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Topic: Cosmogony, Holography and Causality
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Rex Kerr
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Member # 632
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posted 23. October 2003 20:48
Could someone please define "isomorphic" as it is being used here? An isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping. The term is meaningless unless you know what structure is being preserved.
Also, to what portion of the universe is the law of the excluded middle isomorphic to, and in what sense is the law of the excluded middle a model of reality?
It seems to me that the law of the excluded middle is a model of our classification processes, not of the universe, and it isn't isomorphic to our classification processes but rather is in the limit as classification becomes perfect.
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gedanken
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posted 23. October 2003 22:35
quote:
It seems to me that the law of the excluded middle is a model of our classification processes, not of the universe, and it isn't isomorphic to our classification processes but rather is in the limit as classification becomes perfect.
My point would be to question whether "as classification becomes perfect" even has meaning for the real world. It certainly has meaning with regard to our models, in the sense that our model is often of an idealized world in which classification has meaning in the limit, to which we strive.
But speaking of how well our models agree with our models says little about the real world.
I think that Mr. Langan would argue that is equivalent to a claim that the objectives of science are meaningless. But I would disagree with that, as I think that models can indeed improve so as to cover more and more cases of interest or common experience to the human. That is not the same as an existence of a "limit", any more than finding a local maxima is the same as finding an "absolute" highest peak in "in the limit".
[ 23. October 2003, 22:43: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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chimp
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posted 24. October 2003 03:47
quote:
Could someone please define "isomorphic" as it is being used here? An isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping. The term is meaningless unless you know what structure is being preserved.
Also, to what portion of the universe is the law of the excluded middle isomorphic to, and in what sense is the law of the excluded middle a model of reality?
A correspondence that preserves the "algebraic structure", which is a map that is one to one and onto. The isomorphism is realized with the hology principle, where the SCSPL syntax is logically and geometrically self replicating up to certain determinant factors. The identity is distributive. The SCSPL grammatical syntax is part of the evolutionary process called conspansion, an alternation of quantum "coherence - decoherence". Intersecting sheets of potential collapse, and "re-expand". This is also known as re-quantization - inner expansion which self configures the spacetime geometry. Time processes space as cognition processes information.
If my interpretation, and "memory", is correct, the correspondence of logical tautology to reality, is analogous to the way a curve can be transformed into a fractal by substituting a geometrical reduction of the curve for its elementary relations. So, a tautology itself may be substituted for the sentenial variables of the tautology. The geomentric - logic iteration of invariant SCSPL syntax, is a fractal effect with spatiotemporal self similarity. The holographic aspect of CTMU is known as a "supertautology". The holographic[hology] principle is most likely different than regular [secondary] types of holgrams, and it does not suffer the the holographic difficulties as explained by Gedankin. Geometry is reduced to logic. Logic takes priority over ...geometry ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Quantum potential is actualized, and actualization requires a mechanism, where the mechanism requires rules of operation, and the rules of operation are constraints. The UBT[unbound telesis] provides no constraints according to the CTMU, so the only possibilities that may be actualized are the possibilities that can provide their own mechanism of actualization, their own intrinsic, self consistent logics, or self consistent mechanisms of constraint.
The laws of physics then become perfectly distributed self similarity relations. I recall Christopher M. Langan giving a mathematical proof showing how the laws must be perfectly distributed. So the law of excluded middle is perfectly distributed since the laws of mathematics S1 distribute over the laws of physics S2 .
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Rex Kerr
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posted 24. October 2003 04:39
What algebraic structure are you referring to? Without a clear definition, it's very hard to evaluate the merit of any claims about isomorphism.
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chimp
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posted 24. October 2003 05:37
It is explained in the 56 page CTMU paper page 42.
Here is a small quote:
quote:
By the Principle of Linguistic Reducibility, reality is a language. Because it is self-contained with
respect to processing as well as configuration, it is a Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language
or SCSPL whose general spatiotemporal structure is hologically replicated everywhere within it as
self-transductive syntax. This reduces the generative phase of reality, including physical
cosmogony, to the generative grammar of SCSPL. This reality-generative grammar is called Ã
grammar, and the MU form, being the most general or prior form of reality, is its basis. By the
Principle of Infocognitive Monism and the hology of MU, SCSPL consists of MU-configured
infocognition, and à grammar describes the generation and transformation of this universal
constituent.
