Is Time Merely Constant Change?

[Fra]

I didn't follow this incredibly long thread, I just jumped in now. Just reading Doctordick's last post I can relate to what he says but I still don't know what the discussion is about.

Before I even try to read all posts, is the dicussion here about the definition or interpretation of time like the title suggest?

Any suggestions which post in this thread I should start reading to get an idea of Doctordicks idea? I ask because, as is often threads start out as something and ends up as something completely different.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

Tell your friends to start with post #211 on this thread

It was right under my nose.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

Whoa.. a lot of reading. Some comments along the way...

From http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm

Without going through all details I can directly relate to this

What I am saying is that understanding implies it is possible to predict expectations for information not known; the explanation constitutes a method which provides one with those rational expectations for unknown information consistent with what is known

This sounds very close to the general induction principles of optimal inference. If so, that is very much in line with my own thinking. When I want to understand reality, it basically means that I want to see how my view of things, and my generator of educated guesses are induced from my current knowledge and experience, under the condition that I do not know everything, and I can't know everything. The reason I can't know everything at once is because my memory is too small, and the reason I can't computer everything instantly is because my computer power is too poor. Here comes a relation to time. This is my own thinking... and if Doctordicks ideas is anything close to this I think I'll find it interesting.

How does that relation sound to you DD?

I'll read on when I get more time

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

I also associate here to bayesian thinking, but instead of bayesian probability, I'd like to call it bayesian expectation for the very reason that the true probabilities themselves can only be estimated.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

Ok I am only one the first page yet! but a question to Doctordick, did you read the ideas of Ariel Caticha, based on optimal inference and entropy methods?

For example arXiv.org/abs/physics/0311093
more at http://www.albany.edu/physics/ariel_caticha.htm

A quote from his paper

The procedure we follow differs in one remarkable way from the manner that has in the past been followed in setting up physical theories. Normally one starts by establishing a mathematical formalism, setting up a set of equations, and then one tries to append an interpretation to it. This is a very difficult problem; historically it has affected not only statistics and statistical physics – what is the meaning of probabilities and of entropy – but also quantum theory – what is the meaning of wave functions and amplitudes. The issue of whether the proposed interpretation is unique, or even whether it is allowed, always remains a legitimate objection and a point of controversy.

Here we proceed in the opposite order, we first decide what we are talking about and what we want to accomplish, and only afterwards we design the ap- apropriate mathematical formalism. The advantage is that the issue of meaning never arises.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

I found this page http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/reality/Contents.htm which I suspect is easier to read that this thread as it looks more structured.

I seems the author tries to rethink from scratch, which is good. I take it the suggestions must be read in the context of his rethinking. I'll start and see if I understand you... some questions along the way on things that I "suspect" are key points to understand the rest(?)...

The issue of truth by definition rests on two very straight forward points:
(1.) we either agree on our definitions or communication is impossible and
(2.) no acceptable definition can contain internal contradictions.

What about the possibility that some definitions, along with other concepts are formed in the communication/interaction itself? And that mutual equilibration is evolving _due to_ communication?

For example, you an I start to speak, by starting out with a small common relation, we can build a larger common relation and set of "definitions"... but isn't that a process?

I'm not sure if I read you wrong here.
Comments?

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

Thus, the problem becomes one of constructing a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process.

I like your bold stance so far, but sometimes the tone is a bit aggresive towards the supposedly "simple minded", but maybe there is a reason for that :)

I received an image in my head of what you set out to do, to somehow try to find a foolproof starting point and work from there. You also note that

As it is my intention to make no assumptions whatsoever, even the smallest assumption becomes a hole which could possibly sink the whole structure. As I do not claim perfection, errors certainly exist within this treatise. None the less, I claim the attack will be shown to be extremely powerful.

It thin this is a key point, that I suspect I'll relate back to later on. In my thinking stability and flexibility is what I consider to be a factor or survival. A strategy that basically is "if I am right, I'll rule the world, and if I'm wrong I'll die" sounds like a high risk strategy. It will be interesting to see how risk assessment is further handled.

In my thinking, the key goal is not some ultimate perfection, but optimal improvement/progression, which is by construction is always changing and "in motion", and improvement of something presumes also it's survival. I see it a bit like a game.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

To return to the purpose of your tool...

Thus, the problem becomes one of constructing a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process.

How do you picture an observer beeing exposed to this datastream? What happens when the observers memory is full, and runs out of memory for you constructions?

/Fredrik

 

[Doctordick]

Please read a little of my conversation with Anssi!

How do you picture an observer being exposed to this data stream? What happens when the observers memory is full, and runs out of memory for your constructions?

(Excuse me for correcting your spelling; it's sort of a compulsion ingrained by my father years ago.) You are clearly misinterpreting what I am doing. I made no claim to understanding how human beings unconsciously solve the problem; all I said is that they obviously solve it on a regular basis which implies it is a solvable problem. Thus the fact that I have solved the problem bears little impact on how the average person does so. In fact, there are a lot of points to persuade one to accept the fact that they certainly do not use my method. In particular, we have the fact that no one (to my knowledge) uses that equation I derived and, secondly, their solutions are often ripe with errors. But they certainly are “solutions”, and dammed good ones at that (almost everyone agrees with “what is real”).

My only point in bringing up the fact that “every living human being” has essentially “solved the problem of constructing a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process” was to convince the reader that the problem was solvable. Most serious scientists would hold that the problem is insoluble on the face of it. Why do you think they refuse to even consider the issue?

I still suggest it would be to your benefit to glance over my conversation with Anssi. As far as the question: what happens when the observers memory is full, and runs out of memory for my construction, the issue is quite simple. First, I am not claiming he is using my construction and second, with regard to my construction, anything which is truly forgotten can not possibly influence one's world view. My construct is based entirely on that data which is available and depends not at all on anything which has been forgotten.

Philosophically speaking, the fact that a common humans construct is based on the assumption that their current world view is valid and that anything they have forgotten was consistent with that world view. That itself could be a great explanation for the errors in their world view. The central point here is that a flaw-free explanation of anything must satisfy my equation.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Fra]

( I don't mind if you want to spellcheck - go ahead )

I am well aware that I may misinterpret your intentions, but that's what the questions are for.

You somewhere (I forgot where) defined an "explanation" as a method for obtaining a expectation? This sounds interesting, but I am still not sure if you mean what I think you mean.

Question on definition of expectation: Do you with expectation mean like some probability in frequentists interpretation, define on the current known fact? ie history or past, or whatever is part of your known facts?

Or does expectation refer to the unknown? ie. that what you know, induce an expectation on the unknown? ie. future?

If you _define_ a probability pretty much like some relative frequency on a given, fixed set of facts, then the "expectation" applied to that set is of course exact by definition? Is this what you mean?

Or do you suggest, that the expectation provides us with educated guesses in cases where we lack information?

You said somewhere I think that you make no predictions? But isn't an expectation a kind of prediction? I mean the expectation is not exact, it doesn't tell us what will happen, but it gives us a basis for bet placing - thus there are good and bad expecttaions. Do you somehow claim that your expectation is the optimum one?

Let me ask this: What is the benefit, someone would have, adapting your models, over someone that uses the standard model? Would they somehow be more "fit" (thinking of the analogy of natural selection here).

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

My observer question wasn't intented to restrict itself to human observers. It coul be anything. Even a molecule. Sure it's unclear what I mean with a molecule observing and responding, but I see it as relabeling the words in a "molecule interacting". There are reasons to think that a molecule can not encode arbitrary amounts of information unless getting extremely energetic.

I am just trying to find a practical realistic application of your thinking. I don't care if we call it physics or mathematics or biology, but for me I am interested in understanding reality. My understanding must have a place, and function in the setting of actual reality.

/Fredrik

 

[Doctordick]

( I don't mind if you want to spellcheck - go ahead )

Thank you for your kindness to my compulsions.

I am well aware that I may misinterpret your intentions, but that's what the questions are for.

I had no intention for you to take my comment as a rebuke; I was merely pointing out the source of your difficulty.

You somewhere (I forgot where) defined an "explanation" as a method for obtaining a expectation? This sounds interesting, but I am still not sure if you mean what I think you mean.

The basic reference can be found http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm

Question on definition of expectation: Do you with expectation mean like some probability in [frequentness?] interpretation, define on the current known fact? ie history or past, or whatever is part of your known facts?

Essentially yes.

