Notes
[Notebook: Transfinite field theory DB 56]
[Sunday 11 April 2004 - Saturday 17 April 2004]
Sunday 11 April 2004
[page 66]
Monday 12 April 2004
We may divide political-economic views into two categories (in
fact superposed): those who think one person becoming rich causes
others to become poor; those who think that one person becoming rich
causes other to become rich,
PLUNDER vs INDUSTRY
[page 67]
Tuesday 13 April 2004
How do we link uncertainty and the E-theorem? Via metric which
says in a closed system with one outcome (of a range of
possibilities), the probabilities of the possibilities sum to 1. The
E-theorem tells us that in a range of probabilities pi (i
is an aleph), the sum of the probabilities i is an ℵ0 is almost
equal to the sum of the probabilities i is an ℵ1, ie the high
probability set carries almost all the entropy.
Wednesday 14 April 2004
Thursday 15 April 2004
It all comes down to trust (ie accurate communication) and breach
of trust (error, in favour of one party against the other). Inside
job, outside job, killers, thieves, robbers, warlords, embezzlers,
traits etc etc. All breaches of trust in different environments.
One can either run a system based on trust or policing or a
mixture of both. Policing is primarily aimed at error prevention,
partly by environmental modification, partly by detecting errors and
punishing them to deter the others. Carrot and stick.
My mental landscape. An excellent metaphor : energy landscape,
potential landscape, neural network.
The theology company is the consulting wing of the natural
religion project. We cannot resist calling these two turnip and
tactic, even though they are hardly precise acronyms.
Many outcomes are possible. Over a large number of identical
trials (in simple quantum systems) one can see that events (like
capturing an electron at point x) can eventually fall into a pattern
described by a wave function. The computational complexity
[page 68]
of quantum mechanics is such that we seek the simplest possible
systems to study (one electron and one photon is ideal) but we know
that these systems are not truly isolated but, every now and then,
communicate with the outside world. From the point of view of the
experimenter this is decoherence - from organized to random action.
In order to fit in the whole quantum system, we need the transfinite
network.
The stock market serves as a simple numerical model in which each
of the traders tries (possibly) to maximize values such as income,
security, volatility (or lack of) volume, and so on. The underlying
'technical' value of the share do not explain all the variation in
[prices].
At its most abstract we may think of life as a series of continua
chained together like links by a series of events. The study of
motion comes down to studying the continua (stases) before and after
an event in order to learn what the event did.
Friday 16 April 2004
Saturday 17 April 2004
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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!)
Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation, Basic Books 1985 Amazon.com: 'This book is a must-read not only for students (broadly defined) of the social sciences, but also for politicians and bureaucrats, especially those in charge of military and foreign affairs. Axelrod's book is a tour-de-force in multi-method approaches. Although the author is a trifle repetitive and occasionally laborious, I think the profound content of the book far outweighs the minor inadequacies of its form. At the risk of sounding like a logical positivist, I would venture to say that Axelrod's approach offers hope for a bottom-up construction of cooperation in an uncertain world without a central authority.' Reeshad Dalal
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Bin Laden, Osama, and Bruce Lawrence (editor), James Howarth (translator), Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, Verso 2005 From Publishers Weekly
'Notable for its scope and comprehensiveness, this collection of 24 newly translated public statements by Osama bin Laden offers a nuanced and revealing view of Public Enemy No. 1. Best suited for those whose knowledge of bin Linden is based upon brief, pixilated clips or quotes gleaned from news accounts, the book will provide those who have studied the man and his rarified interpretation of Islam with little, if anything, that is new. Tracing bin Laden's ascendancy from the disgruntled Saudi exile of 1994 whose letters of complaint had a nearly timid tone (in a December 1994 letter to a Saudi judicial leader, bin Laden addresses the recipient as "Honorable sheikh" and writes, "we pray that you do not take these words out of turn or consider them to overstep the limits of etiquette.") to the bombastic jihadist leader in hiding with a $50-million bounty on his head, his statements depict not only a fiery communicator with a knack for manipulating traditional Islamic beliefs, but a revolutionary figure whose romanticized view of himself and his cause carries echoes of iconic revolutionaries past. Familiarity with the Koran will help readers contextualize and evaluate bin Laden's claims (footnotes citing Koranic passages accompany each invocation), though even the uninitiated will have no trouble in identifying arguably willful misinterpretations. (Bin Laden cites, for instance, a verse that concludes, "God has endless bounty and knowledge," to support cautioning "Muslims to be very wary and careful about befriending Jews and Christians.") Those looking for a comprehensive and unexpurgated explanation of the man behind contemporary radical Islam have a powerful reference here.'