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jasonyoung
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posted 24. October 2003 16:27
The Mind equals Reality principle (M=R) asserts that mind and reality are inseparable to the extent that they share common rules of structure and processing. Those parts of "objective" reality which do not share rules of structure and processing with our minds are observationally and explanatorily irrelevant, i.e. they're irreal, much as Kant's noumenon is.
Any expression of difference entails a common medium or syntax, as we all know from the general principle of syndiffeonesis. When one considers this alongside hology, the logical analogue of holography whereby the universe is conceived of as having a distributed self-similarity entailing homogeneity (no general homogeneity, no coherent reality; there would be a disconnect), and then we consider again the Mind=Reality principle, it should be fairly easy to see how what you're proposing, gedanken and Rex, is illogical: there cannot be a discordance between the syntax of our cognitive processes and reality assuming we're using any coherent definition of reality.
This does not mean there cannot be disagreements over what we happen to be perceiving or modelling, as the SCSPL allows for "imprecision" (see earlier in this thread) on the semantic and interpretative levels of reference (regarding your comments about dreaming, inept classification and modelling etc.).
[ 24. October 2003, 17:05: Message edited by: jasonyoung ]
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gedanken
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posted 24. October 2003 17:46
quote:
there cannot be a discordance between the syntax of our cognitive processes and reality assuming we're using any coherent definition of reality.
But later JasonYoung brings up deviations or imperfections as part of the concept. This is based on (as I in essence pointed out before) a model of the real world that claim a priori that the real world can be described with a non-infinite syntactical description. Then these syntactical description can in all of our versions approximate reality, that is not a difference in our views. The issue is whether reality is indeed coherent in the meaning of corresponding to a (a symantic mapping of a) finite syntactic description. That is not assured, and approximation being useful does not assure that.
I agree that, for example, the Holy Grail of the physics TOE does depend on some sort of completely 'correct' mapping in some manner--but the existence of such a TOE is not necessarily possible. No one can show whether or not such a theory will ever be developed. (And even if done, I pointed out that there may be 'fuzzy logic' equivalents to such a theory which deal with the seeming equivalents of probability in QM theory. As such, even that mapping may be in essence inexact by some 'fuzzy' meaning yet to be determined. And furthermore that single formulation might be the totality of 'correctly mapping' logical or syntactic statement, with all higher order descriptions of the real world being inherently subject to incoherence at some level due to combinatorial explosion of real-world relationships and interactions.)
In other words, we may indeed not have a "coherent definition of reality"! You cannot use an if-then argument based on that assumption to convince me of your point, as it seems in my view to be assuming the consequent.
quote:
... asserts that mind and reality are inseparable to the extent that they share common rules of structure and processing.
Also, (and I have given extensive argument and links to papers, etc.) I don't agree that the mind's "rules of processing" are in fact what we call "logic", rather logics (plural, various) are simply a method that we learn, just like we learn language--and these are quite useful things to learn. That does not imply that they apply in all situations. In fact the failures of language (imperfect definition) and the failures of logic to conform to the real world are closely related.
[ 24. October 2003, 18:20: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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jasonyoung
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posted 24. October 2003 18:58
"are simply a method that we learn, just like we learn language--and these are quite useful things to learn"
I flat out disagree. The ability to make prepositional statements requires a mastery of the relevant concepts and the phonological primitives designating those concepts. Without this mastery, articulating premises and explicitly enumerating formal rules of inference just flat out isn't possible. Such is the case with the college students mentioned by Dr.Churchland. They clearly do understand the underlying logic of their opponents strategy, otherwise they would consistently lose. That they can't articulate it says more about their verbal facility and working memory than it does about their ability to make use of logic.
I'm sure you'll retort that they're merely correlating memories; after stumbling upon a winning strategy in 'problem space' using the heuristics the brain utilizes to facilitate solution identification they unconsciously stick to it and reap the dopaminergic benefits of victory in the process. Fine, but this would still entail a "YES" declaration on the part of the brain; the brain would have had to identify the winning strategy and exclude all the less effective ones.
As C.Langan says earlier in this thread, when one makes an observation one simultaneously excludes the possibility of having made a different ("contrary") observation. Correlating memories still involves asking a series of questions (like a Geiger Counter, or some other such gizmo) and being fed answers by our perceptual machinery. I don't see how you can possibly get around this fact without at the same time surrendering yourself to a shambolic hell of solipsism.
