Dave - Your list of idle questions represents *quite a span*.
And I thought *I* was prone to flying off (thinking about and sharing) in all directions at once! There is at least one "great american novel" in there... and maybe a few alternate histories or closer to Gibson's recent pair (Peripheral and Agency) "multiversal future histories". I just got off the horn (yesterday, and what precisely is the referent to a skype window as "a horn"??? nautical from 17-19c ?) with Jenny so new you were on your way back to the USSofA (you don't know how lucky you are boys!) with the interesting parallax between a village-burb of Amsterdam and a bunker (erh... basement) in the canyon country of Utah... Great span of questions by the way, AND concisely stated. Grist for my mill, or is it stones in my craw? - Steve On 3/30/20 12:22 PM, Prof David West wrote: > After two weeks in isolation in Holland, I returned to the U.S. Friday for > two more weeks of isolation on the mountain in Utah. Because of possible > exposure while traveling will get tested tomorrow or Wednesday - give the bug > a chance to become detectable. Still convinced there is far less to fear from > the disease than from civil unrest and/or loss of liberty. > > In the absence of external stimuli, lots of questions on different subjects > came to the fore along with the impulse to inflict them on the group, perhaps > as a bit of distraction from more serious matters. > > Covid related: > 1. Given patient zero as a Pangolin seller/buyer/consumer and Pangolin-zero, > what conditions must be satisfied to ensure a species-to-species jump? > a- mutation in the virus in Pangolin-zero? > b- mutation in patient-zero that made him uniquely susceptible? > c- first time a Pangolin sneezed in the face of a human, or first time a > human licked Pangolin scales? > > 2- Numbers I would like to see: > a. total tested - TT > b. percent of TT that were positive TP or negative TN > c. percent of TT that are one-percenters > d. percent of TT that are in top 20th percentile in terms of money, power > (e.g. politicians), fame (e.g. entertainers, athletes) > e. percent of TT that are front-line personnel > f. percent of TT that are "middle class" > g. percent of TT that are poor > h. percent of TT that are illegal, homeless, etc. > i. percent of TP that were asymptomatic > j. percent of TP that required little or no treatment > k. percent of TP that could be treated with OTC or off-label meds > l. percent of TP that required outpatient treatment plus emerging > medication > m. percent of TP that required hospitalization and serious treatment, e.g. > ventilators > n. percent of TP that died - by age and degree of underlying causes > o. transmissions per infected TPI > p. percent of TPI to others within one-degree of distance (e.g. family, > close friends) > q. percent of TPI to others within two-degrees of distance (e.g. > classmates, spring breakers, neighbors) > r. percent of TPI to others within three-degrees of distance (e.g. > supermarkets, fellow train commuters) > s. percent of TPI to others within four-degrees of distance (strangers in > the casino, at the concert, at restaurants) > > Philosophy of Science > 1. Lee Smolin talks about a schism with regard the nature of science grounded > in a disagreement about the nature of Reality — realists and anti-realists. > 2. Realists assert that there is a natural world existing independently of > our minds and properties of that that Reality can be comprehended and > described. Anti-Realists would deny one or both of those assertions. > 3. Most scientists are Realists, excepting the case of quantum mechanics, > where anti-realists dominate. > 4. Some Anti-Realists assert that properties ascribed to elementary particles > are created by our interactions with them and exist only at the time of > measurement. > 5. Other Anti-Realists assert that science as a whole does not deal in or > talk about the nature of Reality, but only about our knowledge of that world; > e.g. quantum epistemology. > 6. Operationalists are agnostic about Reality and just want to calculate. > 7. I assume that Peirce would be an anti-Realist. Would he be a quantum > epistemologist? Or, some other variant of the categories Smolin describes? > Or, something totally different? Of course Peirce could not be a quantum > epistemologist, per se, but he does seem to assert a similar anti-Realist > position with regard macro-phenomenon where most scientists are Realists. > > Cosmology: > 1. why geocentric expansion - why is everything moving away from us? > 2. why can we not detect where we are going? what direction are we expanding > into? > > Quantum Physics > 1. both pilot-wave and many-worlds interpretations lead to a need for either > many worlds or ghost waves to deal with superposition "residue" once an > observation has been made and a particle at a specific place exists. > Wheeler's, It from Bit, interpretation bases everything on information. > 2. What if the many worlds / ghost waves were simply erased when a > measurement was made and the wave collapsed to a particle. We know that > erasure costs energy. So observation would consume some tiny bit of energy > from the Universe and increase the mass of the Universe by the mass of the > particle. > 3. Would this lead to a change, over eons of time of course, in the Hubble > constant because there was more mass to slow down expansion and less energy > to fuel it? > 4. Could this change account for the problems people have coming up with a > consistent measure of the Hubble constant. > > Off-the-Wall > 1. Vedic physics posited five elements — the same four that Aristotle > asserted much later, i.e. air, earth, fire and water plus consciousness. > 2. Would it be possible to do some kind of parallel evolution of physics from > Aristotle to Einstein using the Vedic five elements instead of Aristotle's > four. What might that physics look like, what would the consciousness factor > look like, how would a value/variable/constant for it look like in equations? > E.g. E+consc = MC squared? > 3. is there a way to map consciousness to information and via that path come > to an account for Dark Energy, Dark Matter? > > Incipient Nonsense > 1. Assume pervasive consciousness in matter, ala Vedic cosmology; is > "consciousness" translate/equate in some fashion to observation? One way to > think of observation is simply awareness/being conscious of. > 2. If so, can the consciousness of elementary/quantum particles be summed > when those particles become parts of an aggregate structure? > 3. Is there a threshold, like the formation of an atom, or a molecule, where > the sum of consciousness ensures that every particle participating is > "observed" by consciousness if not by a physicist or instrument. > 4. Could this account for the fact that macro phenomenon like physicists, > cats, and instruments cannot participate in superposition? > > A Galaxy Far Far Away > 1. Assuming the Vedic-Quantum-Consciousness stuff, could we calculate the > amount of consciousness-observations necessary to yield the macro structure > of Universe? > 2. If you could obtain such a number, could you somehow differentiate, and > measure, the amount of consciousness-observation available from the > non-sentient mass of the universe and that of sentient-observation > contribution? > 3. If yes, could you then take the amount of sentient-observation required, > deduct some amount contributed by human-sentient-observation and any leftover > would indicate the number of non-human sentient observers must be lurking > around? > > And Nick, no these are not the result of drugs, just my overactive > imagination and the fact that I read four different books on quantum physics, > Jung's Red Book, and DMT Dialogues the past week. > > davew > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
