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vol VII: Notes

2019

Notes

Sunday 17 November 2019 - Saturday 23 November 2019

[Notebook: DB 84 Pam's Book]

Sunday 17 November 2019
Monday 19 November 2019

[page 18]

Tuesday 19 November 2019

Finished my essays in an apparent cloud of virus induced hallucination which may or may not have been good for the results. How important is mental irrationality for creativity? A principle: 'no creativity without uncertainty'. I am feeling now a bit mentally exhausted (a new feeling, maybe another consequence of ageing) but looking forward to the next step in outlining a theory of everything based on cognitive science. I have plenty to do marking up thesis and essays for publication on the web and another run through scientific-theology to prepare a manuscript to offer to publishers / agents, a task I was working on at the beginning of 2018 and then got carried away with my philosophy courses.

Wednesday 20 November 2019

Have I run out of things to say? So much of

[page 19]

writing is sitting around waiting for things to write. I have now made myself a cosmic transfinite network in its abstract form. Now it needs to be applied in detail. One of its qualities is symmetry with respect to complexity so it does not matter so much at what level of complexity I apply it and it is most transparent to me in my own conscious processing through my life, so in a sense this diary is the basic source of data for the application of the model. My life goes on non-stop. Scientific Theology: Chapter 5 The Network Model

Yeh Jawaani Hai Rewani. All pieces of art are grist to the mill. Yeh Jawaani Hai Rewani - Wikipedia, Cecilia Heyes: Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking

Everything is vast ramified sequences of action, dynamic trees whose roots feed on energy (ie in plants the roots, from this point of view, are the leaves gathering sunlight).

The big money, however, is in taking the system down to the level of quantum field theory and making sense of the current mess. They thought the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] would reveal [loads of new physics, but not so much]. CERN: LHC Homepage, Sabine Hossenfelder: The Uncertain Future of Particle Physics

How does the joy of [ocean] waves and electronics map to human life?

Mach Science of Mechanics 6th ed. page 469 presages Feynman's path integral method of determining Snell's law for a light ray. Mach: Science of Mechanics, Feynman: Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, Snell's Law - Wikipedia

From a computational point of view, least action means minimum number of quanta of action to achieve a result. In space-time physics however, we are looking for maximum action, which means that there is some upper bound in space-time physics lest any action take infinite effort, so how does this work?

[page 20]

Thursday 21 November 2019

A tale of three Gods, Jahweh, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I was brought up on Christianity and it has taken me a lifetime to realize what a sick weird story it is. It begins with Yahweh, the creator, the original narcissist, the Tetragrammeton, so precious that we are not even allowed to say their name. They created a beautiful world and beautiful people we have called Adam and Eve, perfect in every way, hungry for knowledge and growth. Being Yahweh, however, they also created their alter ego, the serpent Satan who seduced Eve and brought down the world. Satan attacked her weakest point, her thirst for knowledge and talked her into sharing the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Her show of independence pissed the old God off so badly that they more or less destroyed their pristine creation, punishing us all for the Original Sin with work pain and death. Yahweh's main man, Moses, later put this all in writing on Mount Sinai: The Old God dictated to him ten commandments which begin: "I am the Lord Your God, and you shall hae no other Gods before me." Moses came down the mountain and immediately went to work, directing his Levites to murder all who worshipped the Old God's predecessors [to be continued].

Music, like a quantum complex event, is a time sequence of frequencies.

Official Secrets Official Secrets (film) - Wikipedia

[page 21]

Friday 22 November 2019

Energy = potential = time (the possible future) - ie future is attractive, in fact irresistibly attractive, we cannot go back. The attraction is equivalent to entropy, ie increasing space attracts us as the universe grows in size.

In many ways the theological hardware is complete, the network and its communication power tells us that the message is the message, pure action, essence and existence unified, so now the whole system is ready to move from science to technology, to implement love your neighbour as yourself in the ambient love of god which dissolves the fractures of hate.

Saturday 23 November

The Lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics only makes sense if there is some functional connection between potential and kinetic energy [established by a conservative field] so we can express one in terms of the other as functions of time so ∫ (KE - PE) dt can be evaluated. But what does Mach have to say about this, and why is the extremum sometimes a maximum and sometimes a minimum? Read more Mach on the isoperimetric class of problems. So many answers are just out of sight, but the coupling between Lagrange and Logic looks like the place to look.

Time and energy are conserved and therefore scarce, so to minimize energy consumption we might choose to do things slowly, taking a long time, the longest time being stationary states of fixed energy.

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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!)