As for your claim that we can't define concepts with any degree of specificity, I'm going to have to disagree again. The imprecision of our cognitive and perceptual machinery renders exact and exhaustive enumerations of the properties comprising concepts impossible, or, at the very least, impractical given our time constraints. That isn't to say it isn't possible - we may one day be able to identify the informational relationships between each and every particle (excluding those that possess self-configurative freedom, i.e. quantum particles) in a system and incorporate them into our models (and make up words to designate them all for communicative convenience). Perchance to dream, hm?
By the bye, the fuzzy logic equivalent in the CTMU of quantum wave functions is called "freedom".
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gedanken
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posted 24. October 2003 23:33
quote:
I flat out disagree. The ability to make prepositional statements requires a mastery of the relevant concepts and the phonological primitives designating those concepts.
Actually I'm quite sure that a deaf person would learn logic concepts just as well as a hearing person listening to the sound of the language.
But I certainly did not mean that one did not have to learn language before learning logic concepts in large measure. (But then Ven diagrams might be understandable or communicable in some way without use of syntactic language as well.) Actually I think that the point that language is learned before logic is quite supportive of my point-- 'logic' is not inherent in how the thinking process works, it is learned. But I think it actually is quite inherent in coming from language (also learned), in the sense that the symbolic labeling in language is the essence of the logic concept of categorization. (Point being that categorization is inherent in what is learned in learning language, as opposed to being a crisp aspect of the real world itself.)
quote:
I'm sure you'll retort that they're merely correlating memories; after stumbling upon a winning strategy in 'problem space' using the heuristics the brain utilizes to facilitate solution identification they unconsciously stick to it and reap the dopaminergic benefits of victory in the process.
Why would you put words in my mouth depreciating the thinking process? Your arguments do not attempt to reply to what I have said, but rather have a mocking tone. A claim of a degree of inexactness in all communication and language is (as I understand it) even recognized in Mr. Langan's work. (Where we disagree is on the degree to which they can be refined indefinitiely.) And also in Mr. Langan's work the thinking process is certainly a physical process of the real world. If you pretend to support that work, you could hardly assume that I who also think that the thinking process is physical would produce such a limited view of that process.
Even the term 'problem space' claims a mathematical operation of the thinking process. While certainly if language statements could accurately describe the thinking process (part of the real world) then a mathematical model could be (in principle) generated. Just that the neural-network like processes hardly have to work with a 'problem space' basis.
quote:
As C.Langan says earlier in this thread, when one makes an observation one simultaneously excludes the possibility of having made a different ("contrary") observation. Correlating memories still involves asking a series of questions (like a Geiger Counter, or some other such gizmo) and being fed answers by our perceptual machinery.
"Correlating memories" hardly requires having absolute crisp knowledge of the real world. As mentioned before, even Mr. Langan's approach allows for the inexactness. My claim, once again, is that inexactness in perception and description is inherent in the complexity of the real world, such that approximate knowledge and classification (or correlation) can never be made perfect, nor can it even converge continuously to accurate real-world representation without expanding to unlimited quantities of syntactic content.
quote:
As for your claim that we can't define concepts with any degree of specificity, ...
I really must protest a lack of attempt at accurately representing what I have said. The rest of your paragraph does not really sound like you meant that as stated.
Then it would seem that QM denies the aspect of complete knowledge of the state of the system. (Remember the viewer problem, that the act of viewing changes the state.)
The CTMU paper does not discuss quantum theory in detailed mathematics. It does not give a specifically mathematical meaning to a fuzzy relationship, as I was speculating. (Fuzzy is meant to differ from probability, as is commonly taken as a function of the representation of quantum wave equations.) But CTMU may recognize the fuzzy nature in more general terms, I certainly don't mean to deny that CTMU speaks of similar things to what I have indicated here and there.
[ 25. October 2003, 00:13: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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jasonyoung
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posted 25. October 2003 01:45
As for the first paragraph of my last post, it's an oblique response to Churchland's critique of the deductive-nomological model. I find nothing suspicious about knowledge being inarticulable and prepositional, nor do I find the inability of university students to do advanced formal logic evidence against the DN model. Why not? Because every university student I've ever met can do elementary logic thoughtlessly. They run into problems when they have to work with numerous abstract concepts simultaneously, something a limited working memory precludes.
quote:
Actually I'm quite sure that a deaf person would learn logic concepts just as well as a hearing person listening to the sound of the language.