I will suggest that what an explanation does for information is that it provides expectations of subsets of that information. That is, it seems to me that if all the information is known, then any questions about the information can be answered (in fact, that could be regarded as the definition of "knowing"). On the other hand, if the information is understood (explainable), then questions about the information can be answered given only limited or incomplete knowledge of the underlying information: i.e., limited subsets of the information. What I am saying is that understanding implies it is possible to predict expectations for information not known; the explanation constitutes a method which provides one with those rational expectations for unknown information consistent with what is known.

What I am saying is that your explanation of something (no matter what that explanation is about) is the source of your expectations. If I understand your explanation, I will be able to estimate your expectations as a probability attached to the various possibilities. In particular, you need to recognize that the correctness of your expectations is not the issue here. The issue is defining exactly what “an explanation” is and, in my opinion, it is a mechanism for generating expectations. I am defining "an explanation", not "a good explanation". A good explanation would be one with few flaws. An explanation which yields expectations perfectly consistent with the known facts would be a "flaw-free" explanation (what we would all like to find).

In fact many scientific discussions revolve around the inaccuracy of one's expectations. If a scientist understands your explanation of something and is of the opinion that your explanation is wrong, his standard attack will be to point out an expectation implied by your explanation does not fit the facts (i.e., is not very probably correct).

Or does expectation refer to the unknown? ie. that what you know, induce an expectation on the unknown? ie. future?

Your expectations are whatever you expect. The easiest way to express your expectations in a precise mathematical way is to give the probabilities of various possibilities. Have you ever heard of the game “20 questions”? Think of your expectations as your answers to a game of “an infinite number of questions with yes/no answers”. A complete description of your expectations could consist of a probability distribution for your answers: i.e., a number bounded by zero and one for each and every question. If I understood your personal explanation of the pertinent information, I could use that explanation to create an estimate of those probabilities: i.e., I would know what to expect from you with regard to that subject (the pertinent information).

If you _define_ a probability pretty much like some relative frequency on a given, fixed set of facts, then the "expectation" applied to that set is of course exact by definition? Is this what you mean?

Or do you suggest, that the expectation provides us with educated guesses in cases where we lack information?

I would say that the idea includes both; the exact expectations are defined by probabilities zero and one, the educated guesses are represented by numbers elsewhere in the range.

You said somewhere I think that you make no predictions? But isn't an expectation a kind of prediction? I mean the expectation is not exact, it doesn't tell us what will happen, but it gives us a basis for bet placing - thus there are good and bad expectations. Do you somehow claim that your expectation is the optimum one?

Once again, you are clearly misinterpreting what I am doing. I am making no predictions of any kind; I am analyzing the problem of making predictions (estimating the probabilities your explanation should yield). Take a quick look at this response to Anssi.
Understanding the issues presented in that response will go a long way in explaining my approach.

Let me ask this: What is the benefit, someone would have, adapting your models, over someone that uses the standard model? Would they somehow be more "fit" (thinking of the analogy of natural selection here).

We are talking about explanations here (epistemological constructs designed to explain reality). I am looking for logical constraints on those constructs. I take your use of the term “standard model” to imply you are misunderstanding what I am doing. When it comes to setting constraints on explanations, the “standard model” is, “it has to make sense”, a very vague and imprecise statement. Every professor I have ever heard define “an explanation” seldom does more than give a few example explanations and then comment something like “I'm not going to waste my time explaining things to you if you can't understand what an explanation is”. It appears to be an unexamined concept: i.e., what I am talking about is something no one looks at carefully.

Over two years ago I made a post to the thread, "Can Everything be Reduced to Pure Physics" which I think is worth understanding.

To put it another way, knowing is having facts available to you (the facts come from the past, not the future) and understanding allows discrimination between good and bad answers (facts you might expect to become available to you in the future). Now the human race has become quite good at this discrimination since all we living things first crawled out of the sea. We are the undoubted leaders in the realm of "understanding" the world around us. And yet no one has come up with a good argument to dismiss the Solipsist position. The fact that we have come so far without being able to prove what is and what is not real should make it clear to you that understanding reality can not possibly require knowing what is real. This is why every serious scientist (I except myself of course[/color]) has vociferously argued against any rational consideration of the question. Their position is: if we don't know what's real, how can we possibly dream of understanding reality. They hold that we must assume we know what's real. You can see that position promulgated all over this forum! Why do you think they label me a crackpot?

I am just trying to find a practical realistic application of your thinking. I don't care if we call it physics or mathematics or biology, but for me I am interested in understanding reality.

Well, I was interested in answering the question “What can[/color] we know?” If you cannot answer that question, how can you have any direction to your attempts to understand reality. Again, in my opinion, the “standard approach” to understanding reality is a “guess and by golly” approach with little or no thought given to logical direction. I had proved the validity of my equation over ten years prior to unraveling the first solution to that equation. Prior to discovering a method of finding solutions, it just seemed reasonable to me that, if I could find a solution, that solution should have practical application. When I finally figured out how to solve it, I discovered practical realistic applications up the wazzo (so to speak). For the moment, why don't we not worry about that; we should first comprehend the defense of the definition and the deduction of the equation itself.

It might benifit you to look at this response to some of Anssi's other questions

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Fra]

Perhaps you also misinterpret some of my questions too ;) some were provocative in order to probe your responses on key points. For obvious reasons I can never be sure I hold the same information as you, but I can say as much that at least some of the things you say makes perfect sense to me and seems closely related to my thinking - this is the part of your explanation or current facts as you put it, implies expectations on the unknown - this bears striking resemblance to optimal inference methods, where one might try to device a relative probability, which I personally call an expectation of the probability becaues you know what you know, but you can only guess what you don't know, thus sometimes the definition of the proper probability space itself gets unclear. Though I have a feeling from first skimming our writings that we have had similarity in thinking early one, but then later on... I am not sure.

For the moment, why don't we not worry about that; we should first comprehend the defense of the definition and the deduction of the equation itself.

Ok, I'll again at that later.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

Ok I'll try to look at http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm ...in small pieces

Just to make sure I get it...

Let's for a second ignore the definition of probability itself...

will define the expectations to be the probability that a particular B(tk) will become a member of C: written as P(B(tk)).

So you basically take the expectation of B(tk) to be a probability conditional on C, right? So using the notions of conditional probabilities a bit loosely, do you object if I write P(B_{t_k}|C) to be read as the conditional probability of B_{t_k} given C? Where this definition of probability includes your eplanation and it's exploit as inducing a probability?

Loosely speaking, this make sense, but there are still issues here. The question is what we mean by probability - my personal main objection to standard QM, is that not even the probability is known exactly, it is only an expectation of the probability, basically probability of probability.

Reflections?

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

I'm not sure I understand how you introduce tau. My associations is an absolute frequency of x, or something else?

Edit: Frequency in B that is.

? no?

/Fredrik

 

[AnssiH]

Sign of life

I thought I'd drop in sign of life to the thread before leaving for a week again (albeit I'll have some access to internet, but probably very little time).

I'm little bit disappointed that I haven't had time to cook up a reply in a while, but then I can't be too disappointed since I've spent hours today and the other day going through the older posts reeaally carefully, and I can say it has been beneficial; I have been able to answer some of my questions all by myself.

Later!
-Anssi

 

[Doctordick]

Perhaps you also misinterpret some of my questions too ;) some were provocative in order to probe your responses on key points.

Perhaps I do and, if so, I would like to be corrected as communications with common language is difficult at best; I much prefer mathematics as meanings are usually quite universal and generally precise.

For obvious reasons I can never be sure I hold the same information as you, but I can say as much that at least some of the things you say makes perfect sense to me and seems closely related to my thinking - this is the part of your explanation or current facts as you put it, implies expectations on the unknown - this bears striking resemblance to optimal inference methods, where one might try to device a relative probability, which I personally call an expectation of the probability because you know what you know, but you can only guess what you don't know, thus sometimes the definition of the proper probability space itself gets unclear.

One problem we are apparently having here is that you are thinking in terms of epistemological constructs themselves whereas I am concerned with “representation” of epistemological constructs. I have found that the difference between these two issues is very difficult to communicate. That is one of the reasons I keep bringing up my conversation with Anssi; I am pretty well convinced that he has managed to get his mind past that barrier.

