Notes
[Notebook Turkey, DB 55]
[Sunday 30 December 2001 - Saturday 5 January 2001]
[page 19]
Sunday 30 December 2001
Murder on the Orient Express: a very strange hypothesis which nevertheless (and by Agatha's design) is consistent with all the evidence, physical and psychological. Christie.
The existence of the 'Cantor transition' shows that any system, no
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matter how small (and binary is our base, since 1n = 1, so 1 will not do. In the reals, any n > 1 will do) can, through combination and permutation, grow into a system of unlimited size. We have seen how binary processing has grown to encompass the world.
The technical side of this story is very succinct. Applying it to the real world, or better, fitting it to the real world is the time consuming part. In the end the model will find favour when each of many people find that it fits every little circumstance in their life and provides a respectable estimate of the best thing to do in the circumstances. From a marketing point of view we proceed by testimonials and word of mouth. Since I am promoting this plan the first thing to do is to show its application in my own life.
This is done, in general terms, by the difference between the painful life reflected in the early notebooks and the gradual quiescence as a new post-Catholic view began to grow in me and find formal expression in the transfinite network. The transfinite network provides a outline of meaning (heuristic structure) for all my experience. Most particularly it shows that I am a partly free agent in a divine world, and consequently (if I extend the same concept to everybody) it is within our power to build heaven on earth, that is to correct all the errors of human existence (ie war, disease, poverty, hatred etc) to whatever degree of fineness we choose simply by constraining ourselves to the minimal disciplines required for error free communication.
Nevertheless, writing down the technicalities is taking a long time. At present I am going through my notebooks trying to see the history of my development in order to discover the best starting point for an exposition of my position (expression of my state vector). These notebooks are in effect data for my thesis, and hence my decision to publish excerpts despite their banality. Raw data, in general, makes up in volume for what it lacks in easily discernible interpretation.
[page 21]
Concrete divinity is incompressibly complex (and so apparently random), so that every event (point, moment) is unique and meaningful (as Lonergan requires of god). Chaitin, Lonergan. The difference here (my Copernican Revolution) is not in the data but in the model. The potency-act model used by Thomas and Lonergan is wrong in that it makes act prior to potency, when they are in fact just two equal (peer) manifestations of the same thing (energy). Aquinas. Here again, we have [historically] confused the model and the reality and preferred the model over the reality [idealism]. We are constrained to act on our models, which we have derived from the real and tested in action. But as the differences between Newton and Einstein show, two entirely different models may be observationally indistinguishable over quite a wide range of conditions, but ultimately we will find situations (eg black holes) where the differences are manifest.
Physics puts potential and kinetic energy on the same footing, and integrates their difference through the lifetime of an event to arrive at a [numerical] measure of the event called the Lagrangian. It finds, after careful measurement of many events, that nature acts so as to bring the Lagrangian to an extreme value (maximum or minimum). What actually transpires in an event is determined by the form of the potential associated with the event and potential energy becomes kinetic and vice versa according to the constraints imposed by potential and extremalisation.
We can represent a potential by a string of symbols. This text sets up a potential which moves your mind. The form or shape of this potential arises from my mind as I try to capture in English the form of my mind. I encode the potential, you decode the potential. What I have written may or may not move you, depending on whether you read it or not and how you read it. All interactions involve two or more potentials (eg the orbits of the components of the solar system are a product of the gravitational potential that they collectively create). This potential is dominated by the sun, but planets, moons, asteroids and even dust all add their share of influence and collectively move according to the changing form of the potential thus created.
And it is clear from our own experience that
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in any human interaction, all those present contribute to the potential milieu in which they move. This paradigm can extend to large numbers of people, nations or a planet. And it is clear that the quality of life of individuals in a collective depends very much on the form (esprit de corps) of the collective.
A computing machine is an arrangement of potentials that transforms an input vector (of particles coupled to the machine potentials) into an output vector.
