grutter
Gravitation sees energy.Quantum mechanics sees entropy [?}
Gravity is brought into focus by other forces, like the structural forces preventing my free fall.
All experience is divine [a mantra?]
Tuesday 30 May 2006
Dennett page 30: Stephen Jay Gould: science and religion are two "non-overlapping magisteria".
What is holding me back? What has held me back for 40 years? The momentum of the old religion? Something in my unconscious that feels that I am not yet ready to say my piece? Cowardice? Laziness? Whatever, just keep going at maximum pace.
The question with action is are you getting somewhere or just spinning your wheels? More quantitatively, are we maximizing the benefit/cost of our action? My principal problem seems to be finding coworkers in this task. This has always come down to packaging my ideas in a way sufficiently succinct and compelling to be published in a peer reviewed journal such as Nature or closer to the hub of the religion problem (ie USA) in Science.
. . .
[page 154]
The evolution of life became possible when mappings were discovered from genes to life (ribosomes) and life to genes (natural selection).
Time for a change Pace
. . .
Formalism is kinematic machine. Reality is dynamic. A Turing machine is formal and its motion formal. A real computer is both dynamic and formal, the clock pulses initiating each dynamic phase and then a hold period during which the machine is in a kinematic state.
Casting an eye back over the last few thousand years, one might see a central scientific issue has been the relationship between motion and stillness. We have a fragment of Parmenides . . . How do we relate the eternal stillness of God to the chaotic dynamics of earth? In particular, how to relate the elemental truths of mathematical to this dame dynamic world? The answer came with the invention of the cinema in the form of calculus. To study motion, break it into little steps. To see it more closely, make the steps smaller. To see it with mathematical precision, let the size of the steps go to zero.
Wednesday 31 May 2006
Cantor's continuum hypothesis was that the cardinal of the continuum (ie the number of points in it) is ℵ1, the second
[page 155]
transfinite number.
The world is dynamic. The task of science is to find formal models that predict world dynamics and subsets thereof. Formal models are static, and so can be represented by text, the scientific literature, each item of which is formally eternal, and will actually be part of the world as long as it is encoded in some physical way, like paper and ink or dots on a disk.
It has been speculated that the Universe may be modelled by a Turing machine, but quantum information theory suggests that it might require something more powerful, a network of 'oracle' machines. An oracle machine stops and asks for an oracle when it needs more information. This oracle, for a given machine, is the rest of the network to which it is connected. A network is a superposition of machines.
Why are there particles rather than continua? / SHANNON + STABILITY
Time does not exist in the formal mathematical world so we imagine all steps in all processes executing simultaneously. Obviously this is not so in reality (pace Parmenides and Plato), we live in the midst of a flow of events. There is structure among these events. First, they occur with different frequency, occupying different subsets of a time line graduated in the 'fundamental frequency of the local Universe'.
SECRECY = (VERY) SLOW COMMUNICATION / ADIABATIC
adiabatos = impassible.
Hamiltonian 'time translator' = Turing Machine.
. . .
[page 150]
In building terms I am coming to the end of the earthworks. I have found my foundations, and can begin pouring concrete into the rock.
frequency = f(barrier height)
. . .
Thursday 1 June 2006
. . .
We are using the theory of communication (broadly construed) to provide a new foundation for all human interaction which is also common to the rest of the Universe.
God, like the sun, is a source of low entropy energy which can bring down the variety of a system to a locally computable level.
We describe 'locally computable' in terms of the softness of transfinite arithmetic. transfinite arithmetic
The whole idea behind the transfinite network (I now realize) is to develop a picture of the Universe which we can apply equally to ourselves and to every other individual in the Universe so that we can all see we are all one -- we are parts of the whole because we can communicate wit the other parts of the whole. We never communicate with the whole as such, but with one of our peers.
The definition of infinity. Given a set S (card(S) = n) which we call finite, we can (using ordering?) construct another set (P(S) [the 'power set' of S], which is infinite with respect to S.
Religion is a communication protocol and also a set of
[page 157]
values which promotes some messages and deprecates others.
Religion and language go together like a horse and carriage.
We think CODE = LANGUAGE
PROTOCOL = RELIGION
Despite the importance o skill, technology and so on, it is how we manage our relationships with other people that determine our wealth (0 . . . 1) and power (0 . . . 1).
Football team is network. Football game is a competition between two networks controlled by a protocol enforcer (referee).
Friday 2 June 2006
How Universal is the Universe (1967)
It still reads well. I thought I had gone beyond it when I moved into the transfinite, but, since I have clarified to myself the 'permutation/subset' theory of infinity/transfinity, I can see that from the symmetry I called 'the relativity of transfinity' . . . binary numbers may be used as a model of the Cantor Universe. To expand the binary (quantum information theoretical) model to the full complexity of the Universe, whose basis we take to be the set of natural numbers, we need the whole Cantor Universe.
There is no time in formal mathematics, but there is time in the world we use to talk about mathematics and use it. The relationship in inherent in the working of a real computer, all change, all old. What we propose s that . . . the implementation of mathematics in Turing machines can be modelled by the implementation of mathematics in real computers, computer networks and human minds.
