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Notes

[Notebook: DB 61 Warm]

[Sunday 1 July 2007 - Saturday 7 July 2007]

[page 87]

Sunday 1 July 2007

. . . Causality: Belief in causality reached its apogee in the nineteenth century after a slow growth of many thousands of years. Readers of Homer or the Old Testament will see that or distant forebears attributed many of the events in the human world to the arbitrary and often malicious whims of invisible gods, who seemed to enjoy watching people fight and kill one another and savoured the smell of burn offerings. By the Middle ages, this idea had crystallized into an omnipotent and omniscient God micromanaging every event in the world, no matter how small. At the same time, people were held to have free will and so could be held responsible and if necessary punished for their actions.

Then to Laplace? - the deterministic Universe. [La Place's demon can predict the whole future, given the present and the laws of physics Carl Hoefer]

. . .

[page 88]

. . .

Then we come to biology. What is new? In addition to quantum statistics we introduce classical statistics, which concern entities only partially created and annihilated in their interactions. Solid state physics = chemistry (molecule = 'crystal') or at least 'unit cell'

UNIT CELL(aleph(n)) = {UNIT CELL(aleph(n-1)}

The limiting resource is computation rate, that is energy. As a consequence most things don't change most of the time since we have a countable number of Turing machines (computable functions)

COMPUTABLE FUNCTION = COMPRESSIBLE FUNCTION

This static feature of the system 'explains' 'natural memory'. A system remains in its state of rest or uniform motion unless it is acted upon by a force, that is, unless it communicates with its environment ('collision' to a physicist).

Three momentum is outside time, and so an information carrier like this formalism. Four-momentum has a time dimension and so includes energy (processing rate) and three momentum (memory) like a standard computer.

Monday 2 July 2007

Aquinas devoted his energy to proving that god and the Universe are different. Here the task is to prove that they are the same. We have developed a model that seems big enough (in that it is not 'bounded above') to be a model of god and now we set out to show that this model fits the world as seen and described by modern physics:

1: Causality Why?
2: Action
3: Energy
4: Momentum
5: quantization
6: 4-space
7: general covariance constrained by meaninglessness
8: creation
9: continuity
10: cosmological constant
11: Lagrangian/least action/evolution
12; meaning and capitalization.

Stewart 213: '[Dirac's] discovery was this: the commutator of two quantum matrices is equal to the Poisson bracket of the corresponding classical variables multiplied by the constant ih/2 pi. . . . This was a dramatic discovery. It taught physicists how to turn classical systems into quantum ones.' Stewart

We say that action (communication) is instituted by inconsistency = need (ie something missing to make the process complete. Lack of resources.

The ethics of politics/ The basic resources for control are good data and good models.

Each momentum state is a structure, a body of information, an ordered set. A change of momentum state requires processing and the energy difference between the states is a measure of this. The amount of processing is a function of the environment (potential) in which the states exist (eg the bound states of an atomic electron or set of electrons). What about the momentum of inertially moving particles? In the real world there are no inertial frames that occupy more than an infinitesimal volume of spacetime.

action, energy, momentum ML2T-1, ML2T-2, MLT-1.

MASS = processing rate = reading/writing rate.

Energy is an abstraction, as are momentum and action, but superposed they give is a consistent picture of reality.

What is the prime resource? Ability to act, to move, to exert a force, ie to fulfill a need, meet a need.

MASS = METABOLIC RATE

[page 91]

Hilbert space encodes information in ordered sets of symbols - vectors. [database design]

HEAVEN == SECURITY. The Catholics have overdone it by promising eternity (= 0 risk of death) either of bliss or torture depending on how well the individual has conformed to the church's version of 'what God wants'. It bases this position on interpretation of the Bible, which it has defined to be the 'authentic word of God'. Holy See - Dei Verbum

Culturing Life: Hannah Landrecker Science 316:1568 Landrecker

Physics intro: The hardware of the Universe is a network of quantum computation. We normally visualize this network in 4-space , whereas quantum mechanics as we know it lives in Hilbert space. Our first step, therefore, is to map the transfinite network onto Hilbert space. Hilbert space is a function space. Function spaces have one dimension for each point in the domain of the function to be represented, be it one or aleph(n) of them. The information carrying parameter in this dimension is the value of the function at the point represented. The set of all functions on a given domain may be represented by the set of permutations of points in the range, There is confusion here between indexing and measuring,, since there is an indexed order for each permutation in the range.

