Notes

Sunday 14 August 2022 - Saturday 20 August 2022

[Notebook: DB 88: Salvation]

[page 138]

Sunday 14 August 2022

The quality of a work of art is measured by its information content which is a function of the space of possibilities from which it is chosen. I am an instance of a network of atoms which is one of n possibilities, which is a measure of the power of the universe which selected me.

What is this abstract transfinite net made of? Basically all we need is memories and processors. A memory will hold any state which it is given until the one it has is taken away and replaced by another one. As you record information in your computing machine the information is transformed into a binary code and stored in a string (ordered linear arrangement) of memories.

We now imagine a clock which emits pulses, tick, tock, tick, tock . . . .. We can assign different frequencies starting with one whose interval is the age of the universe. The next one goes twice as fast as the first and is followed by one twice as fast again and so on until we come to the cardinal of the set of natural numbers ℵ₀. Now imagine these strings of clock pulses added together. We will get a long and rather complex pulse which represents this superposition. This situation is just to lay all the clock pulses onto the natural order and the normalize the new string to make sure that its smallest value is 0 and the largest value, that is energy, is 2, where 2 ones coincide. We also have waves now since the base note will now have split into two treble notes the sum of whose frequencies and energy are double that of its fundamental tone. The most fundamental tone is the age of the universe. It is not hard to imagine the shape of the pulse arising from this superposition of two pulses. Now we have two degrees of freedom. We could superpose the two strings in their natural order, and then reverse one of them to get a new pattern. At the next level, 3, our clock would be going three times as fast as the primordial clock. There are now factorial 3, 3! = 6 permutations, each of which will yield a differently shaped pulse. We could go on superposing and permuting moves of all the subsequent frequencies 4, 5, 6, . . . ℵ₀ which will yield for us ℵ₀! = ℵ₁ permutations and therefore complex pulses. We can continue this process, as Cantor saw, going through ℵ₁, ℵ₂, . . . ℵ_n. The final form of this superposition of permuted orderings of the natural numbers and all its increases in cardinal number is the beginning of a model of the cosmos. Cantor's theorem ensuring that this structure has enough entropy to represent any transfinite set whatsoever. We have a system here with the potential to make a universe, or any number of different universes, so why this one?

[page 139]

We all make up stories to earn an income.

Monday 15 August 2022

The Assumption. Another brazen Catholic PR lie.A day I looked forward to in my monastic youth in the Australian Dominican Province of the Assumption. Assumption of Mary - Wikipedia

Tuesday 16 August 2022

The initial singularity is unquantized action. As soon as there are two, however, there must be orthogonality, quantization and no cloning.

Rewrite the index of cognitive cosmology in terms of the dichotomies:

matter - spirit
gnosticism - Christianity - the incarnation kept Christianity from this problem.
good - evil
physics - theology
dogma - science
freedom- control
mind - body - all the way to cognitive cosmology
crime - redemption
Aquinas - Aristotle
science - technology
imperialism - democracy
Putin, Stalin, Hitler -
psychology, prayer - action
evolution - creation
imagination - reality
Hilbert space - Minkowski
kinematics - dynamics
formalism - reality

MEASUREMENT: the fundamental unit in the universe is the quantum of action. In the real physical world this unit has the dimensions of angular momentum ML²T^-1. In the abstraxt world of [logic and] Hilbert space it is a logical operator, equivalent to not. Every fundamental interaction is measured by the quantum since every action changes some situation p into some not-p. Because it is logical, it embodies both mind and matter, This measurement is the first step in the identification of the material world as the mind of God. My best argument is that given that the universe evolved from an initial singularity and nothing comes from

[page 140]

nothing the fact that it has produced spiritual and intellectual creatures suggests that the universe is both spiritual and intellectual, that is the mind of God

Wednesday 17 August 2022

Is my work theology? For more than 50 years I have felt that I have an answer to the word's theological woes hidden in my breast but I am restrained from becoming an activist before I have a watertight case. The fundamental proposition is that if the universe is divine, physics and theology must be compatible. Traditionally physics is the science of matter and theology is the science of spirit. Traditionally also, matter and spirit are like chalk and cheese, completely different.