When did I claim that one must learn a natural language before one understands logic? This obviously isn't true - dogs can use logic, but they can't speak. I said you have to have a mastery of the concepts and of the language used to express them. Many university students, such as the RPS players, fall into the category of those who have mastered the [basic] concepts [of logic] but cannot express them for want of sufficient Logos.
quote:
But I think it actually is quite inherent in coming from language (also learned), in the sense that the symbolic labeling in language is the essence of the logic concept of categorization
My dog can manipulate abstractions and categorize the objects in his environment quite well, yet he can't generate symbols, at least so far as I know. Perhaps I should spend a little time trying to decode his spasmodic tail wriggles. If you mean the ability to categorize things is a necessary precondition for developing a language, I will agree; if you mean language somehow precedes categorization (though they can work together when one is advanced enough), I strongly disagree.
quote:
I really must protest a lack of attempt at accurately representing what I have said.
Your first sentence was a response to something I didn't say. And whether or not my arguments (or yours) are applicable to what we're discussing is a matter for us both to decide. I, for instance, can't imagine why you're informing me that categories do not exist independent of cognitive systems, nor do I know what you mean when you say, "the rest of your paragraph does not really sound like you meant that as stated". Yes, as a matter of fact I did.
You claim in your post that: "[knowledge and classification] cannot even converge continuously to accurate real-world representation without expanding to unlimited quantities of syntactic content".
This, and statements like this, lead me to believe you think we cannot define concepts with any degree of specificity; we'll always be unsure of our conclusions because we're working with nebulous concepts having variable boundaries. I say this is false for two reasons:
i) We're currently able to give very specific definitions for a certain limited range of concepts, and;
ii) There is no reason, even in theory, why we shouldn't eventually be able to create cognitive systems capable of modelling every "informational relationship" in their environments. We currently can't do that because we don't have the hardware for it, but that doesn't mean it won't one day be possible (this is a response to your 'semantic games'.. "how do we define a room? how do we define a coin? how do we define a straight line?", etc.).
And please don't tell me what semantic and interpretative disjunction with the SCSPL syntax means and entails. I already know.
[ 25. October 2003, 01:47: Message edited by: jasonyoung ]
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gedanken
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posted 25. October 2003 17:45
JasonYoung, when you (earlier) said:
quote:
The ability to make prepositional statements requires a mastery of the relevant concepts and the phonological primitives designating those concepts. Without this mastery, articulating premises and explicitly enumerating formal rules of inference just flat out isn't possible.
I perhaps misunderstood that statement to mean the following: Use of “formal rules of inference” (syntactic) is what is meant by “logic”. Having a mastery of language concepts was necessary to do what was being called “logic”. (And I discounted the reference to the sound of words that were primitives, “phonological,” as not exactly what was meant. But that is why I put in the comment about deaf people doing formal logic.) In discussion of CTMU, I would expect one to be talking about formal “language” because the number of references to “language” and “syntax”, so I did not find this meaning to be unexpected.
Remember also that my initial statement to which you responded equated learning of language and learning of logic patterns. You seem to “flat out disagree” and quoted my statement to which you originally disagreed:
quote:
"are simply a method that we learn, just like we learn language--and these are quite useful things to learn"
But your recent post, in apparent zeal to argue disagreement with later (possibly “mis-”) interpretations of my statements, seems to support several things I said. But that support may only be illusory, as in accepting only the same premises that I am using (and also found in Churchland).
Churchland’s real point (of the “D-M” model) is that “D_M” is a formal language reasoning technique (indeed requiring “syntax”), wherein the model proposed by Churchland is of a parallel neuro-fuzzy input output sequences involved in recognition. You seem to recognize the premises, in recognizing that even dogs seem able to recognize primitive causal relationships in which objects are identified in some manner. College students, in Chruchland’s presentation, were slow at developing formal language, “syntactic,” statements of logic. But people (and even dogs) were able to jump to or grasp conclusions much more quickly than the time permitted to work through such syntactic formal reasoning steps, and seem to do so with speed that is more commensurate with the massively parallel neuro-fuzzy input to output sort of model based on learned experience.