In a computer there are purely logical (= permutational) motions, but these motions may be connected in a way that represents arithmetical operations on quasi-continuous measures. But the beauty of physics is that not

[page 92]

all possible values are measured, only those that 'nature' dictates.

NATURE = WORLD STRUCTURE (whatever that may be) = something so predictable that knowledge of its behaviour can lead to selective advantage. Knowledge confers power; power must be controlled by responsibility. Ethics is knowledge about responsibility.

Mathematics studies abstract mechanisms. Physics endows here mechanisms with constraints, the real world. When a physicist says 'energy is conserved', a mathematician sees that the total rate of computation in the world remains constant, where we measure computation by mathematical operations each of which is measured by a quantum of action in the physical world.

Then to network rates, energy and gravitation.

We are looking for a network derivation of Einstein;s equations. These equations work and are beautiful, but why? Why this particular set of constraints on communication. So we map physical parameters onto mathematical parameters, manipulate the mathematics, and see of it imitates the physics. Thus we might find that the physics is a natural consequence of the relationship between control and communication.

In a nutshell physics measures the cardinal numbers of sets whose ordinals are continuously

[page 93]

changing by local process. The quantum logical process has different constraints from the propositional calculus. Turing, deterministic logic system that e use in computers. Let us say that quantum mechanics is uncertain not because individual processes are uncertain, but because we are observing the statistics of a network of processes, the network not being deterministic. The phone might ring at any moment and cause a substantial discontinuity in my writing and perhaps in my life.

We get clues from ordinary computers and networks.

A symmetry is not [so much] a mechanistic explanation as an absence of differentiation which defines a set of equivalent sets. At any moment, if we observe a system, we will find it working according to a certain clock frequency = energy.

Physics need not ask what spin it, but only needs its value to fit into the theory and predict the consequences.

A tennis ball is a point in a complex space of players, officials and spectators, not to mention arbitrary rules and physics.

IDENTITY - MAGNITUDE (John - 163 kg)

Stewart 279 Logical confinement: 'the quintic cannot be solved by radicals.' This means that a Turing machine cannot do it. 'You cannot get there from here'.

[page 94]

Evolution is the source of beauty. Love (attraction to perceived beauty) makes the world go round.

Depression (its not worth the trouble)
elation (no worries, driven by excitement I will climb the highest mountain etc.

Keep saying 'all measurement are counts' and count how many times you can say it. Nested loops.

Pure mathematics == independent income.

One day I hope to live by writing, but I am still in the position where I must have a day job to support the habit. My cutoff date is 65, but the situation is becoming a bit tedious. Here;s where theology becomes scientific: this is the reality and I must explain it without resorting to concepts like creator, sin, redemption, heaven and so on. An explanation welded to a certain ruling class or bureaucratic point of view.

One needs a creative bureaucracy. The dictatorial habit of dumbing down the bureaucracy and outsourcing the 'creative' work is to place the commons in the hands of elf interested entities.

CROWN= COMMONS (ie our common environment)

Working Assets: Peter Barnes. Barnes

[page 95]

As I think different things come into mind. I follow different trains of thought. It may be that these trains of thought are continuously present in my mind (part of a superposition) and only occasionally come into mind. This book records perhaps half of these trains of thought that exceed a certain threshold of interest and may fit somewhere into the structure of the natural religion project. From the model point of view my ego us communicating with different points in its environment, just as Horst did when he was embodied in a neutron star with billions of other people (Portrait of an abstract man). So I am a network of networks in a larger network.

RELIGION = ETHICS/PROTOCOLS The optimization of action based n a tested theological understanding of our environment. The lesson: big problems require parallelism which implies protocols of cooperation.