Copyright © Reed Business Information
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Butler, E M, The Myth of the Magus, Cambridge University Press 1993 Amazon product description: 'The Magus, a legendary magician of superhuman powers, is an archetype central to myth and religion across many cultures. Identifying its anthropological origins in ancient rituals performed by a shaman or wizard to ensure the prosperity of his tribe, E. M. Butler goes on to trace its subsequent development in pre-Christian religious and mystic philosophers, in medieval sorcerers and alchemists, and finally in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century occult revival. From Zoroaster to Solomon, Merlin to Faust, Cagliostro to Rasputin, legends of the Magus are explored and where possible compared with the historical record in this fascinating account, first published in 1948, of one of the major figures in religious and occult mythology.'
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Coll, Steve, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, Penguin (Non-Classics) 2009 From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Milton Viorst
'Change the names and locations, and Steve Coll's marvelous book about the bin Laden family would begin like a familiar American saga. An illiterate youth arrives in a land of opportunity from his impoverished homeland and, by dint of ambition, talent and hard work, becomes immensely rich and powerful. He collects properties, airplanes, luxury cars and women -- tastes he passes on to his sons. He earns a niche in the pantheon of great builders of his adopted country.
The youth is Mohamed bin Laden, justly venerated in Saudi Arabia. But collective memory plays funny tricks, and in the West he will be permanently remembered as the father of Osama. The bin Ladens, though their Horatio Alger story overlaps Western experience, emerge as unmistakably Middle Eastern -- to the point of being torn asunder by today's religious struggles. Coll, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Washington Post managing editor, leaves the psychology to his readers. He prefers writing on economics and politics, leavening them with anecdotes and gossip; the result is a fascinating panorama of a great family, presented within the context of the 9/11 drama. . . . '
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Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin 2006 Amazon Editorial Review
From Publishers Weekly
'The antireligion wars started by Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris will heat up even more with this salvo from celebrated Oxford biologist Dawkins. For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe. But Dawkins, who gave us the selfish gene, anticipates this criticism. He says it's the scientist and humanist in him that makes him hostile to religions—fundamentalist Christianity and Islam come in for the most opprobrium—that close people's minds to scientific truth, oppress women and abuse children psychologically with the notion of eternal damnation. While Dawkins can be witty, even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: the biblical Yahweh is "psychotic," Aquinas's proofs of God's existence are "fatuous" and religion generally is "nonsense." The most effective chapters are those in which Dawkins calms down, for instance, drawing on evolution to disprove the ideas behind intelligent design. In other chapters, he attempts to construct a scientific scaffolding for atheism, such as using evolution again to rebut the notion that without God there can be no morality. He insists that religion is a divisive and oppressive force, but he is less convincing in arguing that the world would be better and more peaceful without it.' Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Koestler, Arthur , The Act of Creation, Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 5, 1990)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140191917
ISBN-13: 978-0140191912 1990 Preface to the Danube Edition: '... this book proposes a theory of art and of creation - of the conscious and unconscious processes underlying scientific discovery, artistic originality, and comic inspiration. It endeavours to show that all creative activities have a basic pattern in common, and to outline that pattern.'