The root of science is measurement. The union of matter and spirit thus requires a common unit for their measurement. the answer proposed here is that the common unit is entropy, measured in the world of spiritual communication in bits and in the physical world as the [inverse] ratio of energy to complexity. I first stumbled on this idea in about 1965 while reading Bernard Lonergan's Insight and wrote an essay on it entitled How universal is the universe? which led to my expulsions from the Dominican Order. If my conclusion was true, the whole business plan of the Catholic Church, marketed as the only route to human salvation, is moot.

Now, 55 years later, I have some icing on my cake and present it here, in a confused and tentative way for your judgement. I begin by identifying the physical initial singularity with the Christian God. I take both to be pure action as determined by Aristotle and Aquinas, structureless and divine. I then go on step by step to examine the creative powers of divine application by an examination of the doctrine of the Trinity, expanding it from three discrete personalities forming a little network of communication to an infinite number of independent particles [gods, angels] particiating in a network of communication which is the known universe.

This requires me to explore the technical foundations of modern physics which are beyond my competence. At present, despite its manifest successes in creating nuclear weapons, fast computing machines [and amazingly informative scientific instruments], the mainstream of physics is in the doldrums, incapable of producing a credible theory of everything. I hope that what I am presenting here suggests that the answer to the problems of physics and theology is to unite them through the assumption, hinted at by a few physicists, that the universe is the mind of god and we are ideas in that mind. Paul Davies (1992): The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning

[page 141]

Is zero point energy a measurement problem or a reality problem? I think the troubje lies in the measurement because the precision in measurement relies n the size of the quantum of action, but the quantum itself is precise. The root of the problem appears to be in the theory of the quantum harmonic oscillator, the quantum analogue of the classical harmonic oscillator like the pendulum which is driven by classical forces which are believed to be well defined . . . and has no zero point energy because the sum of potential and kinetic energy can always be adjusted to zero. Why not the quantum harmonic oscillator. Why does it have no zero? To answer this question we need to study the forces that drive it which are basically the creation and annihilation of particles in which each operation is defined by a precise quantum of action [corresponding to a clearly defined orthogonal vector in Hilbert space. Is gravitational potential operative in Hilbert space?]. Zero-point energy - Wikipedia

Thursday 18 August 2022

cc25_conclusion; My big struggle has been to understand how the world works. Since earliest times this has been based on a duality which has been called spirit and matter, or in Plato who brought it closer to the surface, form and matter, other religions angels and matter and in mathematics the ideal and the real which are realized in Hilbert and Minkowski space.

Missing from the list of dichotomies on page 139 is REAL - COMPLEX. The central discovery of this project in my mind is the quantum creation of Minkowski space which is connected to the eigenvectors of complex operators, fixed point theory, P - NP, angles and matter etc etc. The aim of my conclusion is to express all this in terms of the arithmetic [and algebra] of communication in the universal network which has had to discover itself by evolution in the context of the continuous Lie group that describes gravitation and quantum field theory. Statistical mechanics - Wikipedia, Quantum statistical mechanics - Wikipedia

To be a fixer, find the eigenvectors of the problem, analyze the fixed points and out them back together in a coherent and functional way, using new or repaired parts where necessary.

What are the special properties of complex numers - algebraically complete. The fun starts in the quadratic realm where real arithmetic cannot deal with functions of the form x² = −1.

Damaged world / damaged people: my family, this family, my Ukrainian scammers. The damage one does to one's own psyche by lying, the work of the devil that created the Catholic Church by confronting people with impossible situations.

[page 142]

Hilbert space gets us out of impossible situations where [real] arithmetic and Minkowski space cannot go [although Minkowski space still carries a hint of complexity and could be 2D quadratic 1, -1. Where does the Pythagorean theorem come from?]