[page 158]
LOGICAL PROCESS : TURING MACHINE
MATERIAL PROCESS : PHYSICS
The question is: can the material process become aware of itself through the logical process? Aristotle's old question about matter and form can be answered by a theory of life.
SPACE == MATTER (this is our explanatory mapping, as we define terms to be pointers to an identical substrate.
What I want to do is to redo all the old terms by using them to point to new structures, eg a new definition of 'pure act' (h bar x ℵ0) etc etc.
The Greek scientists very soon latched onto the idea of form and one way or another it has remained central to the discussion of the nature of reality ever since. As well as form there i action.
This is an essay about form and action. It is written in the current debate about 'Intelligent design', which might be seen (in the dramatic world of the mass media) as a battle between traditional theology and religion and modern science and engineering (social and physical). . . .
The roots of theology lie in myth, stories of the powers and actions of the Gods, often full of lust, battle and mayhem that puts modern soap opera to shame. Graves
The play is a text (formalism) that is realized (put into action) by the players.
[page 159]
Saturday 3 June 2006
Dawkins', Blind Watchmaker and Dennett's Breaking the Spell' emphasize that our space of knowledge and conscious choice is a subset of the overall space of constraints that shape us and our behaviour. Dawkins, Dennett This area of 'effective darkness' corresponds to the ancient mystery we call god.
Proof of the existence of god (= the whole) : no local system can fully explain itself. On the other hand, concepts of 'the whole' eg 'the set of all sets' lead to inconsistency. Mendelson
Quantum field theory proposes to model the visible dance of the particles by seeking constraints on the motions of giant vectors in a transfinite function space. Weinberg The beauty of this abstract model is that it can be visualized, as Feynman has done for us, as a lot of little arrows rotating in their own spaces and adding (in a special way) to create 'bigger' arrows. Feynman This idea lies behind the path integral method in quantum theory. Feynman We imagine that a particle that wants to go from a to b looks at all the possible routes and chooses to follow the one that is the least trouble. A physicist would say that nature follows the path of least action, and would use the methods of quantum field theory to calculate this path in a given situation [to arrive at an estimate of the probability that the particle will make it from a to b ]. Thus anthropomorphized, we see that quantum field theory is a version of applied ecology, trying to predict the paths of living things through their lives from birth to death.
An issue: I want a mate but can see no agent other than fate available to find one.
Management: a reliable agent must be assigned to control each degree of freedom that feeds in to an outcome,
[page 160]
FORM is itself unconscious. It becomes conscious by looking at itself through a process of transformation of self into a model of self and the use of this model to predict the outcome various [courses of action].
To rotate a vector, multiply it by a matrix. But what reality (mechanism) underlies this arithmetic. We propose to visualize it all as a network, a set of pipes carrying rotating arrows. The pipes are 4-space, the arrows, Hilbert space.
Even if I am wrong, no matter, it is a step forward. . . . The aim is to be very clearly wrong so that correction is easy. In this respect the Catholic model of god and the world is the perfect starting point for my new model. Hopefully, each new model corrects the deficiencies of the old.
Can we say that at some peer level, energy = entropy, and then they bifurcate, entropy growing in effect exponentially with respect to energy, so that log H = E.
Shannon recast an old villain as a good guy and shifted the emphasis from mechanical engineering to communication engineering (vie electrical engineering).
Roman Catholic Church : a very successful business plan based on deluding the customers. Dennett page 159: 'pragmatism compressed their horizons' (?) On the other hand, there might also be pragmatism in widening the search for solutions, since history seems to teach that there are solutions if you search widely enough -- that is how we got on this roller coaster : every solution widens the space of potential problems.
Dennett 160: '. . . those who practice folk religion don't think of themselves as practicing a religion at all.
ie INERTIAL = UNCONSCIOUS religion. Consciousness comes from the interaction of different religions.
page 161 'Where there is no ambient doubt to speak of, there is no need to peak of faith.'
Quantum mechanics = network traffic analysis.
page 168 'How clever of wild sheep to have acquired that most versatile adaptation, the shepherd.'
page 179: 'Religions exist primarily for people to achieve together what they cannot achieve alone'. David Sloan Wilson Darwin's Cathedral. Wilson
RELIGION - INTEGRATIVE PROTOCOL
page 191: Stark: '"People care about Gods because if they exist, they are potential exchange partners possessed of immense resources".'
The Theology Company: The Religion Business
page 192: '"Because Gods are conscious beings [in fact ourselves] they are potential exchange partners because all beings are assumed to want something for which they might be induced to give something valuable.".'
My desire to make a living for theology is a form of quality control since I have had a life long reluctance to make money from inferior work, although I have done it a few times.
. . .
[page 162]
PERSONALITY is a vector in PERSONALITY SPACE.
As I sit gazing into your eyes we are exchanging trillions of photons, phonons and other tiny particles every second. This is the physical layer of our communication, and has sufficient entropy to carry the human affection we feel.
Dennet page 207: 'If anybody raises questions or objections about our religion that you cannot answer that person is almost certainly Satan. In fact, the more reasonable the person is, the more eager to engage you in open minded and congenial discussion, the more sure you can be that you are talking to Satan in disguise. Turn away! Do not listen! Its a trap!
A contradiction of attempted wholeness.
page 216: Rich Jeni: "You're basically killing one another to see who's got the better imaginary friend.'