Jason, I say you “seem” to support those, because you recognize the premises, but then appear go on to say that these cases are actual uses of “logic”. So let me understand: Is a circuit that implements a neuro-fuzzy rule set, with outputs that have matter of degree in their output activation, and are based on sensory patterns as input, are these systems using “logic”? Such neural network system can learn categorization based on limited feedback from environment, and it never needed to go through a form in which formal language statements of logic were used.
(By the way, in a dog’s behavior, have you ever noticed a range of cases from strong directionality in response, to indecision and motions that would seem to indicate conflict in choice? It would seem that even in the dog’s behavior, that such activations among categories could have degree and are not necessarily crisp.)
All this change of viewpoint seems to support my original statement, that the various logics "are simply [methods] that we learn, just like we learn language--and these are quite useful things to learn". I now understand that you are differentiating the use of formal syntactic statement from one of the various logics, from what we might view (in Churchland’s terms) of an “activation” of a pattern recognition circuit of sorts.
Now I should make an update a lack of clarity of my statement, but I’ll make it here, changing your quote with change in bold:
quote:
"[knowledge and classification] cannot even converge continuously to completely or mathematically exactly accurate real-world representation without expanding to unlimited quantities of syntactic content".
But terms seem to keep coming up with quantitative adverbs or prepositional phrases, such as “degree of specificity”, and “very specific definitions”. But we can indeed have considerable degree of specificity, we can very accurately make measurements, and we can be quite certain about our conclusions. None of that removes all variability in boundaries, nor removes any degree of nebulousness of concepts—and thus we cannot reach conclusions with “absolute certainty”. (Science never seems to claim absolute certainty, rather is always skeptical and open to recognition of error and of new evidence. I initially wrote that sentence “Science certainly never...”, and I changed it only due to context, because when we say “certainly never” we typically don’t mean exactly that but rather mean to indicate a great deal of certainty.)
As to the eventuality of “cognitive systems capable of modeling every ‘informational relationship’ in their environments.” I’m not sure what this means, “every ‘informational relationship’ ”. To start out, the term “informational” is very nebulous. I’m going to assume that we are dealing in every detail of the environment, wherein every detail is at some level “informational”. Some possibilities:
A) Modeling only at a crude level. But of course we already do this. Fuzzy by definition.
B) Modeling with knowledge of every particle up to quantum limits. Still fuzzy.
C) Modeling beyond quantum limits. Possible—given our present knowledge of quantum theory?
Here we are constructing models of a further system, which would itself perform “modeling”. But our present models, and present use of logics, seem to be in conflict with that claim, even in principle. Either the modeling system in question still deals in matters of degree on precision, or it violates current models of physics. Remember some points, that QM principles say that gaining knowledge of the environment also changes that environment, and that the boundary of the “cognitive system” and the environment is itself fuzzy, and lastly that all environments necessarily interact to some degree with the entirety of the universe and thus to speak of “every” relationship must incorporate all the known universe. All that such a system has achieved is greater accuracy in a greater number of cases, at most, in principle.
I don’t understand your point about semantic games in regard to "how do we define a room? how do we define a coin? how do we define a straight line?". My premise is that these and issues of relationships of these never completely describe or conform to all the patterns in the real world. Now if Mr. Langan’s CTMU already takes this sort of issue into account, why is there any disagreement with my premises? And if not, then I challenge these as mistaken premises of CTMU.
But it seems to me that Mr. Langan’s CTMU is based on a premise that the “real world” can have absolutely precise mathematical description, and that all that is lacking is sufficient present knowledge. Repair that lack of knowledge and we could find those completely accurate and absolutely precise mathematical descriptions. I can’t deny the possibility of correctness of that sort of claim, just that our scientific experience does not yet seem to support that. For example the Holy Grail of a TOE has continually been met with additional structure at further levels of refinement. (Very useful models, just never complete.) Then beyond that, it seems to me that CTMU is discussing something relating to “logic” that goes beyond simply a correct and fully accurate physics description of particles (or whatever might turn out to be the ‘correct’ concept in a TOE.)