Monday 31 December 2001
Tuesday 1 January 2002
Having spent the best part of December contemplating web publication of these notes verbatim as a data set for the theology page. I have decided against it [and changed my mind again later]. First, they are far too voluminous and fragmented. And second, unintelligible and often banal, reflecting the minutiae of experience that can best be accessed by general reference to the experiences of the reader. Also much of it seems to have a whingeing tone which, while it represents the pains that I have suffered in coming to terms with the world, is not necessarily part of the solution.
Waffling around with the notes has been valuable and it is interesting to see in retrospect how quietly each new element of the model has crept in even though many of the insights were very exciting at the time of occurrence. Rather than subjecting the reader to the confusing course I followed to get here, I would do a lot better to be able to produce an ordered and scientifically neutral account of my theological model of the world. This means a formal exposition, which means also some concentrated thought and writing. So we drop Notebooks but keep Synopsis and History.
Another advantage of this decision is that I am no longer writing here for publication, and so can be more honest, keeping the human personal details of The Theology Company behind the veil of incorporation where it belongs and dealing with the outside world through the medium of published literature in every medium and genre that is available.
And I don't want everyone reading some of the stuff I've written in these books, at least till I am dead. I thought for a while that it might be necessary to put up with this embarrassment in order to chart my course, but now I see that public resources are far richer and more appropriate through having undergone careful distillation by their editors, reviewers and authors. I can exhibit myself in the present by dancing or talking, and it is where I am that counts.
Back again to the 'article' which has been in preparation now for about twenty years, but I have been unable to dissect it out of its passionate matrix, so I can't help slagging the Church. We have to grow out of that and approach the whole question in a formal manner, taking the problems and their proposed solutions as they comes.
Science, as it is practised by people publishing papers in (eg) Nature has two distinct phases, which we might call modelling and fitting.
Wednesday 2 January 2002
Let the summary follow the outlines of the Summa, highlighting the differences between us and Thomas. Aquinas.
One worries a bit. I am getting older and perhaps losing my powers. But losses are balanced by gains: a slower mind and body by a wiser and more methodical approach. Wiser means dealing with more complex situations, ie avoiding unnecessary symmetrization. Method: don't panic.
Thinking time overcomes panic because it shows how good may be done and evil (error) avoided. Engineers and the like are concerned with the avoidance of error, while artists are dreaming up the goods to be constructed, like perhaps peace, happiness, etc. Part of our problem here comes from our rather strong and dangerous relationship with nature (which is threatening to burn us out), but part of it also comes from our relationship with one another. Something which could change much more rapidly (because of its abstract nature - lightness.
[page 24]
So the Theology Company is devoted to bringing about a sort of phase change in human attitudes to one another by altering the thermodynamic conditions under which people operate. This is called the cooperation/competition boundary.
TTC competes by cooperating and vice versa, like all other organisms. This situation is possible, because effective cooperation can yield net gain to all.
What is our goal? Let us say happy people living sustainably. This is a stable situation, to, in dynamic terms the goal of theology is to seek stable social and educational situations in the space determined by human nature and the nature of the planet.
This all seems high falutin', but can be made practical by finding algorithms at local level that 'complete' the process, like driving in a nail. The broad proposition is 'institute some degree of communal sharing = bonding'. So the global tax network.
What will this achieve? Should we devote the whole of TTC to this proposition.
The Theology Company - Prospectus.
Economic activity is based on the use of various resources to achieve certain ends. These ends fall into two classes which we might call agent and product. The agent (we assume) is concerned to achieve its own survival and growth. To do this it needs certain inputs (products) from other agents in the system (economy).
This book applies the methods of physics to the problems of theology. That such an approach is possible tells us a lot about the nature of our world. What we see around us and within us are structures with layer after layer of complexity, beginning as an undifferentiated point (the initial singularity) and expanding through
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time into unlimited complexity. From a physical point of view the point of maximum complexity is the classical heat death scenario, when every point in the Universe is at the same temperature and its entropy is at a maximum. Such a point is a long way off. From a theological point of view, heat death is not the point of maximum entropy, but rather some other more structured state whose complexity (entropy) comes from ordered structure rather than sheer mass. Here we have the fundamental structural component in our Universe, the relationship between numbers and their more powerful representation as exponents and logarithms. These things are operations that distinguish points in spacetime.