The concept “optimal inference method” is itself the result of an epistemological construct (it is a concept defined within your world view). In order for you to communicate to me what you mean by that phrase, you would have to do your best to define what you mean by the expression. That act itself would involve my coming to understand what you mean and accomplishing that result (to the satisfaction of both of us) would require a great many assumptions on my part. Essentially, in order for me to understand what you are saying, requires me to solve the problem which I have posed to examine. Now, I am not saying that I don't understand what you are saying; what I am saying is that my understanding of anything must be held as suspect. My intention was to “make no assumptions” and, under that constraint, all I have to work with is my definition of “reality” (which I define[/color] to be the set of “valid ontological elements” on which my world view is built) and my definition of “an explanation” ( which I define[/color] to be “a method of obtaining expectations from given known information”).

Certainly, the issue of “epistemological constructs” has already reared it's ugly head but I will suggest that that is only because you want those terms in my definitions defined. Ontology is commonly defined to be the study of “being” (which is most often taken to be “what exists”: i.e. reality). What I am saying is that I am going to use those symbols, “reality” and “valid ontology”, to reference what it is that I want to understand (as my meanings seem to be at least quite similar to the common intention of those words). This evades being an epistemological construct by the very fact that I have specified it to be undefined[/color] (it only becomes defined with regard to a specific epistemological construct). The “given known information” is to be taken to be that “valid ontology” which constitutes reality. Or rather, symbolic reference to those “valid ontological elements”.

That leaves the issue of “expectations”. In this case, I use the concept of probability as used by mathematicians (I have earlier said that I will use the constructs of mathematics as given: i.e., defined abstract systems and operations well understood by many people).

I will make much use of Mathematics without defense or argument. In essence, it is quite clear that mathematicians are very concerned with the exactness of their definitions and the self consistency of their mental structures. I suspect mathematics could probably be defined to be the study of self consistent systems. At any rate, their concerns are exactly those which drive my work; I am merely attacking a slightly different problem.

You were concerned with my definition of probabilities. As you said, one can only guess what they don't know; however, that is of no concern to my analysis in any way. All I am saying is that expectations can be seen in terms of the mathematical concept of probability. It makes utterly no difference how those expectations were arrived at; probability gives us a symbolic way of expressing them; it is a well understood method of communicating expectations.

That is to say, if you have explained something to me and I come back with a statement of what I would presume was the probability distribution of a set of consequences of your explanation; and you agreed with me that the distribution was consistent with your explanation, we would both conclude we were communicating: i.e., that I appeared to understand your explanation. This is, in essence, exactly what stands behind my definition of “an explanation”: i.e., it provides a mechanism for generating that probability distribution. It is essential that the means of developing that distribution be kept as an open unconstrained issue.

What is important here is recognizing that actually generating a probability distribution of any kind requires an explanation and the explanation usually requires an epistemological construct (a theory). What I want to do is proceed as far as possible without resorting to any epistemological construct of any kind.

That is why I introduced the idea of the ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] explanation of reality. It is the only explanation of reality of which I am aware which requires no epistemological construct of any kind. Wanting you to understand that issue was a strong reason I gave the earlier link to my note to Anssi

I'm not sure I understand how you introduce tau. My associations is an absolute frequency of x, or something else?

I do not understand your question. First of all “how” I introduce tau is a pretty insignificant issue, I just throw it in as an index referring to “invalid ontological element” (a convenient figment of my imagination). Why I introduce it is a much more pertinent question. You need to look at another communication I had with Anssi which I think would clear the issue up a bit. Consider the following excerpt:

Another good example would be that family tree of the primates I brought up. How would you show multiple entries for the same species? You already use horizontal displacement to indicate different species and vertical displacement to indicate time and you would have to include another axis if you wanted to show the time change in populations.

I hope you know that the little blue carrot to the right of the person being quoted is a link to the quote? I say that because it would be worthwhile for you to read that whole post.

Tau is an index providing the power to indicate multiple occurrences with the same x, t indices. This we need in order to be able to represent an arbitrary explanation.

I have been able to answer some of my questions all by myself.

That strikes me as highly probable; I suspected getting you over the hump of seeing my perspective was the real issue. Actually, once you understand where I am coming from, what I am saying is quite simple. Perhaps you could help me communicate with Fredrick? I can certainly use the help.

Also, don't worry about not responding quickly; your life is a much more important problem than this stuff. This is for the fun of understanding.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Fra]

The concept “optimal inference method” is itself the result of an epistemological construct (it is a concept defined within your world view). In order for you to communicate to me what you mean by that phrase, you would have to do your best to define what you mean by the expression.

Of course, you are absolutely right. This is something I'm working on... but I think it would get messy for my to describe my theories here. At least in this thread I suggest we stick to your theory. My main curiosity here is if we share some thinking here or not. From my first reading I think we do, but still differ.

Not go into this now, but briefly, the basic idea of "optimal inference method", is that once you acknowledged that the problem is your incomplete knowledge, and you can't ever KNOW about the future. This reduces the problem to, make a guess about the future. This is what physics does, we guess and let experiment discriminate the good guesses from the bad guesses.

However in the optimal inference methods you go one step further, and try to somehow define the "best possible guess", or best possible "probability distribution" given your prior information, and moreover one tries to find the optimum way to update the expectations in response to additional information. (think bayes rule in bayesian probability, but generealise it). The generalisation can also produce expectation of "dynamics" and can define time and space in terms of degrees of distinguishability between events. One can also try to define time in terms of this. But I can't explain this now.

In my thinking there are some key components:
(1) Representation of expectations
(2) Communication with environment

The representation is changing in response to communications. I'm trying to find the best solution to this, using minimum assumptions.

The dynamics arises as there is communication between the known and the unknown.

But I rather not get into this now, and not in this thread. I just wanted to say that I've got some own thinking, and I did see similarities to your thinking at first glance. But I'm still working on the formalisations so I don't yet have any paper of site to point you to. This is why it's too early for me to explain the details of this. But others are working on related things, Ariel Caticha is one.

For me to really even try to explain this, it will be a big paper. And I hope it will come, but I've got a lot of work yet.

Certainly, the issue of “epistemological constructs” has already reared it's ugly head but I will suggest that that is
only because you want those terms in my definitions defined.

There is clearly a universal problem of choosing definitions. You may choose yours differently than mine, and there is no problem. I guess still, the ultimate proof of success is in the survival and fitness of any ideas. This goes for mine as well as yours. There is IMO no need for use to agree on this.

This is why I don't see much point in spending all my time explaining my thinking to others. I spent more times arguing on the internet some years ago, but the feedback was poor. My strategy is to work out my ideas in silent, and when I convinced myself I'll make sure to find an application for it. There are many things you can do if you've got a nice model. Artificial intelligence software, information processing. It would be much easier to convince by showing success.

Not to ignore yor other comments(!) I might get back later... I actually also appreciate a slower pace in the discussions here... since I've got a normal job and physics is a hobby for me... I constantly fight ot get time :)

I appreciate your depth of thinking at any rate (even if we end up disagreeing).

/Fredrik

 

[Doctordick]

Of course, you are absolutely right. This is something I'm working on... but I think it would get messy for my to describe my theories here.

Again, you have totally missed the point of my response. When I said, “one problem we are apparently having here is that you are thinking in terms of epistemological constructs themselves whereas I am concerned with “representation” of epistemological constructs”, I was referring to the fact that you are not even considering the fundamental problem under discussion. The fundamental problem is, how does one construct “a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process”. The issue is that you are beginning with the assumption that you have already solved that problem (which is totally equivalent to ignoring it). You start by assuming your world view is valid.

At least in this thread I suggest we stick to your theory.

Again I seem to have great difficulty communicating the fact that what I am presenting is not a theory (theories are[/color] epistemological constructs). I tried to make that clear in that private note I sent you but apparently you misunderstood what I was saying.

The first comment I would like to make is that what I present is not a theory[/color] (a fact which seems to be impossible to communicate). It is no more or less than a way of organizing what we know without knowing what it is that we know. Somewhat analogous to the Dewy decimal system of organizing a library; the point being that the Dewy decimal system does not depend on knowing what will come to be in that library: it is no more than a procedure for handling the information when it gets there.

The fact is that I have discovered an analytical solution to “the problem of constructing a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process”. I am trying to communicate that solution to you so that you can evaluate the logic of the solution for yourself.