[ 25. October 2003, 18:04: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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Gambit
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posted 01. November 2003 01:06
gedanken just posted:
[QUOTE]But it seems to me that Mr. Langan’s CTMU is based on a premise that the “real world” can have absolutely precise mathematical description, and that all that is lacking is sufficient present knowledge. Repair that lack of knowledge and we could find those completely accurate and absolutely precise mathematical descriptions. I can’t deny the possibility of correctness of that sort of claim, just that our scientific experience does not yet seem to support that.[QUOTE]
As I understand the CTMU after reading the introduction about a year ago, this must be correct. Seeing as how the CTMU takes a top down approach on "everything" one could visualize an understanding or learning of that CTMU as not a transition or bridging from the past scientific experience to a new one. Instead, past scientific experience would need to taper off (loose its inconsistencies) and start from the top of this TOE then expand not to link between but to replace the old science. However, to say the old science disapeared or never happened would not play very well. In a sense the traditional science will leave its events and loose its influence on the new understanding. Thus the only bridge couldn't correctly be called a cohesive one. This is why a bridge build by knowledge doesn't really work and why the CTMU still exists.
To attempt to answer Mr. Langan's original question on this thread: A biologist might seem unconcerned with the fundamental nature of causality because they have faith (are in isomorphism) with the connected events observed. This is like a feedback loop of predicting events allowing this self-isolated system to evade a fundamental causality check (isomorphism) with events so long as this loop refines itself.
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gedanken
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posted 01. November 2003 20:35
I disagree with Gambit’s resulting view (that is the CTMU conclusions) on several levels. I don’t mean any sort of statement that Gambit is not correctly representing CTMU, rather if this is indeed what CTMU document says, then I disagree with CTMU per se. I’ll comment specifically if I think Gambit says something that seems to disagree with what I see in CTMU document. (And of course if Gambit’s comments do not represent CTMU document, then these points will relate to artifacts of the presentation.)
A first area is to look at what a physics “TOE” is. It is most explicitly not actually a “theory of everything” even though that is what it is named. Such a theory is actually a model of the low level interactions of the most fundamental particles. Now it is no more a theory of “everything” than any other physics explanation of the lowest level interactions. The “everything” is a reference to the fact that various aspects of low level theory of interaction did not integrate, for example four major forces were not accounted for in the same theory simultaneously, and “everything” really means that all of the major forces would be captured in a single theory. Now a theory of physics, complete or not with regard to major forces, does not directly deal with higher level constructions. It does not explain how the forces distribute in arches. Nor does it explain evolutionary processes of biological forms. These are examples of science that are most certainly part of “everything” we observe, yet which are not part of the so-called “Theory Of Everything”. Yet we expect that arches and evolutionary processes are consistent with low level physics in virtually all respects, whether or not the various physics models are integrated.
So a question arises with this aspect, and CTMU: Does CTMU document suggest that biology and the theory of arches (as examples) are expected to be replaced in some sense with the SCSPL? (Now I presume that the answer to this question would be either yes or no. If no, then Gambit’s first paragraph might differ from what CTMU document actually says. If yes, then I am having problems with various aspects, but this is based on long discussion having taken many pages already and I won’t attempt a short discussion.)
On Gambit’s second paragraph, I was not clear on the origin of the isomorphism statement, specifically with regard to biology. (In other words I don’t understand if Gambit properly represented CTMU.)
But I heartily disagree that biological theories are in “Isomorphism” with reality. First of course there are many aspects of biological theory that are not strictly crisply defined. (See long discussion of many pages.) This renters a strict mathematical “isomorphism” nonsensical in the first place.
But in part my disagreement is on the nature of the term “isomorphism” itself. Isomorphisms occur from one model to another, when there is a one to one and on to mapping in a set theoretic or mathematical sense between elements preserving some structure. This does not make sense with regard to the real world, as the real world is only modeled with sets, it is not actually composed of sets. (I’m not sure what Mr. Langan says about this, but I am still presenting my thinking.) For one no such description of biology has pretended to have catalogued every lifeform, and even such lifeforms are a sub-portion of the real world. Thus the mapping cannot be “on to” even in a vague sense. If one is actually talking about making a mental abstraction of properties of the real world (thus a model) and then forming an isomorphism—in that case my point is made, we are finding isomorphisms between models.
Now here I may have a very specific disagreement with Gambit, in that Gambit seems to be hinting (with comments about “faith” and “evade a fundamental causality check”) that biological evolutionary theory will actually be found to be inconsistent with other physical observation. (I don’t understand the nature of “evasion” being eluded to.) But here I would point out what Aliet Jacob has pointed out before, that CTMU implies biological evolutionary theory’s basic correctness (of physical causation of physical events)—even though it claims to find interest in such items as “irreducible complexity” and other ID concepts.