Casti, John L, Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of 20th-Century Mathematics - and Why They Matter, John Wiley and Sons 1996 Preface: '[this book] is intended to tell the general reader about mathematics by showcasing five of the finest achievements of the mathematician's art in this [20th] century.' p ix. Treats the Minimax theorem (game theory), the Brouwer Fixed-Point theorem (topology), Morse's theorem (singularity theory), the Halting theorem (theory of computation) and the Simplex method (optimisation theory). 
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Feynman, Richard P, and Albert P Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, McGraw Hill 1965 Preface: 'The fundamental physical and mathematical concepts which underlie the path integral approach were first developed by R P Feynman in the course of his graduate studies at Princeton, ... . These early inquiries were involved with the problem of the infinte self-energy of the electron. In working on that problem, a "least action" principle was discovered [which] could deal succesfully with the infinity arising in the application of classical electrodynamics.' As described in this book. Feynam, inspired by Dirac, went on the develop this insight into a fruitful source of solutions to many quantum mechanical problems.  
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Heyes, Cecilia, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking, Belknap Press: Harvard University Press 2018 “Cecilia Heyes presents a new hypothesis to explain the one feature that distinguishes Homo sapiens from all other species: the mind. Through lucid, compelling writing, this masterly exegesis proposes that the key features of the human mind, termed ‘cognitive gadgets,’ are the products of cultural rather than genetic evolution. It will stimulate its readers to think deeply, as Heyes has done, about what it means to be human.”―Lord John Krebs, University of Oxford 
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Mach, Ernst , The Science of Mechanics (translated by Thomas J McCormack), Open Court 1960, 1988  
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Links

Brian Seibert, She's the Queen of Tap. Is Her Moment Now?, ' While nothing is missing from Dormeshia’s dancing, a few years ago, she began to sense that something important was missing from tap today. In classes she taught across the world, she noticed that students were often technically impressive and “saying a lot of things,” yet lacking something fundamental — swing. Swing is a notoriously hard term to pin down. Let’s just say that it’s a groove or rhythmic feel central to jazz — and, because tap and jazz developed together, central to tap. And yet many young tap dancers, were “completely unaware of swing,” Dormeshia said. They didn’t know what it was, much less how to embody it.' back

Camille Nelson, Friday Essay: George Eliot 200 years on - a scandalous life, a brilliant mind and a huge literary legacy, ' When Dorothea, in all her married misery, is confronted by an extraordinary vision of a suffering human society, we encounter one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful passages in Eliot’s ouevre. She writes,

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.
This is the anguish that lurks in dark corners of Eliot’s novels – it is the measure of her greatness, and of our struggle to read her. Dorothea’s quest for a substantial and meaningful life has resonated with the sensibilities of successive generations of feminists. How is she to achieve something? Where should she put her energies? How can she affect the lives of others? ' We are all of us “Dorotheas”; all tragically yearning for something. As Virginia Woolf put it, Dorothea and the rest of Eliot’s heroines feel “a demand for something — they scarcely know what — for something that is perhaps incompatible with the facts of human existence.” back

CERN, LHC Homepage, 'The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) sits in a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. The tunnel is buried around 50 to 175 m. underground. It straddles the Swiss and French borders on the outskirts of Geneva. The first collisions at an energy of 3.5 TeV per beam took place on 30th March 2010. The LHC is designed to collide two counter rotating beams of protons or heavy ions. Proton-proton collisions are foreseen at an energy of 7 TeV per beam. The beams move around the LHC ring inside a continuous vacuum guided by magnets. The magnets are superconducting and are cooled by a huge cryogenics system. The cables conduct current without resistance in their superconducting state. The beams will be stored at high energy for hours. During this time collisions take place inside the four main LHC experiments.' back

Hermann Weyl - Wikipedia, Hermann Weyl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl (9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland and then Princeton, he is associated with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. His research has had major significance for theoretical physics as well as pure disciplines including number theory. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century, and an important member of the Institute for Advanced Study during its early years.' back

John Quiggin, Please, no more projections. What we need are predictions, and they're harder, 'Perhaps the most significant example of repeated failed projections has been the International Energy Agency’s projections of the importance of renewable power – the proportion of electricity generated by solar and wind and other renewable sources other than hydro. Beginning in 1994, when generation from these sources was negligible, the Agency has produced estimates of the future share of renewables every two years. Read more: Getting projections right: predicting future climate Every two years, with striking regularity, the previous estimates have been exceeded (hugely) and the new set has been revised upwards. But never by enough. Each time the upward revision has been inadequate. back