A profound issue of significance here is that my solution to the problem must include your theory. In fact, no theory of anything is to be excluded by my attack. This is the reason for my comment that, “In order for you to communicate to me what you mean by that phrase, you would have to do your best to define what you mean by the expression.” What I meant was that, in order to represent your theory under my definitions, I would need all of the required communications necessary to define absolutely all of the significant issues in that theory (I was not asking you to clarify these issues). I would need to be able to construct your communications as a specific ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table of information which was to be “understood”. The only other option is to make assumptions and, if assumptions are to be made it is quite possible that those assumptions would be wrong. My construct is a logical exact construct and has some very specific consequences.

I think I made the central issue clear to Anssi back in April of this year: post #398 in this thread.

There is clearly a universal problem of choosing definitions. You may choose yours differently than mine, and there is no problem.

The problem in “choosing definitions” is communicating what is meant: i.e., that process itself means we are immediately dealing with epistemological constructs (see my above post to Anssi); ergo,

My intention was to “make no assumptions” and, under that constraint, all I have to work with is my definition of “reality” (which I define[/color] to be the set of “valid ontological elements” on which my world view is built) and my definition of “an explanation” ( which I define[/color] to be “a method of obtaining expectations from given known information”).

Certainly, the issue of “epistemological constructs” has already reared it's ugly head but I will suggest that that is only because you want those terms in my definitions defined. Ontology is commonly defined to be the study of “being” (which is most often taken to be “what exists”: i.e. reality). What I am saying is that I am going to use those symbols, “reality” and “valid ontology”, to reference what it is that I want to understand (as my meanings seem to be at least quite similar to the common intention of those words). This evades being an epistemological construct by the very fact that I have specified it to be undefined[/color] (it only becomes defined with regard to a specific epistemological construct).

I guess still, the ultimate proof of success is in the survival and fitness of any ideas. This goes for mine as well as yours. There is IMO no need for us to agree on this.

With regard to your ideas, I would agree with you. With regard to my presentation, I would not. I am presenting a logical deduction, not a theory. Either that deduction is a logically valid deduction or it is not. If we disagree on the validity of a logical step, one of us is wrong! There is no room for opinion there. I would love to discuss any error in my deductions which you might find. To date, every case I am aware of has been simple misinterpretation of what I am saying (the “theory” thing being a case in point).

It is my opinion that my real difficulty here is the fact that I am dealing with “denial” on the part of the intellectual community. Most everyone seems incapable of comprehending the fundamental problem of intelligence itself. It may be simply too abstract for them to deal with.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Fra]

Hey Doctordick, I completely missed your private message to me sorry! (Noticed it now when you drawed my attention to it) I hardly expect any private messages on here so my distribution of attention was close to null on the message message box ;) I'm sorry for overlooking this...

I have now read the link you offered and actually find little in his thoughts which impact on my analysis. The first comment I would like to make is that what I present is not a theory (a fact which seems to be impossible to communicate). It is no more or less than a way of organizing what we know without knowing what it is that we know. Somewhat analogous to the Dewy decimal system of organizing a library; the point being that the Dewy decimal system does not depend on knowing what will come to be in that library: it is no more than a procedure for handling the information when it gets there.

Ok, it's not a theory. Thus I assume it is meant to follow from pure reason/logic alone, right?

The fundamental problem is, how does one construct “a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process”.

Ok, I think I see. But I also suspect that you will tell me I got it all backwards again :)

Anyway:

Since you are talking about streams of data, I assume that your description is formed from a subject, and observer or what you may label it, without getting into the issues of what an observer really "IS". Somehow the observer is an implicit condition.

So, you somehow picture the situation where this observer, is faced with a stream of data. Why or how this data comes about is not known. It's somehow just a matter of fact. And now you take as the problem to make a rational model for data/facts as it arrives?

If that's close, my first questions is what to do you mean by rational model? What would for example an irrational model be like, in your terminology?

( I deliberately try to keep the posts short for clarity, especially until I nderstand each other, to prevent draining of attention from multiple focuses. Also, please don't let me disturb your parallell discussion with Anssi.)

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

With regard to your ideas, I would agree with you. With regard to my presentation, I would not. I am presenting a logical deduction, not a theory. Either that deduction is a logically valid deduction or it is not. If we disagree on the validity of a logical step, one of us is wrong! There is no room for opinion there. I would love to discuss any error in my deductions which you might find. To date, every case I am aware of has been simple misinterpretation of what I am saying (the “theory” thing being a case in point).

To be honest, even if you are right, I think your categorical tone may reject some people and make them think you are not serious. Personally I don't care as much, but I think many people select from such apperances.

It is my opinion that my real difficulty here is the fact that I am dealing with “denial” on the part of the intellectual community. Most everyone seems incapable of comprehending the fundamental problem of intelligence itself. It may be simply too abstract for them to deal with.

Your touching of this is exactly what drawn my attention to this thread. I'm well aware of these issues, I don't think that's the problem. I think I just don't understand what you yet. And before I do to a higher degree of confidence, I'm neither going to tell you that I think you are wrong, or that I agree. I don't know yet. All I know is that my current impression motivates further continuation of the discussion a litte longer. So far it's civilized and nice.

/Fredrik

 

[Doctordick]

I'm sorry for overlooking this...

Don't worry about it. I have done as much or worse myself.

Thus I assume it is meant to follow from pure reason/logic alone, right?

Yes, what I have done is defined exactly what the problem is and then found an analytical solution to that exact problem. What you need to do is, first accept my initial definitions (or at least agree to work with them as if they are valid). That would be my definition of “reality” (i.e., reality is an undefined valid ontology, defined only after a specific epistemology is defined) and my definition of “an explanation” (i.e., a method of generating expectations given some valid ontology or essentially what could be described as a flaw free epistemology).

Philosophers long ago divided the subject of “metaphysics” (a term Aristotle invented to refer to what lies beneath or behind “physics”) into two fields: ontology and epistemology. Essentially, epistemology is the philosophers perspective on scientific methodology: the scientific method, how doe one validate theories, etc (which I refer to as “an explanations”). Ontology is the study of what exists; in essence, the axiomatic assumptions (what exists) behind the epistemological constructs (the theories).

The problem here is that this division is very much a chicken and egg conundrum: which comes first, ontology or epistemology. One cannot construct an epistemology (an explanation) without “knowing” what is to be explained. It should be clear to you that what is commonly called your “world-view” is an epistemological construct (a theory) presumed to be valid. The problem is that one simply cannot define an ontology in the absence of a world-view. The only solution to the problem is actually rather obvious: one must find a method of handling the ontological elements as unknowns. (Philosophers seldom have any training in the concept of “working with unknowns” and the idea is simply foreign to them.) That is essentially what I have done and the attack has led me to the equation

\left{\sum_i \vec{\alpha}_i \cdot \vec{\nabla}_i + \sum_{i \neq j} \beta_{ij} \delta(\vec{x}_i - \vec{x}_j) \right}\vec{\Psi}= K \frac{\partial}{\partial t}\vec{\Psi} = iKm \vec{\Psi}.
​

My paper, http://home.jam.rr.com/dicksfiles/Explain/Explain.htm is a fairly succinct derivation of that equation; however, following that derivation requires a good understanding of advanced calculus and a little help. I apologize for the fact that I have made some major changes in the vocabulary I use since writing that paper. To a great extent, I have changed the vocabulary I use in order to better accommodate subtle philosophical complaints with my attack. I think the best way to achieve an understanding of what I have done is to first go through that derivation line by line with clarification of any step which bothers you (including expressing the statements in the more philosophical vocabulary I currently use when you don't find the translation obvious).

Once you understand the derivation of that equation and the relevant vocabulary (what is referred to by the symbols) we can then examine the general solutions of the equation.

Ok, I think I see. But I also suspect that you will tell me I got it all backwards again :)

No, I think we may be starting off on the right foot this time.

However, I do have some comments.

Since you are talking about streams of data ...

You need to recognize that the concept of a “stream of data” is already an epistemological construct (it is something defined in your world-view). Before we can use that concept, we must first make sure it is universally applicable: i.e., that no circumstance can possibly exist which can not be so represented. The object here is to explain reality given a valid ontology. Since you can not prove you are all knowing (that all of reality is available to your musings), our representation must allow for change in what is known (this is essentially the reason for the “stream of data” you have in mind). This possibility of change in knowledge leads me to the definition of two new terms: “the past”, which will refer to the known “valid ontology” and “the future”, which will refer to the unknown “valid ontology”. It should be clear to you that no constraints whatsoever have been put on these categories; either may in fact vanish (if “the past” doesn't exist, we are talking about solipsism, if “the future” doesn't exist, we are talking about being “all knowing”).