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Nielsen, Michael A, and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2000 Review: A rigorous, comprehensive text on quantum information is timely. The study of quantum information and computation represents a particularly direct route to understanding quantum mechanics. Unlike the traditional route to quantum mechanics via Schrödinger 's equation and the hydrogen atom, the study of quantum information requires no calculus, merely a knowledge of complex numbers and matrix multiplication. In addition, quantum information processing gives direct access to the traditionally advanced topics of measurement of quantum systems and decoherence.' Seth Lloyd, Department of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Nature 6876: vol 416 page 19, 7 March 2002.
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Noble, David F, The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention, Penguin Books 1999 Introduction: 'It is the aim of this book to demonstrate that the present enchantment with things technological ... is rooted in religious myths and ancient imaginings. Althought today's technologists, in their sober pursuit of utility, power and profit, seem to set society's standard for rationality ... their true inspiration lies elsewhere, in an enduring, other-worldly quest for transcendence and salvation.'
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Woodward, Rob, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981 - 1987, Simon & Schuster 2005 From Library Journal
'Woodward's books on Watergate, the Supreme Court, and John Belushi were not so controversial as Veil. His deathbed visit to William Casey, former CIA head, has been disputed by Casey's wife. What Woodward knew about Casey's Iran-contra role was apparently withheld from Congress. All this smoke has drawn attention from the fire. Woodward's tale of attempted murders, payoffs to foreign leaders, covert contra aid, covert aid to Britain in the Falklands War, and anti-terrorist squads is formidable. He presents Casey's CIA as a dangerously illegal loose cannon on the deck of U.S. foreign policy.' Richard B. Finnegan, Stonehill Coll., North Easton, Mass.
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Zee, Anthony, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Princeton University Press 2003 Amazon book description: 'An esteemed researcher and acclaimed popular author takes up the challenge of providing a clear, relatively brief, and fully up-to-date introduction to one of the most vital but notoriously difficult subjects in theoretical physics. A quantum field theory text for the twenty-first century, this book makes the essential tool of modern theoretical physics available to any student who has completed a course on quantum mechanics and is eager to go on.
Quantum field theory was invented to deal simultaneously with special relativity and quantum mechanics, the two greatest discoveries of early twentieth-century physics, but it has become increasingly important to many areas of physics. These days, physicists turn to quantum field theory to describe a multitude of phenomena.
Stressing critical ideas and insights, Zee uses numerous examples to lead students to a true conceptual understanding of quantum field theory--what it means and what it can do. He covers an unusually diverse range of topics, including various contemporary developments,while guiding readers through thoughtfully designed problems. In contrast to previous texts, Zee incorporates gravity from the outset and discusses the innovative use of quantum field theory in modern condensed matter theory.
Without a solid understanding of quantum field theory, no student can claim to have mastered contemporary theoretical physics. Offering a remarkably accessible conceptual introduction, this text will be widely welcomed and used.
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Links
| Armageddon - Wikipedia Armageddon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Armageddon is the site of an epic battle associated with the end time prophecies of the Abrahamic religions. back |
| Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada Catholic Press Association 'Founded in 1911, the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada offers all who work in the Catholic media field the opportunity to be part of something bigger than their own communication vehicle. With more than 600 member organizations, the CPA reaches over 26 million people, giving voice to the church and witness to the presence of God in the 21st century. back |
| Rolf Landauer Information is a Physical Entity 'Abstract: This paper, associated with a broader conference talk on the fundamental physical limits of information handling, emphasizes the aspects still least appreciated. Information is not an abstract entity but exists only through a physical representation, thus tying it to all the restrictions and possibilities of our real physical Universe. The mathematician's vision of an unlimited sequence of totally reliable operations is unlikely to be implementable in this real Universe. Speculative remarks about the possible impact of that, on the ultimate nature of the laws of physics are included.' [Pay site] back |
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