Karen De Young & Steve Hendrix, Trump administration ays Israel's West Bank Settlements do not violate international law, ' Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Monday that Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law. Pompeo said the Trump administration, as it did with recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, had simply “recognized the reality on the ground.” ' back

Matthew Avery Sutton, Explaining the bond between Trump and white evngelicals, ' White evangelicals’ pragmatic and self-serving approach to political power has been consistent for at least a century, dating to fundamentalists’ adoration for Warren G. Harding in the 1920s — which sounded a lot like their championing of Trump today. Although evangelicals preach family values and often claim moral superiority, history reveals that they are most interested in exercising political power and identifying politicians who help them do it. Evangelical leaders are sophisticated and pragmatic: Policy outcomes are what they really care about.' back

Official Secrets (film) - Wikipedia, Official Secrets (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Official Secrets is a 2019 British-American docudrama film based on the life of whistleblower Katharine Gun who leaked a memo detailing that the United States had eavesdropped on diplomats from countries tasked with passing a second United Nations resolution on the invasion of Iraq. The film is directed by Gavin Hood, and Gun is portrayed by Keira Knightley. The film also stars Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Adam Bakri, Indira Varma, and Ralph Fiennes.' back

Paul Yip, The American civil war offered Hong Kong lessons in how to compromise and end conflict, ' Four years in, the Confederate state army, already disadvantaged in terms of manpower, industrial capacity and economy, was facing low morale, food shortages and exhaustion. Knowing this, General Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Union army, wrote to general Robert E. Lee, leader of the Confederate state army of northern Virginia, to persuade him to surrender. Lee negotiated surrender terms that allowed his men to keep their swords and personal belongings, and to return home in peace as long as they did not turn against the Union or break the law. These were generous terms for the men, who had expected to be imprisoned.' back

Pep Canadell, Hanquin Tian, Prabir Oatra & Rona Thompson, Nitrogen fertiliserd are incredibly efficient, but they make climate change a lot worse, ' Nitrous oxide (N₂O) (more commonly known as laughing gas) is a powerful contributor to global warming. It is 265 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide and depletes our ozone layer. Human-driven N₂O emissions have been growing unabated for many decades, but we may have been seriously underestimating by just how much. In a paper published today in Nature Climate Change, we found global emissions are higher and growing faster than are being reported.' back

Sabine Hossenfelder, The Uncertain Future of Particle Physics, 'In 2012, experiments at the L.H.C. confirmed the discovery of the Higgs boson — a prediction that dates back to the 1960s — and it remains the only discovery made at the L.H.C. Particle physicists are quick to emphasize that they have learned other things: For example, they now have better knowledge about the structure of the proton, and they’ve seen new (albeit unstable) composite particles. But let’s be honest: It’s disappointing.' back

Simon Liburn & Philip Smith, turn down doe what? When you turn down the radio wgen your'e trying to park your car, ' One answer comes from a remarkable 1998 study by Anne-Marie Bonnel and Ervin Hafter. It builds upon one of the most successful theories in all psychology, signal detection theory, which describes how people make decisions based on ambiguous sensory information, rather like how a radar might detect a plane. One of the basic problems of radar detection is to work out whether it is more likely that what is being detected is a signal (an enemy plane) or just random noise. This problem is the same for human perception. Although apparently a metaphor like Broadbent’s filter, signal detection theory can be evaluated mathematically. The mathematics of human identification, it turns out, largely match those of radar operation.' back

Snell's Law - Wikipedia, Snell's Law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Snell's law (also known as Snell-Descartes law and the law of refraction) is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media, such as water, glass, or air.' back

Thomas L. Friedman, Mike Pompeo: Last in His Class at West Point in Integrity, ' So it’s now clear that Pompeo had not taken an oath to defend and protect the Constitution. He took an oath to defend and protect Donald J. Trump and Pompeo’s own future political career — above all else — and that’s exactly what he’s been doing. Shame on him.' back

Trinity - Wikipedia, Trinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (from Latin trinitas "triad", from trinus "threefold") defines God as three consubstantial persons, expressions, or hypostases: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; "one God in three persons". The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature" homoousios). In this context, a "nature" is what one is, while a "person" is who one is.' back

Yeh Jawaani Hai Rewani - Wikipedia, Yeh Jawaani Hai Rewani - Wikipedia, the fee encyclopedia, 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (transl. This youth is crazy) is a 2013 Indian romantic drama film, directed by Ayan Mukerji, written by Mukerji and Hussain Dalal, and produced by Karan Johar.' back

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