This representation allows for changes in “the past” (what is known) and thus allows me to introduce a third universally applicable term: “the present” which I will use to refer to a change in “the past”. From this perspective, “the past” can be seen as a finite collection of “presents”. Being finite, they can be ordered and I define the index of order to be t which I will refer to as time. Now we can speak of the past as a “stream of data”. What is important here is that you understand exactly why I had to go through this complex chain of logic.

I assume that your description is formed from a subject, and observer or what you may label it, without getting into the issues of what an observer really "IS". Somehow the observer is an implicit condition.

Fundamentally, “the observer” has nothing to do with the problem posed. The problem is to come up with a method of going from “a past” (a collection of valid ontological elements) to an explanation of that past. This is a mechanical problem of analysis and has absolutely nothing to do with how that “past” was established. Again, you are speaking of an epistemological construct: an explanation, a solution to the problem. Essentially, the fact that you bring it up implies you want a solution to the problem before you can think about how you are going to solve it; a step which is explicitly disallowed.

If that's close, my first questions is what to do you mean by rational model? What would for example an irrational model be like, in your terminology?

An irrational model of an explanation would be a model which failed to provide one with a method of obtaining the expectations yielded by the explanation.

To be honest, even if you are right, I think your categorical tone may reject some people and make them think you are not serious. Personally I don't care as much, but I think many people select from such appearances.

I am sure you are right with that. I am an old man and I do get a little testy at times; especially when I see what strikes me as incompetent people using authority to quash thought. I have a sign over my desk which says: Knowledge is Power in large letters. Underneath, in small letters it says, The singular most popular abuse of that power is to use it to hide stupidity.

Sometimes I just decide that ignorance is its own reward and just walk away from the situation. I have no intention of being uncivilized; so long as I believe you are seriously trying to understand what I am saying, I will answer any questions you have to the best of my ability.

By the way, you have made no comments about your training in mathematics. Anssi's mathematics training is somewhat limited and it would be nice to have someone here who had a good understanding of advanced mathematics.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Rade]

Philosophers long ago divided the subject of “metaphysics” (a term Aristotle invented to refer to what lies beneath or behind “physics”) into two fields: ontology and epistemology.

? This is just false. Epistemology is NOT a topic of Aristotle metaphysics--nor do philosophers divide metaphysics in such a way. As discussed here, there are three branches of traditional metaphysics and none are called epistemology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

Aristotle's Metaphysics was divided into three parts, in addition to some smaller sections related to a philosophical lexicon and some reprinted extracts from the Physics, which are now regarded as the proper branches of traditional Western metaphysics:

Ontology
The study of Being and existence; includes the definition and classification of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature of change.
Theology
The study of God; involves many topics, including among others the nature of religion and the world, existence of the divine, questions about Creation, and the numerous religious or spiritual issues that concern humankind in general.
Universal science
The study of first principles, which Aristotle believed to be the foundation of all other inquiries. An example of such a principle is the law of noncontradiction and the status it holds in non-paraconsistent logics.

The problem here is that this division is very much a chicken and egg conundrum: which comes first, ontology or epistemology. One cannot construct an epistemology (an explanation) without “knowing” what is to be explained.

But, this is only a "problem" in your mind Doctordick--there is in fact no such problem, since there is in fact no such division of metaphysics that your mind has invented. In fact, if you read Aristotle you would see that he some + 2000 years ago already provided the answer to your mental conundrum, as read here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/

Aristotle distinguished between things that are “better known to us” and things that are “better known in themselves,”[1] and maintained that we should begin our study of a given topic with things better known to us and arrive ultimately at an understanding of things better known in themselves.

So, I hate to burst your bubble, but it would appear that you have found a so-called solution:

"The only solution to the problem is actually rather obvious: one must find a method of handling the ontological elements as unknowns."

where in fact no problem exists.

Now, given that your solution is a solution to no"thing" having to do with metaphysics, the results you have derived from your solution, including your equation, explain no"thing" having to do with metaphysics, nor how one should begin a study of any given topic, for as explained by Aristotle, one must always begin a study of any topic (including your equation) with things better known to us [e.g., the man-made] to arrive at understanding of things better known in themselves [e.g., the metaphysical given].

 

[Fra]

Hello Dick, I've been usuallally busy lately. Here are some comments meanwheile...

The problem here is that this division is very much a chicken and egg conundrum: which comes first, ontology or epistemology.

It's true that at some level this is an issue. This is I think related to issues like background independence that is popularly discussed nowadays. Ie. where do we start?

Perhaps the question is not where we start, the question is how we move on, given whatever is given. I am thrown into this world, I am not in the position to question why, but I am certainly in the position to make he best out of it.

This representation allows for changes in “the past” (what is known) and thus allows me to introduce a third universally applicable term: “the present” which I will use to refer to a change in “the past”. From this perspective, “the past” can be seen as a finite collection of “presents”. Being finite, they can be ordered and I define the index of order to be t which I will refer to as time. Now we can speak of the past as a “stream of data”. What is important here is that you understand exactly why I had to go through this complex chain of logic.
Fundamentally, “the observer” has nothing to do with the problem posed. The problem is to come up with a method of going from “a past” (a collection of valid ontological elements) to an explanation of that past. This is a mechanical problem of analysis and has absolutely nothing to do with how that “past” was established. Again, you are speaking of an epistemological construct: an explanation, a solution to the problem. Essentially, the fact that you bring it up implies you want a solution to the problem before you can think about how you are going to solve it; a step which is explicitly disallowed.
An irrational model of an explanation would be a model which failed to provide one with a method of obtaining the expectations yielded by the explanation.
I am sure you are right with that. I am an old man and I do get a little testy at times; especially when I see what strikes me as incompetent people using authority to quash thought. I have a sign over my desk which says: Knowledge is Power in large letters. Underneath, in small letters it says, The singular most popular abuse of that power is to use it to hide stupidity.

Anywy...With observer I mean loosely, the one making reflections or asking questions. In a sense, at minimum, You are the observer to your own ideas here. This is in fact exactly why we have communication issues. This is all relative to your thinking.

So, the way I think, for me to understand your ideas. Doesn't mean that I will agree. It means that I try to understand you, and see why you have these ideas. Then our disagreement, could be explained by the difference between you and me in the first place.

So suppose I come up with some "truth". What reason do I have to assume that this "truth" is "truth" also in your mind? First we have the problem of even comparing my thinking with yours. We have to someone "transport" my ideas to you, by some kind of connection, to even be able to compare the ideas.

With observer, I mean the refernce to which your entire formalism refers (implicitly).

If we talk about probability, this means we should be talking about relative or bayesian probabilities. Probability of an unkown ontology as you might put it, relative the known ontology?

By the way, you have made no comments about your training in mathematics. Anssi's mathematics training is somewhat limited and it would be nice to have someone here who had a good understanding of advanced mathematics.

This doesn't worry me. You'r math seems rather simple, just sums, sets, probabilit and standard analysis.

We are having communication problems still, and considering that I don't have that muhc time to comment I wonder if it's a way to do this communication more efficiently. I generally find discussions that is just defining a common terminology unrewarding.

Really, this has nothing todo with lack of interest. It's reality. I need rewards to motivate my brain to pursure investigation in a initiated direction, or my best bet is to look elsewhere.

Perhaps better pre-processing on both parties is needed. Even on my side! Note that this isn't a complaint, it's a general observation. This is really what I am doing on my thinking. I am not attempting to explain it until I can show that it flies. Then you'd have no choice but to ask yourself the question how come it flies, and then we've got an intrinsic motivation for searching an undestanding.

For me, the motivation comes before anything. This is what I started out originally asking, what your thinking may provide for kind of benefits? This (even if you are beeing right) is not an irrelevant question. This is of primary importance. It's not just about doing it right, it's more about doing as good as possible in the given time.

To give you an example. When I am ready to present my thinking, I hope to be able to simplify current world view (which I consider to be a bit like a patch work), and this in itself will allow more efficient progress and probably allow for better expectations.

I would never expect any opponent to take my word for the correctness of my thinking. It's my job, to make my ideas fly. I will still take interest in other peoples "ideas", but I will never invest(at the expense of my own ideas) a major part of my attention to something, unless they have proven it to fly - to a point I can't possibly ignore. I think this is basic psychology and the way things work.