We model the logical NOT with physical ORTHOGONALITY.
A is not-B tells us just one point in A's existence, B, where it is not. It tells us nothing about all the other points in the Universe, U, of which A and B are part. We distinguish Universes by their cardinal numbers aleph(n), so to say A = not-B in aleph(n) is to determine one out of aleph(n) points relative to another.
The only point that is defined in [the peer group with cardinal number] aleph(n) is aleph(n-1), the cardinal of the set from which it is derived. So in any cardinal peer group aleph(n) we can define not-aleph(n) as the point aleph(n-1) from which it was generated. By this means we are able to say that the peer groups aleph(not = n) are all orthogonal to aleph(n), but this must also take into account that aleph(n) contains aleph(< n). This is overcome by noticing that naming sets by their cardinal numbers is very abstract. In the concrete world the transfinite ordinal numbers are large enough to map onto the space of real events and their meanings.
The fact that the fundamental theological position of the Christian religion is false (if it is true) means that in a consistent Universe, no evidence can be found in favour of it. In other words the only way that it can be maintained in existence is violence. It shares this feature with many other false theological, religious, political and economic beliefs and practices. The authoritarian and self-
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serving attitude that lies behind these defenses of the indefensible appear to be the source of all the violence on earth. In contrast, it may be postulated, beliefs and actions that are true to the nature of reality lead away from violence to peace.
The violence need not be physical. It can be psychological, and takes the general form of those in authority refusing to listen to their subjects. This appears to be the central feature of the Australian Catholic University's response to ideas put to it: they are beyond hearing. Outside the pale. Heresy.
But heresy means sticking to something counterfactual as described above. One does not have to stick to the truth, but flows along with it. TTC is the good guys, RCC are the heretics. But to make this stick requires a bit of very clear and faultless science, which is not yet available to me though the general drift is there. Is the Universe Divine can be divided into many questions, the first of which are how big is god? and Is the Universe as big as god?
So how big is god? We begin with the transfinite neural network. Is this as big as god? God contains all possible reality, that is (we shall say) all possible structure. Now the term structure implies complexity, and it is well established that god is omnino simplex. How does one measure a perfectly simple thing? The digression to deal with this question deals with the relationship of static and dynamic structure, revealing the orthogonal spectra of complexity and lifetime, the Universe of frequency,
Understanding, lifetime and the eternity of science. When I come back from Turkey all this will be just that much clearer.
We can learn about things by looking at them, as it were, from a great height. Since the beginning of recorded
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history, people have been trying to stand far enough back from life on earth to get a good glimpse of what it is all about. The scientific method is aimed to give us the greatest possible independence from preconceptions about the world around us. It achieves independence by relying on the data alone, giving secondary importance to the way the data are currently classified and understood. So TTC is open to hypotheses that Christianity will not consider.
Science is the study of connection = communication through spacetime.
Thursday 3 January 2002
Friday 4 January 2002
Is the Universe as big as god? Quantum computation, fitted to the transfinite network, says yes. Could this be wrong? We begin at the coarsest level, studying peer particles classified by cardinal number, ie the naturals and the alephs, which are images on one another. Behind the cardinal structure, and explaining it, is the ordinal structure. Its first task must be to explain special relativity.
Special relativity tells us the consequences of the fact that communications in spacetime are ordered locally but not globally. Something like this, but arguments about simultaneity apply to all systems where distance is measured by delay, in some way. This can be seen as spatial distance measuring how different structures are and time distances being the number of operations need to convert one into the other.
ACT = {CREATION, ANNIHILATION} with conservation of c (velocity of light) h (quantum of action) energy, momentum, spin and a whole lot of other 'constants'. Both creation and annihilation are proper to the divinity, and so QM falls in naturally with the idea that the Universe is divine.
The clincher (it must be) is that the qubit is a universal computer in the Turing etc sense, on the assumption that the complex numbers are really ordered pairs of real numbers. Lo.
And why not?
Complex numbers are operators in Hilbert space, and can be expanded by constructing more dimensions, ie independent degrees of freedom, into a structure as big as the transfinite network.
