Notes
[Sunday 29 November 2009 - Saturday 5 December 2009]
[Notebook: DB 68 Salalah]
[page 106]
Sunday 29 November 2009
The creative force comes from the 'lure of the real', ie the attraction of real entropy.
[page 107]
The 'Cantor Force' comes into existence when all the conditions for the 'truth' of Cantor's theorem are fulfilled, ie an ordered set of symbols (the natural numbers) and freedom to permute or subset these numbers (dynamical freedom) and the formal constraints of consistency.
We have a ratchet here - once a potentially stable system becomes real (a self-sustaining [fatal] error free control loop) it keeps itself real, ie survives. Lonergan insists that the real be intelligible and a closed loop (like the functioning of a piston engine) is the epitome of intelligibility. Lonergan
The real is dynamic. The intelligible form is the set of fixed points in this dynamic, ie the hardware structure of an engine, which we can understand and create in order to enable the dynamics of the formal heat engine to become real.
Couple these ideas to lust, the most powerful potential our young lives when our habits are forming. What happens to Taliban people, that they should fear lust so much that they tread women with violent and often deadly repression?Taliban - Wikipedia Latifa
Crooked House: most novels express the fixed points in the personalities explored thorugh the dynamics of their interactions, either physical (sex, violence, etc) or linguistic (logical). Christie
LOGICAL = EXPRESSED in WORDS
In the physical world, the words (physically embodied symbols) interact directly from their own nature, whereas human words get their effect from the mental systems
[page 108]
that use them as part of a larger symbolic communication.
Physical symbols play themselves, and are given roles by metaphysical structures (logical structures).
PHYSICAL vs LOGICAL (METAPHYSICAL)
By infinite we mean not so much large as undefined, although from a geometric point of view a space without boundaries may be considered very large.
LOGICAL INFINITY = NOT DEFINED (VARIABLE)
The degree of non-definition is measured by entropy, of definition by information, and we can write I = kS, I = information, S = entropy.
Macquarie Infrastructure: Religion is the most fundamental infrastructure in society. Macquarie Group Limited
A fundamental reality for most instances of life is that they have to work for a living, that is be subject to certain constraints in order to enjoy the freedom of having a living. From the network point of view, the constraint is a cardinal one, limiting and specifying the number of letters [subprocesses] in the alphabet whose permutations are potential states of life.
Logical confinement = potential well.
Monday 30 November 2009
[page 109]
Religion has traditionally been under the control of tightly held private institutions with no public accountability and the conviction that they possess unassailable and irreformable truth. It would be good to replace this model with a public corporation whose research and development are subject to acceptable scientific practices and whose financial operations are subject to public scrutiny.
Whitehead An Enquiry . . . Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead - Wikipedia
A quantum mechanical observable (matrix, ordered set) is the form of an event.
Whitehead page 61: '. . . events are essentially elements of actuality and elements of becomingness [?]. An actual event is this divested of all possibility. It can never happen again; for essentially it is just itself there and then. An event is just what it is and how it is related, and nothing else.'
SUPERPOSITION = 'AND' (where in quantum mechanics the values 'anded' are normalized vectors.
Tuesday 1 December 2009
We may see mystery from two viewpoints: first, something is mysterious because there is nothing to be known, ie no determinate structure; and second, there is something to be known, but it is not yet known. Many accept the mechanism of quantum mechanics as falling into the first category, ie there is no mechanism and we should stop beating our heads on it. Insofar as the world does have predictable behaviour, there must be something there, however, and we accept
[page 110]
that it is all expressed in the probability density functions of quantum mechanics. How these actually work is mysterious (to me) but I feel that there is something there to be known.
Religion, to be effective, must eventually move out of the control of secretive, authoritarian private organisations and be developed and paid for publicly and transparently. I have in mind something like a public corporation heavy on research and development, delivering valuable intellectual property to the community.
We control the world by guiding the flow of probability. We can say that there are ℵ0 elementary events in progress at any point; what we want to do is encourage events favourable to ourselves (like the germination and growth of seeds) and discourage unfavourable events (like the seeds being eaten by insects). This guidance is achieved by logical control of physical events which are otherwise 'random'. The foundation of the world insofar as it is purely physical with no control is purely random, like a die. By changing the form of the die ('loading') we change the pattern of outcomes.