Do you understand what I mean when I ask you to explain, what is the benefit of your thinking? Is that a relevant question in your opinion? I say thinking here, because I think you don't want me to use the word theory. But you can replace the word what any string, I hope you get the quesiton.

/Fredrik

 

[Doctordick]

? This is just false. Epistemology is NOT a topic of Aristotle metaphysics--nor do philosophers divide metaphysics in such a way.

Well I apologize; my Ph.D. is in theoretical physics and not philosophy. The only “formal philosophy” I have ever read, I read only recently because of comments made to me on philosophical forums. Many people have told me that I what I was dealing with was “metaphysics” and apparently they were wrong to so advise me. With regard to your post, I meant only to give the Aristotle credit for seeing that there had to be things beyond “physics”. As far as the divisions I gave, ontology and epistemology. In my opinion, there is utterly no difference between “Theology” and “Universal science” as are both epistemological constructs, differing only in their respective ontologies.

But I will bow to authority, I guess my question does not lie in your conception of the field of “metaphysics”.

Sorry again. -- Dick

 

[Doctordick]

Hi Fredrik, I have been slow to respond because it is quite clear to me that I am having a very difficult time communicating with you. I simply don't know how to communicate to you the exact nature of the problem I have solved.

Do you understand what I mean when I ask you to explain, what is the benefit of your thinking? Is that a relevant question in your opinion?

I think I understand what you mean and I guess my answer is essentially that it is not a relevant question. Many of the things I bring up are issues that led me to both the problem and my interest in solving that problem; however, they are really immaterial to the problem itself.

Somehow, we have all managed to solve the problem of starting with absolutely nothing and achieve a mental view of reality which makes sense to us and, more remarkable than that, for the most part we all seem to agree (essentially we have reached the same general conclusion; we agree about one hell of a lot). The question is, how can such a result be accomplished[/color].

If, like Rade, you cannot comprehend a problem there, you are certainly not in a position to understand a solution; that is to say, before one can comprehend a solution, one must first comprehend the problem: “how does one build an epistemological solution to explain information which has not been defined in any way?” Everybody I talk to, and I am afraid that includes you, wants to start with some given knowledge and I don't know how to get them around that stance. I think Anssi has managed to comprehend what I am talking about but I think a lot of his insight was already there before we began (I won't take credit for explaining it to him).

I will make another attempt to communicate my difficulties with your questions.

It's true that at some level this is an issue. This is I think related to issues like background independence that is popularly discussed nowadays. Ie. where do we start?

The absolute only place to start is to first answer the question, “What are we looking for?” As I see it, “how” ... “, is asking for a method of some sort which is commonly called an explanation. It follows that our very first step has to be to define exactly what “an explanation” is (we need to set down exactly how one determines an acceptable “method” as opposed to an unacceptable “method”. This I have done. I have essentially defined what "I"[/color] will accept as “an explanation”. You like the definition, you don't like the definition; that issue is really of no significance; it is a communication issue only. I am telling you what "I" consider “an explanation to be”.

So far as the problem I have solved is concerned, ”an explanation”” is a method of obtaining expectations from undefined information. The single most important factor being that the source data (the information to be explained) is totally undefined (what it actually is[/color] is totally unknown). One could say “undefined data”, “an unknown reality”, “a valid undefined ontology”, etc., etc. ... . The important fact being, we must start with the position that we have utterly no idea of what it is that we are talking about; it is absolutely “undefined”. Somehow we manage to achieve a state which allows us to “understand”, “comprehend”, “know”, “feel”, “believe”, etc., etc., ... ; which I refer to as “having expectations”: being not surprised by additional data, information, etc., etc., ... . Some how, when we have an explanation, we have a way of developing those expectations, a method of establishing what they are: somehow we can get from one to the other. That is my definition of an explanation.

The result is that we understand something[/color] which, prior to applying some procedure, was totally unknown to us.

As I have said before, if our purpose is to "understand", the first concept we must have in our mind is "an explanation". Without a concept of "an explanation", how can we possibly understand anything? My definition of "an explanation" is quite simple: I define "an explanation" to be a method of obtaining expectations from given known information. Can you work with that definition?

As I said to Anssi, the question is, can you work with it? The answer is a simple yes or no and agreement has nothing to do with it.

Perhaps the question is not where we start, the question is how we move on, given whatever is given.

So the next question is, “exactly what is given?” And the answer is absolutely unavoidable: “whatever it is, we certainly don't know what it is[/color]", as “it has not been defined in any way!” Ergo, my problem. I agree that the English references I give for the terms of the problem are quite vague and indistinct but they have to be as that is the very nature of the problem. The results (the method or procedure) must be applicable to all possible epistemological solutions. I say to you that I solved the problem and that the solution leads to profound insights. I don't ask you to believe me, I merely ask you to look at an analytical proof that the equation,

\left{\sum_i \vec{\alpha}_i \cdot \vec{\nabla}_i + \sum_{i \neq j} \beta_{ij} \delta(\vec{x}_i - \vec{x}_j) \right}\vec{\Psi}= K \frac{\partial}{\partial t}\vec{\Psi} = iKm \vec{\Psi},
​

follows directly from my definitions by straight forward logic and nothing more. Our major problem in communications is that you want to bring more to the table. This is a very simple problem and most everyone buries its simplicity in inconsequential issues.

My problem with your questions is that they all essentially amount to wanting to start with defined information. I say that “expectations” can be represented by “probability” and you ask me to define what I mean by probability. What you fail to realize is that what is meant by “probability” must be contained in the explanation being modeled: i.e., it is part and parcel of the epistemological structure which yields those “expectations”. All I am saying is that it can be represented by a number bounded by zero and one. Any number so bounded can be interpreted as “a probability”; zero being no, it's not possible, and one being yes, it is true. Any other number implies some doubt. The important point being that the concept “understanding” can be cast as such a result.

You bring up this concept “an observer”. Surely you can understand that we cannot start with “an observer” without making a whole slew of assumptions. In order to do so, you must clarify to me exactly how I am to know what portion of that “undefined information” constitutes “an observer” and what part is excluded from the meaning of that reference.

... all I am saying is that "something" lies beneath our knowledge and part of our problem is to figure out what that something is; at least some way of scientifically expressing it which does not make assumptions about what it is.

How would you propose to scientifically express the concept of “an observer” without making any assumptions? What you have to understand here is that language itself constitutes a structure which essentially explains itself. In order to learn a language, you must build the meanings from undefined information. That is always done under the assumption that your interpretations to date are valid. Now, without a language, we cannot communicate at all. It is because of this problem that I propose the language of mathematics as a mechanism of describing the method we are looking for.

Since, as you have already commented, you cannot archive all the data on which that belief is based, you must allow for the fact that you have possibly attached an incorrect meaning to a term: i.e., the possibility always exists that you have discarded information which would invalidate your beliefs. (Note my post to Rade above.) That is why I continually bring up mathematics as the only communication system we can really depend on (mathematicians have spent thousands of years in an attempt to eliminate any inconsistencies). When one uses mathematics, the probability of inconsistencies arising in the interpretation of described procedures is minimal and the methods being specified are much more apt to yield the same results for you that they yield for me. This cannot be taken to be true with regard to common language instructions. As you just said,

I generally find discussions that is just defining a common terminology unrewarding.

and I agree with you one hundred percent, that's why I wish to get to the mathematical representation (we can use numbers as labels for the unknown data and numbers for our expectations thus the “method” can be seen as a mathematical function). You should take a quick look at post #466. It might clarify to you what I have in mind by “numerical labels”.

All other languages used by mankind are actually rather vaguely defined entities. Which reminds me of a post I made almost two and half years ago on the value of ambiguity. You ought to take a quick look at it as it might help you see where I am coming from. I believe your rational for communications problems is actually quite vague and inexact although I would agree that “this is all relative to your thinking”. I just see it from a totally different perspective.

So, the way I think, for me to understand your ideas. Doesn't mean that I will agree.

No, of course not; however, if you do understand my construct and don't agree with my conclusions, it means you think I have made an error and I would certainly like to be made aware of what you think that error was. My results are nothing more than a rather simple logical construct.

It means that I try to understand you, and see why you have these ideas. Then our disagreement, could be explained by the difference between you and me in the first place.

