Notes
[Notebook: DB 58 Bringing god home]
[Sunday 16 April 2006 - Saturday 22 April 2006]
[page 94]
Sunday 16 April 2006
A connection to a network is equivalent to a superposition of every vector (file) on the network. The actual vector that we observe depends upon the query (set of constraints) that we issue to the network.
The whole 'bill of rights' is implied by the statement 'human beings are (ought to be) peers in the cosmic network, occupying the same peer level greater than the initial singularity and less than the 'ultimate user'
How do we explain the complexification of the Universe in network language? This is a query that I am posing (in the first instance) to my own neural network, or more generally, to myself which includes my local networks and the
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other networks to which I am or have been connected in the course of my growth.
The answer is that (given invariance with respect to complexity) my own growth parallels the growth of the Universe. I have grown by adding connections and correlating myself with elements of my environment.
COMMUNICATION increases entropy by duplication, like printing decreases entropy by correlation.
How do we resolve this?
The entropy of a source is a function of the number of letters in its alphabet. Once the elements of the alphabet have been distinguished the source can go on emitting symbols of the given entropy one after anther, so that the total energy becomes a function also of time.
How doe this relate to unitarity which we consider to imply conservation of entropy? The idea (with me for a very long time) as that the high frequency emission of low entropy symbols (the sort of thing going on just after the big bang) slowly gives way to the lower frequency emission of higher entropy symbols, so that the total bandwidth ('4-unitarity) of the Universe remains constant (at the physical layer?).
We all live at the boundary between the predictable [and the unpredictable]. Among unpredictable events are error (ie tripping over, road accidents, diseases, tsunamis etc) which set the system back while it recovers from the error. On the whole, uncorrected errors (like Adolph Hitler) tend to grow exponentially so that there is a premium on early detection and correction.
RELATIVITY of TRANSFINITY: The interface between necessity and chance looks the same to its peers at every level of complexity. We say the point of view of life between aleph(n) and aleph(n+1) is that aleph(n) is countable and computable from the
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point of view of aleph(n+1) and aleph(n+1) looks continuous and unpredictable (unresolved) from the point of view of aleph(n).
Since this situation holds for all n it is as meaningful to an atom as it is to whatever peer level is chosen as the local divinity. Local god = {local constraints}.
aleph(n) cannot resolve aleph(n+1)
Two meanings of continuum: not resolved, and connected (preferably topologically like a chain). A chain of logical reasoning (a proof) we may call a logical continuum, analogously a chain of reasoning. The common element across steps of an argument is traditionally called the middle term, the overlap between the 'input' and 'output' vectors of every step in the proof.
All day we field a flow of inputs and try to deal with them with an appropriate flow of outputs.
The assumption here is that if the model turns out to be a good fit to experience, any mathematical solecisms committed during model construction will ultimately either cancel out or be able to be worked around in a consistent and convincing way. So here goes;
Networks, by making memory space available to be shared by many processors increases the productivity of the computing resources enabling prediction and error correction to be projected further into the future and deviations to be corrected while they are still smaller. This is the asymptotic approach to perfection [that] Shannon opened given error correcting power (entropy) capable of dealing to a suitable degree of perfection [with] the error rate. Ultimately we want a figure near 100% perfection, but still leaving a bit of room for stabilizing selection - ie some bad to the wall.
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The worst thing is when people are convinced to accept social structures and beliefs that disadvantage them.
PEERHOOD : PEERAGE. No longer confined to a collection of chosen people, but to all people.
Monday 17 April 2006
Tuesday 18 April 2006
E = mc2 is a consequence of the conservation of momentum. If we consider a network of particles interacting by movement and collision in spacetime, the 'substance' (message) that is being communicated is momentum. The absence of communication is captured by Newton's first law, a body at rest will remain at rest and a body in motion will continue in motion on a right line unless acted upon by an outside force (ie unless it receives a message).
Everything that works works works because there is a repeating system. WORK = REPEAT, ie PERIODIC and DETERMINISTIC.
Halting Turing machine is periodic because it stops and we can reset it and start it again and it will do the same thing.
Start with special relativity, 3 space - 4 space, manifold, general relativity, all expressed as network. Then go quantum.
Wednesday 19 April 2006
Thursday 20 April 2006
Theology is the traditional theory of everything whose principal task is to talk about the human condition and what, if anything, we can and/or
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should, do about it. Since the end of the Second World War, the instrumental and communication technology wave broadened and deepened our understanding of ourselves and our world. A history of this process is recorded in periodicals such as Nature.
It may be that the fundamental ordering principle of science as a whole is the evolutionary paradigm. Things have come to be as they are by a series of incremental changes. This paradigm contrasts with the view that the world is an artifact of some invisible being which remains in control so that 'not a sparrow falls from the sky' (Matthew 10:29, Matthew). The evolutionary paradigm is open to the future. The 'artifact' view sees the human condition as something predetermined in the mind of the creator.
The evolutionary paradigm explains the creationist paradigm on the assumption that cooperation creates fitness. We may examine the human condition at different levels, beginning with physical and chemical constraints and moving on to social and political considerations. All the biological evidence points to the conclusion that we are leaves on the same evolving tree of life as all the other organisms around us. We are part of the deeper evolutionary history that carries us through cosmogenesis to the initial singularity.
A certain amount of altruism (cooperation at a cost) can be explained by kinship, but human groups have grown well beyond this bound, so that we are in effect cells in a larger organism. We produce various 'metabolites' and trade them on a global communication network. The cells in my body communicate effectively because they all share a set of protocols encoded in the individual copies of my genes. Religion, let us postulate, fulfills a similar role in human societies, being a
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shared set of protocols that enables fitness increasing 'trade' between members of a group. The root of such protocols is a shared expression of what we are trying to achieve.; and how it must be done. My ancestral religion, Roman Catholicism, has developed a vast (partly normative) literature on this subject. Catholic Encyclopaedia
There is no need to distinguish between creator and created. In the traditional view, things are as they are because god made them so, and there is nothing we can do about it. On the other hand, we give ourselves hope by attributing a benevolent personality to the creator (at least toward its favourites) so that all will be well in the end. The classical Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas devotes many pages to describing the vision of god. Aquinas 585 et sqq
On current assumptions, science is one way of looking at god, a very fitness ordered way. We can also look at god for fun.
