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vol VII: Notes

2018

Notes

Sunday 13 May 2018 - Saturday 19 May 2018

[Notebook: DB 82: Life and Death]

[page 146]

Sunday 13 May 2018

The problem of evil is solved by creating conditions for the existence of p and not-p, since we define evil as an actual live contradiction. This condition is the existence of space-time, so the answer to the question, can we maintain without contradiction that God is omnipotent explains the emergence of space-time in reality = god. The first inkling of this development is the Trinity. We want to go beyond the questions asked by this course about the existence of God to study the nature of God forced by logical consistency and omnipotence.

[page 147]

So we conclude that the first product of the omnipotence of to be is the universe described by general relativity.

Monday 14 May
Tuesday 15 May 2018

If we are going to be dyed in the wool monists we cannot allow for emergence but must accept that the Universe is intelligent and conscious from the beginning and each new layer of complexity is just a natural outgrowth of the layer beneath it. So we want to make all five essays to act as chapters in a longer essay. We begin with 1101, Argument and Critical Thinking, which is fundamentally Aristotelian logic gussied up with Venn diagrams and a bit of work on errors. delusions, pseudo-science and rhetoric. The 1102 Mind and World, an introduction to philosophy and the logical exploration of the world through the application of the mind. 2030 takes us deeper into this, studying just how the mind works, minds, brains and computers. Mind is a network, and the network is rooted in quantum mechanics. 2051, Art, perception and creativity takes us somewhat into applied mind, and finally 3032, [Philosophy of] religion brings us to the root issue, the nature of God and the Universe as a whole. We might see this text as a [draft of a] prolegomena to the sequence of five essays that complete my first semester of philosophy.

The Devil's Violinist, Paganini Niccolo Paganini - Wikipedia

Wednesday 16 May 2018

We are going for complete monism for the whole of

[page 148]

reality, which means that we cannot allow two realities, God and the world, one absolutely alien to the other, or, more logically, God is not-world. So we must identify God and the world. So far as I can see, monists are apt to call themselves materialists, perhaps because philosophers lie to the left and have some sympathy for Marx and dialectical materialism. This, it seems to me, is a mistake. The true monism should be named for its major component, which is god or spirit, so instead of calling myself a materialist which rankles, I must call myself a spiritualist, but like all other words this word has a history which is not all pleasant, but we must take the Lewis Caroll approach and demand that we be allowed to make words mean what we want them to mean. The only matter we might admit to the world is the formless stuff we call existence which is in a sense described by the continuous mathematics of differential manifolds and their first incarnation as symbols in the dimensions of Hilbert space. One advantage of the spiritualist approach to monism is that it embraces consciousness as a natural product of communication. I am conscious of myself through the communication within me between various elements (modules) of myself. Consciousness is made mysterious in a community that can only see matter where there is in fact spirit, ie information processing and communication. So with pornography. We see the sexual behaviour while ignoring the conscious emotion (spiritual dynamics) that lies behind it. Spiritualism (beliefs) - Wikipedia

Thursday 17 May 2018

If we are going to be seriously monist, we must

[page 149]

accept that every event, ie every action, is a pure act, ie identical to God, a person just like the persons of the Trinity. Every quantum action is a subset of god. This is an example of scale invariance, which is possible since act, that is coming to be, is scale free. So we go from Trinity to transfinity. How does this relate to omnipresence and omnipotence?

What is the defining characteristic of God? Actus purus In the Aristotelian model we have the axiom that no potential can realise itself. This is not so in the life of God according to Thomas nor in a pendulum, nor in quantum mechanics. So how does force and structure enter this?

Friday 18 May 2018

We have discussed the omnipotence of God in the stone lifting dilemma, which does not make much sense in a physical way. Since then we have gone 100% monist. Since we think of God as a mind, we are also inclined to think of the Universe as a mind, since we identify them. As a consequence the divine omnipotence is not so much about God's ability to move stones as its ability to move minds. So can God make us all think what it wants us to think? It would appear empirically not to be so since we would expect God to require at a minimum that we all believe in it and this does not appear to be so, suggesting that God is impotent when it comes to enforcing this belief. On the other hand we should like to think that a Church acting as God's proxy on earth would to everything in its [power] to steer all the minds in the universe toward

[page 150]

a true understanding of the nature of God which, on the assumption that God and the Universe are identical, means a true understanding of the nature of the Universe.