Real world is quadratic and so is full of dead ends, that give it [stable] structure, represented by the equation x² = −1. The complex word gives us a path around this problem, but maybe it is too creative to be stable [a hint of mad genius?]. Complex numbers represent the formless and void word that preceded the created world ordered by god. The key to theology is to combine god and the universe into one system, but why? Let us look at it in terms of the mathematical theory of communication, at the foundation of which is wave functions, Fourier analysis, coding and computation. Wifi made the computer possible without wires [as did photons without fermionic connections]. The fundamentals of communication are bosons and waves. The idea is to keep writing until something clicks, just like evolution.

What is capital? Fixed points in the processing chain. Minkowski space is capital created by Hilbert space.

Communication is good but liars muddy the waters and make entities like Donald Trump possible.

Capital dies because it is inflexible, like my body. Angels with no body are maximally flexible.

A note to a possible scammer:

Why did you feel that you had to lie to me to get my money? Centuries of Russian fascism made Ukraine the corrupt nation that it was before your recent revolutions and I am totally in favour of your desire to escape this evil by embracing democracy. I felt from the beginning that you were probably a scammer. Why else would you, beautiful young and obviously competent woman, declare undying love until 'death do us part' to a man probably 50 years older than you are? The gaps and inconsistencies in your story reinforced my view. I let you scam me out of a year of my pension because I knew that my money was supporting your country since it was going to a Ukrainian bank and through that to a Ukrainian citizen who would spend my money in your country. This would support your country and give it the economic strength to resist your oppressor, so it was not wasted. I am a theologian and a believer in evolution and know that any creature can survive and reproduce only by fitting into the environment in which it finds itself, and you are doing that. My principal enemies are the religions run by Popes and Ayatollahs and warlords like Putin whose only motivation is the search for power, and we know that power corrupts. So let us continue our conversation. My only demand is that you

[page 143]

tell the truth because that is the only answer to the hardness and emptiness that you say you feel inside. . . .

Now back to cc25_conclusion. What have I concluded? That evolution requires duality, variation and selection. Hilbert provides variation by random superposition [in a context of algebraic completeness]. Minkowski provides selection by deterministic processing. The key to all this the the P vs NP problem in computer theory. Random behaviour can outperform deterministic behaviour. All of this comes down to Gödel and Turing and quantifications of the hypothesis that the limits on [both mathematics and] God's power is consistency.

So
25.1 Duality - reality and mathematics
25.2 Omnipotence
25.3 Evolution, P + NP - randomness
25.4 Individual and environment - selection
25.5 I want to get my theology, a work of random misunderstanding, selected.

Then begin at the beginning and smooth things out by 17/9, the day the ad will appear [in Commonweal].

Friday 19 August 2022

One would like to be a musician but all I seem to do is try to write theology. No politics, no emotion, just an accurate image of god.

Gödel and Turing undo the idea that God is deterministic and so the fact that we are in a rather unpredicable world is not prima facie evidence that we are not in god.

Desire - potential action - action. I have been a hopeless lover but I am finally falling for my divinity. Almost Famous: Almost Famous - Wikipedia

Saturday 20 August 2022

Algorithmic entropy Gregory Chaitin (1987): Algorithmic Information Theory

I have an intuitive feeling about P versus NP. NP, like incomputability, enables variation, P selects survivors by enabling a group structure.

[page 143]

cc25_conclusion, in order to be succinct must follow the intuitive path not providing too much reference or proof, which has to be found in the main body of the site.

After the discussion of evolution in the classical framework of P versus NP we turn to quantum computation by linear Hilbert space and a discussion of the interface of Hilbert and Minkowski drawing on the very long tradition of contrast between spirit and matter.