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Aliet Jacob
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posted 03. November 2003 07:37
quote:
Does CTMU document suggest that biology and the theory of arches (as examples) are expected to be replaced in some sense with the SCSPL?
No. SCSPL is a representation of reality as a language. Remember, CTMU, presents a panpsychist reality with a self-aware designer self-distributing to ensure hology. This designer is SCSPL (since language is not sentient or self-organizing as such - except in automata, which is definitely not the meaning of language used in M=R).
Langan says Biology etc is rooted in absurdity because they don't explain what the laws that they use rely on (and there is a clear misunderstanding of evolution in the CTMU).
What Langan suggests is that they should be tautologic (be made up of 'always true' statements) and because they are not, they embody explanatory gaps and are hence incomplete and lack closure and comprehensiveness.
This means for example, that a biologist must understand astronomy, chemistry, physics etc because the chemical reaction of an autocatalytic system like blood clotting, must not only be explained, but an explanation is required as to why like charges repel and unlike charges attract etc. Ponder the implications of this, dear Ged.
His argument is that everything requires explanations, even explanations. So each theory must have another theory supporting it. And the syndiffeonic regress can be stopped where further reduction compromises intelligibility.
Langan offers no methodology for this syndiffeonic regress and leave it as an arbitrary and subjective process, making it non-scientific.
The concept of reduction and extension, in the light of supertautologies is impractical and assumes humans to have explanations for everything. If we are to subject the CTMU to reduction and extension, we will necessarily have to throw it at the dustbin because it doesnt explain, for example, the mechanics of conspansion, of telic recursion (which contradicts hology, because it assumes an inhomogenic universe which violates the cosmological principle - by having the global and local telors - I think its a poor attempt ate dividing the world into macroscopic and microscopic)
Langan contradicts himself when he says the CTMU is tautologic because it offers no explanation as to why the the Universe evolved from the UBT, it doesnt explain what caused the UBT etc.
Whats worse, Langan argues that the UBT is a pre-informational realm of unbound potential.
"Pre-informational", and "potential" are information, and if we can get them, then the UBT is not pre-informational. If its pre-informational, then no information can 'flow' from it to us or to anything.
Its like X saying that X is not saying anything.
Reminds me of Chaitins randomness...
And again, if reality evolved from a chaotic (pre-information is chaotic) level, that is acausality/randomness with respect to cosmic origins.
Which is contra intrinsic self-determinacy.
quote:
I’m not sure what Mr. Langan says about this
The abstract is a representation of the concrete. Thats what isomorphism means: that mental objects are distributed over reality.
"I met two matrices when I was going to work and when I looked ahead, I saw their adjuncts hiring a taxi that was crowded with their cofactors. I gestured at their inverses to shut up and show some respect."
I dont recall stating that CTMU is consistent with evolution?
Rex, please check your PMs.
[ 03. November 2003, 08:28: Message edited by: Aliet Jacob ]
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gedanken
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posted 03. November 2003 10:36
quote:
The abstract is a representation of the concrete. Thats what isomorphism means: that mental objects are distributed over reality.
Isn't that more closely related to the reverse of homomorphism, that "reality" would be homomorphic to abstractions? For example if we have many copies of the same pattern (say considered as a connected graph), then they should collapse into the single graph equivalent of the "abstraction"?
And I have been assuming that by "isomorphism" he meant that in a strict mathematical way, of exact one to one and onto mapping that preserves some structure--with key word "exact". (Because that is what the mathematical definition of this mathematical term would mean.) Even there, in the forward direction he must mean something like subgraph isomorphism, otherwise there must be a separate language statement mapping to each element of 'reality' so as to be one to one and also onto. ("Subgraph" isomorphism releases the "onto" requirement, and I am not aware of the more generalized mathematical term for more generalized relationship than 'graph'. But this does not even seem to capture the concept, as one can't simply leave out large portions of reality, rather one must somehow describe all of reality and thus capture the "onto" concept one way or another, rather than simply being injective. This aspect is very unclear to me, with regard to CTMU.)
[ 03. November 2003, 13:08: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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