Once we identify God and the Universe we solve the problems of knowledge, impotence and providence in one move, and we also introduce thoroughgoing monism since all is now formally equal to god and we have a fully spiritualist rather than materialist world. Monism - Wikipedia

This line of argument is similar to the track followed by Aquinas from basic principles and tautologies to his theory of God. Can we get any scientific backing for this conclusion? Yes, first the modern version of Aquinas' theory of motion and life and second the observation that quantum mechanics describes an information processing network which is isomorphic, up to scale, with the human central nervous system. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae I, 18, 3: Is life properly attributed to God?, Energy - Wikipedia, Quantum information - Wikipedia

Saturday 19 May 2018

Can I really make the divine universe stick? It does seem prima facie completely obvious and the evidence seems to mount up, particularly in the information processing power of quantum mechanics and the absence of the necessary representing vehicle in an absolutely simple god to account for omniscience, omnipotence and providence. We can wheel in Turing, Gödel, requisite variety, etc etc to show that even God cannot be deterministic and the whole thing is a shoo-in, to be locked up in a 2500 word essay for 3020, the philosophy of religion. Alan Turing, Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia, Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia

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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!)

Beale, R, and T Jackson, Neural Computing: An Introduction, Adam Hilger 1991 Jacket: '. . . starts from basics and goes on to cover all the most important approaches to the subject. . . . The capabilities, advantages and disadvantages of each model are discussed as are possible applications of each. The relationship of the models developed to the brain and its functions are also explored.' 
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Christie, Agatha, Taken at the Flood, Collins Crime 2000  
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Cohan, William D, Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World672 pages Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (January 10, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 0767928261 ISBN-13: 978-0767928267, Anchor 2012 Amazon customer review: 'Every now and then, someone comes along and writes a book, and in the process lays out a new framework of understanding with such exquisite detail that the average reader's generalized understanding of how the world works is blown away, and a new understanding becomes the norm. This is EXACTLY what author William Cohan has achieved with "Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World."' Richard Stoyeck 
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Davis, Martin, Computability and Unsolvability, Dover 1982 Preface: 'This book is an introduction to the theory of computability and non-computability ususally referred to as the theory of recursive functions. The subject is concerned with the existence of purely mechanical procedures for solving problems. . . . The existence of absolutely unsolvable problems and the Goedel incompleteness theorem are among the results in the theory of computability that have philosophical significance.' 
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Hofstadter, Douglas R, I Am a Strange Loop, Basic Books 2007 Amazon Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly 'Hofstadter—who won a Pulitzer for his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach—blends a surprising array of disciplines and styles in his continuing rumination on the nature of consciousness. Eschewing the study of biological processes as inadequate to the task, he argues that the phenomenon of self-awareness is best explained by an abstract model based on symbols and self-referential "loops," which, as they accumulate experiences, create high-level consciousness. Theories aside, it's impossible not to experience this book as a tender, remarkably personal and poignant effort to understand the death of his wife from cancer in 1993—and to grasp how consciousness mediates our otherwise ineffable relationships. In the end, Hofstadter's view is deeply philosophical rather than scientific. It's hopeful and romantic as well, as his model allows one consciousness to create and maintain within itself true representations of the essence of another. The book is all Hofstadter—part theory, some of it difficult; part affecting memoir; part inventive thought experiment—presented for the most part with an incorrigible playfulness. And whatever readers' reaction to the underlying arguments for this unique view of consciousness, they will find the model provocative and heroically humane.' (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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Lo, Hoi-Kwong, and Tim Spiller, Sandra Popescu, Introduction to Quantum Computation and Information, World Scientific 1998 Jacket: 'This book provides a pedagogical introduction to the subjects of quantum information and computation. Topics include non-locality of quantum mechanics, quantum computation, quantum cryptography, quantum error correction, fault tolerant quantum computation, as well as some experimental aspects of quantum computation and quantum cryptography. A knowledge of basic quantum mechanics is assumed.' 
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McGregor, Richard, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, Harper 2010 Amazon editorial review: From Publishers Weekly 'McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China's Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes--and are highlighted in the Party™s handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has--and has not--met the challenge. ' Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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Monk, Ray, Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Vintage ex Jonathan Cape 1990 1990 Review: 'With a subject who demands passionate partisanship, whose words are so powerful but whose actions speak louder, it must have been hard to write this definitive, perceptive and lucid biography. Out goes Norman Malcolm's saintly Wittgenstein, Bartley's tortured, impossibly promiscuous Wittgenstein, and Brian McGuinness's bloodless, almost bodiless Wittgenstein. This Wittgenstein is the real human being: wholly balanced and happily eccentric . . . ' The Times 
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Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...' 
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Weinberg, Steven, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Basic Books 1993 Preface: 'The present book is concerned with the early unvierse, and in particular with the new understanding of the early universe that has grown out of the discovery of the cosmic microwave radiation background in 1965.'  
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Papers