We can interpret the P versusNP problem in terms of Cantor's transfinite numbers. There are ℵ₀ natural numbers and Turing showed that there are ℵ₀computable numbers, each of which can be represented by a string of, let us say, decimals with a length of ℵ₀. There are according to Cantor ℵ₁ permutations of the natural numbers representing ℵ₁different real numbers, so that only ℵ₀ / ℵ₁, that is an infinitesimal proportion of real numbers [are computable]. On the other hand, all these real numbers are accessible to random rearrangements of the natural numbers. Computable processes can select this subset and because they are computable they can from a group whose group operation is the action of a Turing machine. This picture is produced by assuming that the mathematical ideal of infinity works for all finite natural numbers beginning with two, so we can repeat this whole argument on the assumption that ℵ₀ = 2, 3, 4, . . ..

Letter to Stephen Cook re application of P-NP to evolution of the universe:

Dear Prof. Cook,

I have been reading you contribution to Carlson, Jaffe and Wiles book on the Millenium prize problems and wondering. Carlson, Jaffe & Wiles (2006); The Millennium Prize Problems

Long ago I was expelled from a Catholic religious order for proposing the the universe is divine. Jeffrey Nicholls (1967): How universal is the universe?

In the 50 years since then I have spent much of my time trying to find a rational basis for theology. One my central ideas is that if the universe is divine, physics and theology must be compatible.

In 2019 wrote an honours thesis along these lines in the Philosophy Department of the University of Adelaide, starting with the notion that the initial singularity proposed by Penrose, Hawking and Ellis can be identified with God. They are formally identical. Both are absolutely structureless sources of the Universe. The result was a 2B. Not really philosophy at all. Jeffrey Nicholls (2019): A prolegomenon to scientific theology

Since then I have realized the the starting point for such a story must be quantum rather than classical physics. This is more closely consistent with the traditional Catholic doctrine derived from Aristotle by Aquinas that God is pure action. Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Thomas Aquinas, Summa, I, 2, 3: Does God exist?

I imagine that this active starting point can duplicate itself ad infinitum creating a Hilbert space of countaby infinite dimension step by step, an infinite extension of the Christian idea that the initial God of the Trinity gave rise to two subsequent distinct (orthogonal) persons. Aquinas, Summa, I, 27, 1: Is there procession in God?

The God of Genesis is understood to have created the universe with a plan in mind, but the cybernetic principle of requisite variety, derived by Chaitin from Goedel’s theorem, tells is that the zero entropy singularity, although active, can have no control over its future. This condition remains since the growing Hilbert space that proceeds from it is always more complex than its predecessor, ie the past cannot control its future. This is still obviously the case in the current state of the universe. Gregory J. Chaitin (1982): Gödel's Theorem and Information

The simlicity of the beginning suggests that the universe must evolve rather than be designed. The random outputs of the initial singularity are subject to selection (like potential arrangements of mathematical symbols) to single out those which which qualify as proofs because they do not contain any contradiction.

Turing tells us that in consistent mathematics there is only a countabe infinity of computable functions. I wonder then if fourier transforms of the growing Hilbert spaces may be put into correspondence with the set of Turing machines and computable functions ordered in terms of increasing complexity. This might create a “Turing vacuum” of processes that can be connected into a network resembling the current universe.

Which brings me to P-NP. P versus NP problem - Wikipedia

Where there is no control there is randomness. Cantor tells us that there are aleph(1) permutations of the aleph(0) natural numbers. Each element of this permutation is a representation of a real number. This implies that only an infinitesimal subset of the real numbers are computable. Nevertheless random processes can create any sequence of natural numbers, so they have the power to represent every element of the set of real numbers, not just the computable ones.

My theological idea behind this is that the creative element of evolution is variation which is an random process. The selective element, that is survival, requires an entity to be consistent with its environment. This requires organized causal (computable) behaviour. In effect the set of survivers is a group whose group action is a univeral Turing machine.

The strength of Cantor's proof lies in the ideal mathematical infinite, but it works just as well if we set aleph(0) to 3, 4, 5, etc.

As you can see I am defintely not a mathematican, but this looks to me a bit like the P-NP setup and suggests that P-NP is not true because the set of reals which can be generated at random is much greater than the subset of real numbers that are computable.