Energy is reduced by binding because efficiencies of scale resulting from the binding allow the real time rate of processing of the bound entities to be les than the total required by two independent entities.

Just as industrial processes are centered around the movement of materials, so computers spend a lot of time computing addresses. The addressing system of a computer is a set of locations (physical addresses) mapped onto a segment of the natural numbness (logical addresses).

A new model = a new mapping between a symbolic system and a set of physical measurements = messages from

[page 96]

god. We observe carefully prepared interactions in our measuring machines, but in reality reactions like this are happening all the time in chains or loops, as in chemical reactions with a catalyst.

A catalyst makes one particular reaction more frequent by lowering the energy barrier against it. The catalyzed reaction may come to dominate all the channels (side reactions)

LIFE = RATE CONTROL

Policy/Commons = god.

The basic driving force is morale, the depth and resilience to overcome adversity. No amount of morale, however, can overcome impossible odds, and here intelligence come into lay to manipulate the odds.

The theory of probability enables us to describe a flat space against which deviations from flatness may be measured. The mechanism of quantum mechanics describes a complex probability space which is in effect a flat space constrained by certain symmetries which appear as threads of control or causality and enable the construction of controlled systems from initially random elements. The system divides the class of operations into 'due process' and 'error' and the life of the system depends on keeping itself out of the error partition.

[page 97]

ERROR = OUTSIDE (LOCAL) PROTOCOL - LOCAL ERROR. We presume that an efficient system corrects its error as close to the source as possible in the 'data reduction pipeline'

LOCAL = AT AN EVENT. So the size of a locality depends on the size of the event we are considering: alpha decay or World War II.

Navigation : such is the power of human fantasy that we need to be grounded in science to make certain that we do not dream ourselves into extinction. Can we avoid this fate by conscious (explicit, public) feedback? Harry Potter, Image and reality (Prisoner) Rowling

Juggling the pieces. How many? Uncountable (using the natural numbers) but countable within some transfinite cardinal? We can imagine one to one correspondence at any cardinality.

MODEL = FANTASY WORLD

It is very hard to make a fire with one piece of wood. One needs two so that sufficient radiation is trapped to keep the reaction going. It is a question of 'critical mass' - sufficient photons (neutrons) must be captured to get the next generation to release its energy. Rate control again. We are trying to get a chain reaction, that is a logical or network continuum.

Tuesday 3 July 2007
Wednesday 4 July 2007
Thursday 5 July 2007
Friday 6 July 2007
Saturday 7 July 2007