Marks, Johnathan, "Long shadow of Linnaeus's human taxonomy", Nature, 447, 7140, 3 May 2007, page 28. 'It has taken two and a half centuries to shed Linnaeus's fallacy that the human species comes taxonomically organized into a few large, natural groups that are fairly homogeneous and fairly distinct from one another. We have come to understand, rather, that the predominant patters of human variation are cultural, polymorphic, clinal and local.'. back

Nature editorial, , "Hard to defend: US missile defence plans require scrutiny", Nature, 447, 7140, 3 May 2007, page 2. 'The utility and value of missile defence systems remains unproven, but the United States plans to go ahead and deploy one in Eastern Europe nevertheless.'. back

Nature first author, , "Robert Eichler", Nature, 447, 7140, 3 May 2007, page xi. 'In our home countries we are all in similar positions politically - we fight for financial support from our governments and from other funds in order to gain high-quality results. In this respect, every scientific community in the world speaks the same language.'. back

Links

Al Jazeera News, Major milestones of Iran's nucear program, 'In December 1953, US President Dwight Eisenhower stood before the United Nations to deliver his "Atoms for Peace" speech. In his address, he detailed a policy seeking to provide technology and educational resources for friendly nations interested in developing a nuclear programme for civilian purposes, including energy production. As an ally of the United States, Iran became one of the first beneficiaries of the programme. In 1957, the two countries signed an agreement in Washington, DC, formalising their cooperation in order for Tehran to begin developing atomic energy for civilian purposes.' back

Alan Turing, On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem, 'The "computable" numbers may be described briefly as the real numbers whose expressions as a decimal are calculable by some finite means. Although the subject of this paper is ostensibly the computable numbers, it is almost equally easy to define and investigate computable functions of an integral variable of a real or computable variable, computable predicates and so forth. . . . ' back

Energy - Wikipedia, Energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediax, 'In physics and other sciences, energy ,. . . is a scalar physical quantity that is a property of objects and systems which is conserved by nature. Energy is often defined as the capacity to do work. Several different forms of energy, such as kinetic, potential, thermal, electromagnetic, chemical, nuclear, and mass have been defined to explain all known natural phenomena. Energy is converted from one form to another, but it is never created or destroyed. This principle, the conservation of energy, was first postulated in the early 19th century, and applies to any isolated system. According to Noether's theorem, the conservation of energy is a consequence of the fact that the laws of physics do not change over time.' back

Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia, Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia, 'Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The two results are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible, giving a negative answer to Hilbert's second problem. The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an "effective procedure" (i.e., any sort of algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the relations of the natural numbers (arithmetic). For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that such a system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.' back

Hamad Dabashi, Rosa Luxemburg: Th unsing hero of postcolonial theory, 'By giving detailed accounts of the British economic atrocities in India, and French colonialism in Algeria, Rosa Luxemburg anticipated the more detailed accounts of postcolonial theories by decades. By bringing the presumed margins of self-centring Europe to global consciousness, she enabled the postcolonial theorist a veritable voice at the worldwide gathering of critical Marxist thinking.' back

Hylomorphism - Wikipedia, Hylomorphism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Hylomorphism (Greek ὑλο- hylo-, "wood, matter" + -morphism < Greek μορφή, morphē, "form") is a philosophical theory developed by Aristotle, which analyzes substance into matter and form. Substances are conceived of as compounds of form and matter.' back

John Paul II, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, '27. Every Catholic University, without ceasing to be a University, has a relationship to the Church that is essential to its institutional identity. As such, it participates most directly in the life of the local Church in which it is situated; at the same time, because it is an academic institution and therefore a part of the international community of scholarship and inquiry, each institution participates in and contributes to the life and the mission of the universal Church, assuming consequently a special bond with the Holy See by reason of the service to unity which it is called to render to the whole Church. One consequence of its essential relationship to the Church is that the institutional fidelity of the University to the Christian message includes a recognition of and adherence to the teaching authority of the Church in matters of faith and morals. Catholic members of the university community are also called to a personal fidelity to the Church with all that this implies. Non-Catholic members are required to respect the Catholic character of the University, while the University in turn respects their religious liberty. back