For the network, 'causality' is formally expressed by logical implication, which is imagined geometrically as 'containment'. On our picture, God is in some sense contains the world and so serves as its logical cause, rather as potential wells cause structure in quantum mechanics by containing systems like the electronic structures of atoms.
So, in my current job, the set of actions necessary
[page 111]
to plaster and paint a room are contained in and implied by the structure of a painted room. The 'knowhow' (technique) is contained in and determined by the product. The product is a possibility realized by technique.
Entanglement is the defining feature of quantum mechanics (who said this, Schrödinger ?, Heisenberg?) Jeffrey Bub So it is the feature tat the network theory should fasten on for explanation.
A proof is the explication of a structure logically contained in a set of axioms. The fundamental axion of the Universe is that contradictions (p = not-p) do not exist, logically or physically. In quantum mechanics, this is formally achieved by the uncertainty principle. So we glimpse a logical picture of the two slit experiment, where the structure of the slits (when both are observed together) is transformed into the structure of the 'interference pattern'. When the slits are observed singly (resolving which slit the particle actually went through) we lose the interference pattern since it is a product of the 'entanglement' of the two slits.
To observe oneself consistently is to create a Universe, as God does. Consistent self observation (the system comprising God and the Word) is love (the Holy Spirit). So the trinity is formally isomorphic to the Creator. There is no reason why the ancients needed to know physics to arrive at this structure, since it is universal. One of the great evils of Catholicism is that it takes the power of creation away from us and proposes that we are the inert puppets of a centralized monarchical creator, the commander of a command economy.
[page 112]
My experience in the stock market is that there are scammers in 'green space'.
The old religions place enormous unnecessary burdens on humanity because they were conceived in a totally warlike space, where God was always by definition the military superhero able to force the opposition into submission.
LOGICAL CONTAINMENT = VENN DIAGRAMS - SET THEORY
We understand things most easily by geometric pictures and this is true for the world as well, which is in many ways a geometrical model of itself. Space-time is a dynamic 3D Venn diagram.
The 'boundaries' of sets (containers) we call potentials. Sets are open or closed in the same way as potentials have unresolved or resolved boundaries.
We might see Whitehead's 'method of extensive abstraction' as a attempt to see spacew-time in Venn diagram terms.
Spacetime (space) is constructed by the relationship of the points within it. Cardinally, the space is a set of points whose existence is established by ordinal relationships.
Serendipity: I have owned Whitehead since 1985 and my bookworms have eaten part of it. Now at last it seems to be influencing my thought consciously
[page 113]
(ie I have resolved Whitehead's part of my life - the perceived event we call Whitehead).
Whitehead page 102 Ether = 'space of logically consistent symbolic systems ie mathematics.'
The dodginess of modern theory is suggested by the weird results we get when we begin to extrapolate, like the cosmic constant problem [and the infinities which arise when we try to deal with 'point' particles].
The ancient religions have built a mountain of prejudice against the material world which must be removed if we are to see our environment clearly for what it is, a vast, intelligent network of communication fittingly called God.
Our disdain for the material world has led us to a crisis in global management which is going to take much work to solve and this work must be guided by true religion derived from true theology.
Is there life after death: for practical purposes no. We living must live for ourselves and let the dead look after the dead.
One might look at the physical world just like a computer, a logical system mapped into four space at variable resolution depending on the 4-momentum at each resolved point in the system. So the mind behind this writing is a net work mapped onto spacetime in the physical embodiment of living cells which have deep and complex relationships with one another independently of the mental information processing function.
[page 114]
How do particles interact - by creating potentials for one another, that is salepersonship: I want you to do this, buy that, bond with me.
Whitehead write well before Turing machines and quantum mechanics as formulated by Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac and von Neumann.
Whitehead page 59: 'Our perceptual knowledge of nature consists in breaking up a whole which is the subject matter of our perceptual experience, or is the given presentation which is experience -- or however else we prefer to describe the ultimate experienced fact. The whole is discriminated as being a complex of related entities, each entity having determinate qualities and relations and being a subject concerning which our perceptions, either directly or indirectly, afford definite information. This process of breaking up the subject matter of experience into a complex of entities will be called the diversification of nature.'