Actually, why I have “these ideas” is rather immaterial.

So suppose I come up with some "truth". What reason do I have to assume that this "truth" is "truth" also in your mind? First we have the problem of even comparing my thinking with yours. We have to someone "transport" my ideas to you, by some kind of connection, to even be able to compare the ideas.

Well, perhaps we have different meanings for the word “truth”. The only one I would seriously worry about would be the issue of proof itself. Under the common definition of a proof, the steps are essentially if “A” is true then “B” is true, under the common rules of logic. If you don't consider such a thing to be possible we are probably wasting our time.

I generally find discussions that is just defining a common terminology unrewarding.

The number of definitions required to follow my logic is probably less than a dozen terms (all fully specified in terms of the data being referred to as underlying the explanation in question). The only definitions of any import here will be specifically defined when they come up. The only definitions I would expect you to know would be common mathematical definitions; however, for convenience, I sometimes use non-standard notation, but I will explicitly point that out as we proceed.

Perhaps better preprocessing on both parties is needed. Even on my side! Note that this isn't a complaint, it's a general observation.

You see, I think too much preprocessing is already impeding the communications. You need to get down to the simple issues here.

I would never expect any opponent to take my word for the correctness of my thinking. It's my job, to make my ideas fly. I will still take interest in other peoples "ideas", but I will never invest(at the expense of my own ideas) a major part of my attention to something, unless they have proven it to fly - to a point I can't possibly ignore. I think this is basic psychology and the way things work.

This appears to me to be a direct admission of the fact that you want authoritarian support: i.e., it seems to me that, by “proven to fly”, you mean that the authorities have verified my logic. Back in '84 I tried very hard to get my work published. After being rejected by a number of journals (this isn't physics; it's philosophy) I tried to get my Ph.D. thesis advisor to use his influence to help. His only comment was, “no one will ever read your stuff, because you haven't paid your dues” (after I got my degree, I didn't pursue the “number crunching” career and hadn't published for fifteen years). He even refused to look at it. At the time I thought he was being ridiculous but it turned out that his opinion was quite correct. I was reminded of another comment he made when I was a graduate student and I brought up some of the issues which bothered me: he said the physics community wasn't interested in “truth”; he said it was a social club and one had to play by the rules and, once you are recognized, they will listen to what you say.

If his attitude represents your attitude, then we are probably wasting our time. I hope you are more open than that.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Doctordick]

Hi mosassam, I was looking for a certain post I made to Anssi when I ran across this post from you. Apparently I missed it at the time and I apologize; I did not intend to be rude to you.

This is a perfect example of a mock fight. "What is causing this experience?", is an ontological question but all the proposed solutions laid out are epistemological in nature: i.e., explanations. Before any of these kinds of things can be discussed, one needs to develop a serious science of ontology.

Dr.Dick, I've tried with all my might to get to the heart of what you say but it is beyond me. In the above quote you say that 'all the proposed solutions ... are epistemological in nature", can you give an example where the proposed solutions to the question "What is causing this experience?" are ontological in nature. Or are you saying that no questions can be asked because any answer constitutes a solution/explanation and is therefore epistemological in nature?

The issue here is that “cause” itself is a fundamental element of epistemological constructs. The idea that, if you have A you will also have B, is an essential statement of the property of causality. Ontology is the simple statement that you have A and you have B; it makes no statement about them being related. Any relationship is an epistemological construct. Essentially the only question which can be asked in ontology is, (does A exist?) and, more importantly, the question can not be answered. The only question about ontology which can be asked is, does your explanation require A to exist and I have to understand your explanation before I can answer that question.

Sorry if you find me confusing -- Dick

 

[AnssiH]

Hi, I'm back finally.
Still little bit jetlagged. Actually have my daily rhythm completely upside down :P

I think all you really lack is a good understanding of mathematics but we can cover that (though it may not be a quick thing).

Yeah, that I certainly lack. I'm sure I can get a hold of all the necessary mathematical concepts over time.

I think we need to go back to that post where I first began adding “invalid ontological elements”. The fact that we can add these invalid ontological elements gives us the power to organize or represent that ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table in a form which allows for easy deduction. In that post, I said I wanted to add three different kinds of “invalid ontological elements”, each to serve a particular purpose. You need to understand exactly why those elements are being added and how the addition achieves the result desired.

I've been really scrutinizing that old post lately. The actual procedure of adding those elements is simple and easy to understand, but the reasons for describing these procedures were not completely straightforward to figure out. It was essentially to prove that such and such functions are possible, right?

The first addition is quite simple. As I said, that ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table can be seen as a list of numbers for each present which specify (or refer to) exactly what “valid ontological elements” went to make up our past at each defined time (what we know being “the past”). The output of our probability function (which defines what we think we know) is either zero or one depending upon whether a specific number is in that list or not.

That was, whether a specific number is at a specific present?

I have to build a world-view in my own head and that world view has to be logical coherent, I can not do that without making assumptions.

Yeah. I am certainly making a lot of assumptions right now :)

Just as an aside, from a philosophical perspective, that first addition (making the number of ontological elements the same for all B(t)) is essentially presuming these valid ontological elements exist even when we are not directly dealing with them. That is to say, the ordinary concept of “ontological elements” behind that epistemological construct is that they exist in the past, the present and the future. No one presumes they come and go (actually, there is a subtle point there which comes up in the solution possibilities with regard to explicitly invalid ontological elements, but that will come up later).

Hmm, right I see, I think...

At first you talked about adding arbitrary "invalid elements" because you were just proving that adding them can be useful, but in any real case they would not be arbitrary but would have everything to do with the specific epistemological construct then?

You also said this addition was done for mathematical convenience. Does this also refer to it being similarly a convenience for epistemological solutions? (i.e. without adding those elements the epistemological "rules" would be horribly complex)

The second addition of invalid ontological elements was to make sure that “t” (the “time” index) could be extracted from the ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table so that it could be a viable parameter usable in an explanation. That was done in the following manner. Anytime there existed two or more identical presents (in that specifically defined ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table in your right hand), invalid ontological elements were added and given references sufficiently different to make those presents different. At the time you expressed understanding of that procedure.

Yes I think I did, but I'm wondering in which cases two presents could be identical?

Perhaps it is irrelevant to this procedure, but I am also wondering whether your "existing knowledge" should or would be part of each present?

I mean, suppose an observer who is observing identical days go by. i.e. the high noon at day 1 looks exactly the same as the high noon at day 2.

Obviously if the observer was counting days by drawing lines on the ground, the "presents" would be different. But I wonder if the fact that at "noon 2" there exists memories about "noon 1" would be enough to make these presents different. In which case just the fact that an observer remembers the old presents makes each present different.

Well I'll continue from here soon... (jetlag...)

-Anssi

 

[Fra]

Do you understand what I mean when I ask you to explain, what is the benefit of your thinking? Is that a relevant question in your opinion?

I think I understand what you mean and I guess my answer is essentially that it is not a relevant question.

If that's not a relevant question, I see part of the communication issues.

Somehow, we have all managed to solve the problem of starting with absolutely nothing and achieve a mental view of reality which makes sense to us and, more remarkable than that, for the most part we all seem to agree (essentially we have reached the same general conclusion; we agree about one hell of a lot). The question is, how can such a result be accomplished[/color].

If, like Rade, you cannot comprehend a problem there, you are certainly not in a position to understand a solution

I see a problem, the thing is what I see my not be quite what you see, thus your solution may not match my question.

that is to say, before one can comprehend a solution, one must first comprehend the problem: “how does one build an epistemological solution to explain information which has not been defined in any way?” Everybody I talk to, and I am afraid that includes you, wants to start with some given knowledge and I don't know how to get them around that stance.

Part of the problem is that it is almost impossible to start from scratch, becase even the _representation_ of something, must be implemented somewhere. In this case it's realtive to your brain at minumum. Everything we talk about, are related to yourselves here. How can I possibly make a statement and claim thta statement has no connection to me? That makes little or no sense to me.

This implies a kind of nonlinear feedback between ontology and epistemology. Of course I have my own ideas on this. But I will not ask you to accept my thinking. I will make it work on my own to the point where it should be obvious wether it is successfull or not.

My thinking is that we can start from an arbitrary starting point. This way we do away with the problem of making an ambigous starting point. Instead I focus on the evolution of the state. I am not predicting the initial state - thta is prior given. But it's obvioulsy different in each case. So the model must be able to "handle" a "generic" prior state.