Related sites

Concordat Watch

Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty


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Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Barnes, Peter, Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2006 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'In Capitalism 3.0, Peter Barnes redefines the debate about the costs and benefits of the operating system known as the free market. Despite clunky features, early versions of capitalism were somewhat successful. The current model, however, is packed with proprietary features that benefit a lucky few while threatening to crash the system for everyone else. Far from being "free," the market is accessible only to huge corporations that reap the benefits while passing the costs on to the consumer. Barnes maps out a better way. Drawn from his own career as a highly successful entrepreneur, the author's vision of capitalism includes alternatives to the current profit-driven corporate approach, new legal entities, and a more responsible use of markets and property rights. Capitalism 3.0 offers viable solutions to some of the country’s most pressing economic, environmental, and social concerns.' 
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Chaitin, Gregory J, Information, Randomness & Incompleteness: Papers on Algorithmic Information Theory, World Scientific 1987 Jacket: 'Algorithmic information theory is a branch of computational complexity theory concerned with the size of computer programs rather than with their running time. ... The theory combines features of probability theory, information theory, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, and recursive function or computability theory. ... [A] major application of algorithmic information theory has been the dramatic new light it throws on Gödel's famous incompleteness theorem and on the limitations of the axiomatic method. ...' 
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Elliott, Mary, and (Foreword by Paul Ehrlich), Ground for Concern, Penguin Books 1977 Preface: 'This book is neither a political manifesto nor a textbook on nuclear power. It is a reasoned statement of the concern that Australians, and people throughout the world, feel about the prospects of a nuclear future. The authors have tried to grapple honestly with the problems of the atomic age, which is our age. They have tried to speak about complex matters in plain language.' 
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James, Lawrence , Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India, The Softback preview 1998 Jacket: 'The Raj ... was always precarious. Its masters knew that it rested ultimately on the goodwill of the Indians, which was why pressure for self government was met with a mixture of compromise and sternness. The twists and turns of the struggle for independence are told with a wealth of fresh material. ' 
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Knox, Ronald, Let Dons Delight: Being Variations on a Theme in an Oxford Common Room, Sheed and Ward 1958 Jacket: When Mgr. Knox died, many of his panegyrists singled this book out as the best of its kind he ever wrote - which in this case is saying much. Certainy, he alone could have done it. To create eight sets of Simon Magus dons, from 1588 to 1938, conversing and arguing with eachother each in the very voice of his age and in terms of the topics of his day - for that you really have to know your Oxford, your dons, your history, classics and English literature.'back
Landrecker, Hannah, Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies, Harvard University Press 2007 Review New Scientist : 'The discovery that it was possible to grow cells in a lab dish transformed them from being the immutable building blocks of individual bodies into plastic, malleable resources with a life of their own. In Culturing Life, anthropologist Hannah Landecker skillfully interweaves the scientific, historical, and cultural aspects of this transformation, and examines how cell culture challenges humanity's notions of individuality and immortality...An insightful and thought-provoking perspective on how technology has changed scientists' and society's understanding of life.' --Claire Ainsworth 
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, and Robert M. Doran, Frederick E. Crowe (eds), Verbum : Word and Idea in Aquinas (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan volume 2) , University of Toronto Press 1997 Jacket: 'Verbum is a product of Lonergan's eleven years of study of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The work is considered by many to be a breakthrough in the history of Lonergan's theology ... . Here he interprets aspects in the writing of Aquinas relevant to trinitarian theory and, as in most of Lonergan's work, one of the principal aims is to assist the reader in the search to understand the workings of the human mind.' 
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Rowling, Joanne K, Harry Potter nd the Prisoner of Azkaban, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 2004 Amazon editorial review: 'For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig. As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black--an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban--is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works.' (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson 
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Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World as Will and Representation (Volume 1) (translated by E F J Payne), Dover 1969 Jacket: 'Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung is one of the most important philosophical works of the 19th century, the basic statement of one important stream of post-Kantian thought. It is without question Schopenhauer's greatest work, and, conceived and published before the philosopher was 30, and expanded 25 years later, it is the summation of a lifetime of thought.  
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Stewart, Ian, Why Beauty is Truth: A History of Symmetry, Basic Books/Perseus 2007 Jacket: ' ... Symmetry has been a key idea for artists, architects and musicians for centuries but within mathematics it remained, until very recently ,an arcane pursuit. In the twentieth century, however, symmetry emerged as central to the most fundamental ideas in physics and cosmology. Why beauty is truth tells its history, from ancient Babylon to twenty-first century physics.' 
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Links
Carl Hoefer Causal Determinism (Standord Encyclopaedia of Philosophy) 'We ought to regard the present state of the Universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligence knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the Universe, would be able to comprehend in one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well as the lightest atoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the future as well as the past would be present to its eyes. The perfection that the human mind has been able to give to astronomy affords but a feeble outline of such an intelligence. (Laplace 1820)' back
Eric W Weisstein Poisson Bracket -- from Wolfram MathWorld back
Holy See - Dei Verbum Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation 'Dei Verbum' SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI ON NOVEMBER 18, 1965, 'PREFACE 1. Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith, the sacred synod takes its direction from these words of St. John: "We announce to you the eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you, so that you may have fellowship with us and our common fellowship be with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:2-3). Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love.' back
Poisson bracket - Wikipedia Poisson bracket - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia 'In mathematics and classical mechanics, the Poisson bracket is an important operator in Hamiltonian mechanics, playing a central role in the definition of the time-evolution of a dynamical system in the Hamiltonian formulation. In a more general setting, the Poisson bracket is used to define a Poisson algebra, of which the Poisson manifolds are a special case. These are all named in honour of Siméon-Denis Poisson.' back

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