We might call this process creation and the created entities persons equipped with personalities which are in effect probability density functions giving the probable response of a given person to a given situation: 'if he sees blood, he will faint' etc.
The creation theorem is a theorem in statistical mechanics. We need to prove it, or at least state it clearly.
Wednesday 2 December 2009
[page 115]
As Lonergan might have said, the conditions for both existence and intelligibility are the same: a process, when it exists, must be self sustaining in its environment, thus explaining its own existence.
The only way to increase entropy is to complexify, and both thermodynamics and communication theory agree that maximum entropy and maximum complexity are prerequisite for maximum stability / survival.
What I am trying to bring into being from the mists of my mind is an intelligible explanation of the origin of intelligibility, that is, of creation. When I see that in writing and accepted by others, I will feel that my theological career is well started.
There are two emotional difficulties with this work both due to my early religious upbringing. The first is overcoming the bad press given to the material world. The second is demystifying God. Insofar as God and the World are one, work on one of these problems is work on the other, so that as time goes by God seems less mysterious and the world more beautiful as I creep forward step by step toward creating a model that fits both. This is a continuation of the Christian insight that saw that the Word is made Flesh. The difference is that while for Xianity Jesus alone is divine, for nature theology, everything and everybody is divine.
The prospectus for the Theology Company will propose that we build our fortune on the creation theorem, when (if) it exists).
Communication theory is a branch of statistical mechanics. Khinchin
[page 116]
Statistical mechanics recognizes three types of statistics complete (Boltzmann), Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein. The latter two are restrictions on the complete peculiar to quantum mechaincs. Why?
Xianity. Bringing God down to Earth. This is obscured by the politically motivated Catholic cult of secrecy, mystery and authority. In fact, since both God and the Universe began formally as nothing (omnino simplex undifferentiated action) we might recognize that the Universe is just as intelligible as the wheel of we look at it (ie decode it) from the right point of view (using the right algorithm).
The essence of religion is to use voluntary restraint to reduce deliberate killing of all kinds (since each higher level is the religion of the level below it.
Is quantum entanglement an alphabet thing, the non-classical correlation arising from the limited entropy of the alphabet relative to the words and sentences that can be made with that alphabet?
What we are looking for is a creative logic that creates its own symbols as it complexifies.
Faraday Institute for Religion and Science: Science 326:937. St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge
Newton project
[page 117]
Somehow I have to get all these ideas into a formal framework that permits a bit of calculation.
Creation - nucleation Gibson, Science 326:942 Lee
Thursday 3 December
Creation -- conjecture is not the result of logical deduction so much as the product of a random search conducted with some criterion to decide when the searcher has found what it is looking for, a viable model, etc [minimum energy, maximum efficiency of code].
What we want is a computer model of a creative network something like Chaitin's model in Algorithmic Information Theory. See also Games of Life. Chaitin Sigmund We model the infinite with randomness (the closest we can get in a deterministic machine).
Say it again: creation works at the boundary between the infinite and the finite, and, since we can only speak in finite (definite) language like this all we can say about creation lies on the definite side the dichotomy. Maybe this is why we use complex numbers in quantum mechanics, because they have no natural order and so no natural definition?
In monotheism God creates and destroys but in other cultures it may be the Gods who are created and destroyed. Claudius the God page 220 Graves
[page 118]
The Universe is definite in the sense that there is only one of it like the one God. The interior of this one is originally infinite but it also acts as a potential well spawning the Trinity and all the complexities beyond 3. This process moves from the infinite to the definite rather as a mind or parliament moves from discussion to decision.
Friday 4 December
I am a creation that evolved about 100 000 years ago in an environment totally different from the one I now occupy. Then it was a natural world. Now I am in a world of trains, planes, cars, internet, agriculture, fossil fuel and vast intellectual developments. What was it that gave modern humans the flexibility to increase the rate of change of evolution by such a large factor?
Graves page 271: 'Philo. as you know, has made a daring and I should say most absurd identification of the Deity ideally conceived by Plato and his philosophical crew -- Unchanging and Unyielding and Eternal and Uncompounded Intellectual Perfection exalted above all predicates -- with our passionate tribal God at Jerusalem. I suppose that he found the Platonic Deity too cold and abstract, and wanted to infuse some life into him, at the same time glorifying his own God by extending his rule over the Universe.'