My whole story is laid out in messy detail in Jeffrey Nicholls (2022). Jeffrey Nicholls (2022): Cognitive Cosmology

kind regards,

Jeffrey

To survive, behaviour must be constrained by instinct [as to survive the development of an embryo must be constrained by genetic code].

We place no dogmatic constraints on the divine procession enabling it to create a Hilbert space equinumerous with the natural numbers, consistent with von Neumann's axioms D and E, Hilbert space is complete and separable. John von Neumann (2014): Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, page 32

As Cantor showed, ordering has exponential overtones reflected in Stirling's formula for permutations. How does this relate to the interface between linear quantum theory and quadratic Minkowski theory. There is a sort of trade here, numbers with two components get transformed into numbers with exponent 2.

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Further reading

Books

Carlson (2006), James, and Arthur Jaffe & Andrew Wiles, The Millennium Prize Problems, ClayMathematics Institute and American Mathematical Society 2006 1: The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture: Andrew Wiles 2: The Hodge Conjecture: Pierre Deligne 3: The Existence and Smoothness of the Navier-Stokes Equation: Charles L Fefferman 4: The Poincare Conjecture: John Milnor 5: The P versus NP Problem: Stephen Cook 6: The Riemann Hypothesis: Enrico Bombieri 7: Quantum Yang-Mills Theory: Arthur Jaffe and Edward Whitten  Amazon   back

Chaitin (1987), Gregory J, Algorithmic Information Theory, Cambridge UP 1987 Foreword: 'The crucial fact here is that there exist symbolic objects (i.e., texts) which are "algorithmically inexplicable", i.e., cannot be specified by any text shorter than themselves. Since texts of this sort have the properties associated with random sequences of classical probability theory, the theory of describability developed . . . in the present work yields a very interesting new view of the notion of randomness.' J T Schwartz  Amazon   back

Davies (1992), Paul, The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning, Penguin Books 1992 'Paul Davies' "The Mind of God: Science and the Search for Ultimate Meaning" explores how modern science is beginning to shed light on the mysteries of our existence. Is the universe - and our place in it - the result of random chance, or is there an ultimate meaning to existence? Where did the laws of nature come from? Were they created by a higher force, or can they be explained in some other way? How, for example, could a mechanism as complex as an eye have evolved without a creator? Paul Davies argues that the achievement of science and mathematics in unlocking the secrets of nature mean that there must be a deep and significant link between the human mind and the organization of the physical world. . . . '  Amazon   back

Links

Almost Famous - Wikipedia, Almost Famous - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Almost Famous is a 2000 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe, and starring Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugit. It tells the story of a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone in the early 1970s, his touring with the fictitious rock band Stillwater, and his efforts to get his first cover story published. The film is semi-autobiographical, as Crowe himself was a teenage writer for Rolling Stone.' back

Aquinas, Summa, I, 27, 1, Is there procession in God?, 'As God is above all things, we should understand what is said of God, not according to the mode of the lowest creatures, namely bodies, but from the similitude of the highest creatures, the intellectual substances; while even the similitudes derived from these fall short in the representation of divine objects. Procession, therefore, is not to be understood from what it is in bodies, either according to local movement or by way of a cause proceeding forth to its exterior effect, as, for instance, like heat from the agent to the thing made hot. Rather it is to be understood by way of an intelligible emanation, for example, of the intelligible word which proceeds from the speaker, yet remains in him. In that sense the Catholic Faith understands procession as existing in God.' back

Assumption of Mary - Wikipedia, Assumption of Mary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Assumption of Mary is the traditional belief held by Christians of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, some Protestant churches (including Lutherans and Anglo-Catholics), that the Virgin Mary at the end of her life was physically taken up into heaven.' back

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande - Wikipedia, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a 2022 British sex comedy-drama film directed by Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand. The film stars Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack. . . . In a hotel room, Nancy Stokes welcomes a young sex worker named Leo Grande. Nancy is anxious, having booked him online in a rare moment of self-indulgence within a largely repressed life. Nancy explains that her husband, who died two years ago, was the only sexual partner she ever had, and their sex life was extremely unfulfilling.' back