I would never expect any opponent to take my word for the correctness of my thinking. It's my job, to make my ideas fly. I will still take interest in other peoples "ideas", but I will never invest(at the expense of my own ideas) a major part of my attention to something, unless they have proven it to fly - to a point I can't possibly ignore. I think this is basic psychology and the way things work.

This appears to me to be a direct admission of the fact that you want authoritarian support: i.e., it seems to me that, by “proven to fly”, you mean that the authorities have verified my logic.

No that's not what I mean. I mean, you are free do to what you want, come up with and truth's or anything. The question is what your goal is. If you want other people to acknowledge this, a minimum of psychology is needed in the real world. After all, other people have their own projects and thinking. If you have a really abstract idea, that no one seem to understand on the conceptual stage, with "proven to fly" I mean that you should try to implement the applications of your thinking into real amazing action. What kind of action? Well that is up to you to specify, as it's your thinking. If you suggest that there are no implications or applications, then I don't understnad you. I still do suspect that you have something in mind that you aren't spelling out. If you have some amazing implications that will come when your equation is solved, then I think you should try to solve the equation, make the realisations and blow us off the chairs.

After being rejected by a number of journals (this isn't physics; it's philosophy) I tried to get my Ph.D. thesis advisor to use his influence to help. His only comment was, “no one will ever read your stuff, because you haven't paid your dues” (after I got my degree, I didn't pursue the “number crunching” career and hadn't published for fifteen years). He even refused to look at it. At the time I thought he was being ridiculous but it turned out that his opinion was quite correct.

On the psychology part, I think you need to - apart from doing your thing - also need to "sell your ideas" to others, if that's what you want. I would suggest a one or two page / 5 minute papers, that put it's from the point of view or your opponents, and explain to them why they should take the time to analyse your stuff in details. What hands on benefits are in it for them, if they understand it? After all, this is a real life issue. Everyone makes judgments on where to place bets and spend time.

The purpose of this paper, would be to motivate to the reader why they should invest time, thought or money in looking further in the direction.

I think anyone can spare 5 minutes for no particular reason at all.

This is exactly what I have realized on my own part. I am not going to spend time convincing others on my own thinking until it's mature. When it's mature in my thinking, it "will fly". Noone will question that a bird in the sky flies, it's close to obvious to most people.

Anyway, I'm not coming up with ideas for other people. I do it to satisfy myself.

If I don't understand your thinking, let that be my loss, not yours.

Anyway, for myself, briefly reading your posts originally supplied me motivation for a little further communication. You start out nice, but then I think I lost your logic a bit.

If his attitude represents your attitude, then we are probably wasting our time. I hope you are more open than that.

I really can't grasp that there are no benefits :) Maybe my words are confusng... let's suppose that we reached an agreement... as a thought experiment here... then what? What can we do, build, predict, or gain from your ideas? (I am not beeing ironic here).

You say

I say to you that I solved the problem and that the solution leads to profound insights.

Now we are closing up on a benefit! If only we can see we need insights for? ;) "survival and growth"? If you take this is the indirect benefit... then I think "to fly" in this case would mean to make an application of your ideas, and show the power of the insights... and show how it outperforms it's competitors which lack the insight? This should in principle lead to testable ideas. One can device complex observations, that aren't instant.

I'll comment more later on the other parts... hang on

/Fredrik

 

[Doctordick]

Hi Anssi, it's good to have you back. I have been spending a lot of my time on ZBrush. Right now the learning curve is pretty steep; the system is just too powerful and it's hard to keep all the methods in mind.

Still little bit jetlagged. Actually have my daily rhythm completely upside down :P

Well, we will have that experience a week from now. My wife has booked a River cruse on the Danube and we will be in Prague a week from Monday. I probably won't be able to access the Internet for some three weeks. You might talk to Fredrik while I am gone. I think you understand what he is missing and maybe you could communicate it better than I can.

Yeah, that I certainly lack. I'm sure I can get a hold of all the necessary mathematical concepts over time.

I don't think you will have any real problems; as Richard Feynman used to say, “mathematics is the distilled essence of logic” and logic is your strong point.

I've been really scrutinizing that old post lately. The actual procedure of adding those elements is simple and easy to understand, but the reasons for describing these procedures were not completely straightforward to figure out. It was essentially to prove that such and such functions are possible, right?

In a word, yes! Such “mathematical” relations can always be constructed.

That was, whether a specific number is at a specific present?

Again yes; however, you need to keep in mind the fact that, when we have a specific number and/or a specific present, we have a specific explanation being represented. There is a very subtle thing going on here.

What you need to do is comprehend that we are dealing with two rather different issues here. First there is that collection of “valid ontological elements” underlying our world view (you can think of this as a basic, undefined, ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table in your left hand) and, secondly, there is that epistemological solution which is our world-view itself. That world view (and that would be any explicitly defined explanation) includes the assumption of certain “invalid ontological elements” necessary to that epistemological solution. Thus that “defined” representation must include those “invalid” elements (you can think of this as a second, explicitly defined, ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table in your right hand). What I am going to do is add some rather arbitrary “invalid ontological elements” to that second table. You should certainly ask, how do I justify these specific additions?

These additions represent assumptions which have been made in order to “understand” (make coherent) a specific explanation. The important part here is that the character of those “assumptions” and the purpose they serve (the role they play in developing the “method” of the explanation). What you really know is in your left hand and the structure you need to defend the explanation is in your right hand.

Yeah. I am certainly making a lot of assumptions right now :)

I'm afraid that's part of the process. One cannot understand anything without making assumptions. What we want to do is, in our representation, keep careful accounting of exactly what these assumptions are.

At first you talked about adding arbitrary "invalid elements" because you were just proving that adding them can be useful, but in any real case they would not be arbitrary but would have everything to do with the specific epistemological construct then?

Once again, life gets subtle. I am adding totally arbitrary “invalid elements” (arbitrary in that “what they are” is as undefined as are the “valid ontological elements”) but they are being added to accomplish some very specific results. What will happen, when we solve that equation,

\left{\sum_i \vec{\alpha}_i \cdot \vec{\nabla}_i + \sum_{i \neq j} \beta_{ij} \delta(\vec{x}_i - \vec{x}_j) \right}\vec{\Psi}= K \frac{\partial}{\partial t}\vec{\Psi} = iKm \vec{\Psi},
​

is that identification of these “invalid elements” with specific ontological elements of the explanation will become quite obvious: i.e., your explanations, if they are flaw-free, will indeed make use of exactly these invalid ontological elements. It turns out that it has to do that or the specific explanation will contain exactly the flaws these elements were introduced to eliminate. This is something you will understand down the line.

You also said this addition was done for mathematical convenience. Does this also refer to it being similarly a convenience for epistemological solutions? (i.e. without adding those elements the epistemological "rules" would be horribly complex)

In essence, yes!

Yes I think I did, but I'm wondering in which cases two presents could be identical?

Ah, again, subtly rears its ugly head. First two presents can only be identical if the ontological elements making them up are the same which means we are speaking of a specific epistemological construct (the reference labels have been defined). On the other hand (that would be your left hand; see above) this epistemological construct was created to explain those “valid ontological elements” in the original ”what is”, is “what is”[/color] table in your left hand. The point being that your coherent world-view will contain exactly the “invalid ontological elements” necessary to eliminate the problem.

Perhaps it is irrelevant to this procedure, but I am also wondering whether your "existing knowledge" should or would be part of each present?

I think that, here, you are confusing the meaning of “existing knowledge” (English is not a very precise language for expressing these ideas). We are talking about the existence of ontological elements on which the explanation rests; not exactly equivalent to the full range of what can be meant by the English term “existing knowledge”.

But I wonder if the fact that at "noon 2" there exists memories about "noon 1" would be enough to make these presents different. In which case just the fact that an observer remembers the old presents makes each present different.

Here, you are obviously working with a world-view, a solution to understanding the universe (at least partial if not total), and you are essentially defending my statement that the world view will contain certain required ontological elements. Whether they are memories, marks on the ground or whatever, they are necessary to that world view which has been created. Are they valid or invalid ontological elements? There is no way to tell as both must be consistent with the explanation or the explanation is flawed. The real point is that they have to be there, valid or invalid (i.e., the ability to differentiate the circumstances must exist), in order to construct a coherent world-view.

It's good to have you back -- Dick