[page 119]
Graves 272 Psalm ? '. . . gird him with stength to crush unjust rulers . . . '
Graves page 274: '. . . a religion without authority is nothing . . . '
Insofar as God is love, one the data sets theology must examine is human love songs and all human movements which are expressions of love, and its opposite hate. Berndt We ritualize hate as opposition in various sports, where the agression is embedded in a set of rules and traditions of sportsmanship and controlled by that. Breaking the rules of the spirit of the game is penalized to prevent degradation of the game by violence and cheating.
We have a vast range of models of the world ranging from quantum mechanics and relativity to politics, economics and religion. The function of the transfinite network is to create a space in which all these trains of thought can be unified through a network model of creation and memory.
Are my feelings product of upbringing or evolution?
Every sexual organism must in some sense fuck if it is to remain in existence despite the reality of death. So Eros and Thanatos are bound together as a sine qua non for the durability of the species. Plato taught us to see the forms but overlook the dynamics.
Aristotle (?) : 'omne animal post coitum triste est'. An opportunity is spent, and time will tell if it is a success or a failure, My business plan: the exploitation of a well developed business plan. Post-coital tristesse - Wikipedia
[page 120]
The fundamental slander that the Roman Catholic Church places on the Universe is that it is a puppet manipulated by an invisible God rather than a creative entity able to play the role of God itself. There is no scientific reason for this, but it has the political, economic and social advantage that all contact with God is carried out through and controlled by the Church. This power trip, repeated in thousands of other organizations that try to control communication between people and the world, is a major barrier to human betterment. In a word, archaic institutions.
The creation of the new scientific, democratic and rights based model of human affairs in implemented in many countries, including my own, and gives some control over the rapacious behaviour of politicians who become warlords.
The change I have to make in my mind is between theology as an expensive and absorbing hobby (it costs about $2000 a year in books alone, let alone computer and network time and storage) [and theology as a worthwhile business].
The structure of words and ideas which I wish to offer is hopefully as well built as the best of my efforts in the construction industry.Insofar as the transfinite network is the most complex structure imaginable, without limit, the level of complexity relevant to humanity must be in there somewhere. Only a subset of all possible structures are physically realized because
[page 121]
the cardinal of the set of quanta of action is countably infinite and so constrains the realization of the uncountable number of permutations of the set of quanta (= Turing Machines).
FREE == PEACEFUL because we are fighting we are constrained by the exigencies of war (always at risk of death) and must act with great circumspection rather than freely.
A fundamental requirement for survival is that the sexes find one another attractive: 'Cotta and Balbus love the sweet voices of the gurls.'Searle & Willans
Claudius represents a hardware layer of society that still exists but it not invoked so often because softer processes are effective. Layering hardware - physical, software - metaphysical. The transfinite network provides a formal description of the relation between the physical and the metaphysical. We and our planet are metaphysical systems built on the physical foundations of the world.
Graves page 292: 'The discovery that religion is a marketable commodity, like oil, figs or slaves was first made in Rome in late Republican times, the steps have been taken to check such marketing, but without great success. There had been a notable breakdown in religious belied after our conquest of Greece, when Greek philosophy spread to Rome.'
The Church has endorsed the view of a subset of philosophers and those who wish to depart from this orthodoxy do so at the risk of their lives (in past ages) or at least of their job in the present era.
[page 122]
We have to get a) the product; b) the [public relations].
Graves page 304 Herod Agrippa 'I have had a glorious life and regret nothing but my one single folly -- that I underrated the pride and power and jealousy of the ever living God of Israel, that I bore myself toward Him like and foolish philosophizing Gadarene Greek.'
Here I wish to replace the autocrat by a living God with a countable infinity of personalities, including us.
Pacifying a kingdom: molecular dynamics simulation of methane clathrate: Afghanistan. Walsh
Graves page 322: Stable government can suppress all revolutions.
Locally, every moment in time adds a new layer and gives new meaning to the world.
Every new layer uses the properties of the previous layer to achieve its ends; so poetry and music use the sound, rhythm and meanings of words.