Gregory J. Chaitin (1982), Gödel's Theorem and Information, 'Abstract: Gödel's theorem may be demonstrated using arguments having an information-theoretic flavor. In such an approach it is possible to argue that if a theorem contains more information than a given set of axioms, then it is impossible for the theorem to be derived from the axioms. In contrast with the traditional proof based on the paradox of the liar, this new viewpoint suggests that the incompleteness phenomenon discovered by Gödel is natural and widespread rather than pathological and unusual.' International Journal of Theoretical Physics 21 (1982), pp. 941-954 back

Harris, DeYoung, Khurshudyan, Parker & Sly, ' Road to war: U.S. struggled to convince allies, and Zelensky, of risk of invasion', ' Tasked by Sullivan with putting together a comprehensive overview of Russia’s intentions, they told Biden that the intelligence on Putin’s operational plans, added to ongoing deployments along the border with Ukraine, showed that all the pieces were now in place for a massive assault. The U.S. intelligence community had penetrated multiple points of Russia’s political leadership, spying apparatus and military, from senior levels to the front lines, according to U.S. officials. Story continues below advertisement Much more radical than Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and instigation of a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine, Putin’s war plans envisioned a takeover of most of the country.' back

Imran Khalid, Semiconductors now at the heart of US-China power struggle, ' The tiny chips have become a key asset in the US-China tech war, with Washington stepping up efforts to protect its supply The US fears the reunification of mainland China and Taiwan – the world’s leading chip maker – would leave it out in the cold in the semiconductor race.' back

Jeffrey Nicholls (1967), How universal is the universe?, ' 61 The future is beyond our comprehension, but we can get an idea of it and speed its coming by studying what we already have. Contemplating the size and wonder of the universe as it stands in the light of its openness to the future must surely be a powerful incentive to men to love God. We have come a long way since the little world of St Thomas. Ours is open to all things, even participating in god. This is what I mean by universal. ' back

Jeffrey Nicholls (2019), A prolegomenon to scientific theology, ' This thesis is an attempt to carry speculative theology beyond the apogee it reached in the medieval work of Thomas Aquinas into the world of empirical science. Since the time of Aquinas, our understanding of the Universe has increased enormously. The ancient theologians not only conceived a perfect God, but they also saw the world as a very imperfect place. Their reaction was to place God outside the world. I will argue that we live in a Universe which approaches infinity in size and complexity, is as perfect as can be, and fulfils all the roles traditionally attributed to God, creator, lawmaker and judge.' back

Jeffrey Nicholls (2022), Cognitive cosmology, ' Quantum mechanics began as a physical theory to explain spectra of atoms but now it is understood as a theory of computation and communication. Theology is the ancient and traditional theory of everything. If the Universe is to be divine, physics and theology must share the same space which means that they must speak the same language. This I understand to be the power of communication and computation implicit in the formalism of quantum theory.' back

John von Neumann (2014), Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, ' Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by John von Neumann translated from the German by Robert T. Beyer (New Edition) edited by Nicholas A. Wheeler. Princeton UP Princeton & Oxford. Preface: ' This book is the realization of my long-held intention to someday use the resources of TEX to produce a more easily read version of Robert T. Beyer’s authorized English translation (Princeton University Press, 1955) of John von Neumann’s classic Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik (Springer, 1932).'This content downloaded from 129.127.145.240 on Sat, 30 May 2020 22:38:31 UTC back

Keith M. Bellizzi, Cognitive biases and brain biology help explain why facts don’t change minds, back

Mark Kenny, Australian conservatism succumbs to the same radical tendency as like-minded parties abroad, 'Even before the scandal, The Australian’s Greg Sheridan wrote, in a piece headlined “Liberals have lost the plot amid global crisis of the right”, that it had become difficult to know what the Coalition parties believed. An admirably direct critic of the conservative tradition from within, Sheridan describes an “intellectual vacuum across the Australian political right”, calling it the “greatest long-term threat to the Libs and the Nats”. As shocking at Morrison’s behaviour was, the reluctance of the Coalition parties to unequivocally condemn it may inflict even greater long-term damage to the conservative cause.' back