Monism - Wikipedia, Monism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Monism attributes oneness or singleness (Greek: μόνος) to a concept e.g., existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished: Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them e.g., in Neoplatonism everything is derived from The One. In this view only one thing is ontologically basic or prior to everything else. Existence monism posits that, strictly speaking, there exists only a single thing, the Universe, which can only be artificially and arbitrarily divided into many things. Substance monism asserts that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance. Substance monism posits that only one kind of stuff exists, although many thing may be made up of this stuff, e.g., matter or mind.' back

Niccolo Paganini - Wikipedia, Niccolo Paganini - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Niccolò (or Nicolò) Paganini (Italian: [ni(k)koˈlɔ ppaɡaˈniːni] (About this sound listen); 27 October 1782 – 27 May 1840) was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices for Solo Violin Op. 1 are among the best known of his compositions, and have served as an inspiration for many prominent composers.' back

Paul Daley, The National Picture: overwhelming reminder of wilful gaps in Australian history, 'Interrogating Australia’s missing history – all of those events around the colonial frontier that so many of us never heard about at school or read of in the history texts that supposedly guided us – is a fraught but critical responsibility of our leading cultural institutions. The National Gallery of Australia, no stranger to telling the stories of frontier war – most recently in last year’s third annual Indigenous art triennial, Defying Empire – has taken a welcome and courageous step with The National Picture: the art of Tasmania’s Black War.' back

Quantum information - Wikipedia, Quantum information - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum mechanics, quantum information is physical iIn physics and computer science, quantum information is information that is held in the state of a quantum system. Quantum information is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using engineering techniques known as quantum information processing. Much like classical information can be processed with digital computers, transmitted from place to place, manipulated with algorithms, and analyzed with the mathematics of computer science, so also analogous concepts apply to quantum information. While the fundamental unit of classical information is the bit, in quantum information it is the qubit.' back

Robyn J.Whittaker, How the Bible helped shape Australian culture, back

Spiritualism (beliefs) - Wikipedia, Spiritualism (beliefs) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Spiritualism is a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at least two fundamental substances, matter and spirit. This very broad metaphysical distinction is further developed into many and various forms by the inclusion of details about what spiritual entities exist such as a soul, the afterlife, spirits of the dead, deities and mediums; as well as details about the nature of the relationship between spirit and matter. It may also refer to the philosophy, doctrine, or religion pertaining to a spiritual aspect of existence.' back

The Guardian, Latest news, sport and comment from the Guardian, 'The Manchester Guardian was founded by John Edward Taylor in 1821, and was first published on May 5 of that year. The paper's intention was the promotion of the liberal interest in the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre and the growing campaign to repeal the Corn Laws that flourished in Manchester during this period. The Guardian was published weekly until 1836 when it was published on Wednesday and Saturday becoming a daily in 1855, when the abolition of Stamp Duty on newspapers permitted a subsequent reduction in cover price (to 2d) allowed the paper to be published daily.' back

Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae I, 18, 3, Is life properly attributed to God?, Life is in the highest degree properly in God. In proof of which it must be considered that since a thing is said to live in so far as it operates of itself and not as moved by another, the more perfectly this power is found in anything, the more perfect is the life of that thing. ' back

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Wikipedia, Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (10 December 1948 at Palais de Chaillot, Paris). The Guinness Book of Records describes the UDHR as the "Most Translated Document" . . . in the world. The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. It consists of 30 articles which have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions and laws. The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols. In 1966 the General Assembly adopted the two detailed Covenants, which complete the International Bill of Human Rights; and in 1976, after the Covenants had been ratified by a sufficient number of individual nations, the Bill took on the force of international law.' back

Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia, Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The term Variety was introduced by W. Ross Ashby to denote the count of the total number of states of a system. The condition for dynamic stability under perturbation (or input) was described by his Law of Requisite Variety. Ashby says: Thus, if the order of occurrence is ignored, the set {c, b, c, a, c, c, a, b, c, b, b, a} which contains twelve elements, contains only three distinct elements- a, b, c. Such a set will be said to have a variety of three elements. He adds The observer and his powers of discrimination may have to be specified if the variety is to be well defined. Variety can be stated as an integer, as above, or as the logarithm to the base 2 of the number i.e. in bits.' back

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