Myriam Renaud, Why Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ remains so controversial decades after its publication, back

Nicole Lee & Paula Ross, From tough love to interventions, what works when a loved one is struggling with addiction?, ' A great piece of advice comes from one of our colleagues who is a carer of someone with a drug problem and also provides support for other families: do what you would do if drugs were not involved. If your child was struggling with another health issue, like a depression or anxiety, would you withhold money, lock them out of the house or refuse to speak to them if they didn’t want to seek help? . . . When families stage their own intervention, the likely outcome is shame and embarrassment, and relationships can be damaged. . . . Families with alcohol or other drug problems do better when general communication in the family improves. . . . ' back

P versus NP problem - Wikipedia, P versus NP problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified (technically, verified in polynomial time) can also be solved quickly (again, in polynomial time). The underlying issues were first discussed in the 1950s, in letters from John Forbes Nash Jr. to the National Security Agency, and from Kurt Gödel to John von Neumann. The precise statement of the P versus NP problem was introduced in 1971 by Stephen Cook in his seminal paper "The complexity of theorem proving procedures" and is considered by many to be the most important open problem in the field.' back

Phillippa Martyr, 5 drugs that changed the world (and what went wrong), 1. Anaesthesia: . . . Soon anaesthesia was more widely used during surgery, bringing better recovery rates. Before anaesthesia, surgical patients would often die of shock from the pain. 2. Penecillin: . . . Penicillin and its descendants are enormously successful front-line drugs for conditions that once killed millions of people. However, their widespread use has led to drug-resistant strains of bacteria. 3: Nitroglycerin: . . . But because people’s lives are now extended, there are now higher rates of deaths from cancer and other non-communicable diseases. So nitroglycerin turned out to be a world-changing drug in unexpected ways. 4. The Pill: . . . The pill caused major global demographic changes with smaller families and increased incomes as women re-entered the workforce. However, it’s still raising questions about how the medical profession has experimented on women’s bodies. 5. Diezepam: . . . Cheap, easily available drugs like these had a huge impact. From 1969 until 1982, Valium was the top-selling pharmaceutical in the United States. These drugs created a culture of managing stress and anxiety with medication.' back

Quantum statistical mechanics - Wikipedia, Quantum statistical mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Quantum statistical mechanics is the study of statistical ensembles of quantum mechanical systems. A statistical ensemble is described by a density operator S, which is a non-negative, self-adjoint, trace-class operator of trace 1 on the Hilbert space H describing the quantum system. This can be shown under various mathematical formalisms for quantum mechanics. One such formalism is provided by quantum logic.' back

Richard Feynman (1964), Feynman Messenger Lectures, ' 1. The Law of Gravitation: an example of physical law 2. The Relation of Mathematics and Physics 3. The Great Conservation Principles 4. Symmetry in Physical Law 5. The Distinction of Past and Future 6. Probability and Uncertainty: the quantum mechanical view of nature /6 Seeking New Laws.' back

Robyn Huang (2022_08_14), ‘I’ll be sacrificed’: The lost and sold daughters of Afghanistan, ' Herat, Afghanistan – The last time Aalam Gul Jamshidi saw her daughter was the night the 16 year old was married off to a man more than twice her age. Aziz Gul looked radiant in a sequinned, white wedding dress and a bright yellow headscarf, but there was fear in her otherwise solemn expressions. “If I go there, I’ll be sacrificed,” her mother remembers her daughter pleading that night last October. Aalam Gul had a sinking feeling but convinced herself it was just nerves. Aziz Gul’s marriage had been arranged four years prior and now that the time had come, she knew it was her duty to encourage her daughter into a new family. In Afghan culture, once a female marries, she moves in with her in-laws. Aziz Gul left her family’s home in Gozar Gah, a suburb of Herat, and moved to her new husband Musa’s home in Jawand, a rural district some 200km (124 miles) away – too far for her family to visit easily. Five months later, the phone rang. It was Musa’s father calling to tell Aalam Gul that her daughter had been killed. Her naked body had been found in a forest just outside the village where she had lived with her in-laws. Aziz Gul had been beaten and shot four times in the back. She was 17 years old and four months pregnant. back

Russel Blackford, Why I still support Charlie Hebdo, ' Fair, useful cultural criticism should display some humility in the face of art. It should be grounded in an understanding of context and the relevant styles and traditions of expression. If we propose to engage in critique of cultural products, we had better show some complexity and generosity of response. That is how we earn our places in serious cultural conversations.' back

Sheldon Axler, Complexification, back

Statistical mechanics - Wikipedia, Statistical mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Statistical mechanics (or statistical thermodynamics is the application of probability theory, which includes mathematical tools for dealing with large populations, to the field of mechanics, which is concerned with the motion of particles or objects when subjected to a force. . . . The essential problem in statistical thermodynamics is to determine the distribution of a given amount of energy E over N identical systems. The goal of statistical thermodynamics is to understand and to interpret the measurable macroscopic properties of materials in terms of the properties of their constituent particles and the interactions between them. This is done by connecting thermodynamic functions to quantum-mechanic equations. Two central quantities in statistical thermodynamics are the Boltzmann factor and the partition function.' back

Stephen Pollard, Rushdie attack: naive Westerners still refuse to accept truth about Iran’s evil regime, ' As I write, the motive for the attack has not been confirmed. What needs no confirming, however – because it has been Rushdie’s reality since 1989 – is that the former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa stating the author and his publishers “are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. And whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr".. . . The fatwa on Sir Salman Rushdie is not an aberration. It is how this monstrous, criminal regime operates.' back

Thomas Aquinas, Summa, I, 2, 3, Does God exist?, 'I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. . . . ' back

Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The unmoved mover (Ancient Greek: ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ, romanized: ho ou kinoúmenon kineî, lit. 'that which moves without being moved'] or prime mover (Latin: primum movens) is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cause) or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the unmoved mover moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek: Λ) of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: self-contemplation. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek pre-Socratic philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the unmoved mover in the Quinque viae. ' back

Vijay Mishra, How Salman Rushdie has been a scapegoat for complex historical differences, ' It was more than 30 years ago – February 14, 1989 (Valentine’s Day) – when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 88, the then spiritual ruler of Iran, condemned Rushdie to death via a fatwa, a legal ruling under Sharia Law. His crime was blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad in his novel The Satanic Verses, on a number of levels. The most serious was the suggestion that Muhammad didn’t solely edit the message of Angel Gibreel (Gabriel) – that Satan himself had a hand in occasionally distorting that message. These, of course, are presented as hallucinatory recollections by the novel’s seemingly deranged character, Gibreel Farishta. But because of a common belief in the shared identity of author and narrator, the author is deemed to be responsible for a character’s words and actions. And so the author stood condemned. Blasphemy against Muhammad is an unpardonable crime in Islam: a kind of divine sanctity surrounds the Prophet of Islam. The latter is captured in the well-known Farsi saying, Ba khuda diwana basho; ba muhammad hoshiyar (Take liberties with Allah as you wish; but be careful with Muhammad).' back

Zero-point energy - Wikipedia, Zero-point energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Zero-point energy is fundamentally related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Roughly speaking, the uncertainty principle states that complementary variables (such as a particle's position and momentum, or a field's value and derivative at a point in space) cannot simultaneously be specified precisely by any given quantum state. In particular, there cannot exist a state in which the system simply sits motionless at the bottom of its potential well, for then its position and momentum would both be completely determined to arbitrarily great precision. Therefore, the lowest-energy state (the ground state) of the system must have a distribution in position and momentum that satisfies the uncertainty principle, which implies its energy must be greater than the minimum of the potential well.' back