JONATHAN, ALL...
I do think we're making sense, and progress. The two often go together.
> ELEPHANT
>> It is not the processing of data into data but the
>> creative handling of the projection of data onto the continuous which
>> constitutes what we have always called intelligence: intelligence as is
>> displayed in an intelligent scientist. It is possible to redefine
>> 'intelligence' so that Artificial intelligence is not an oxymoron, but only
>> at the expense of making a calculator in some degree 'intelligent' (not a
>> high quality outcome).
JONATHAN:
> I fully agree. I would extend this to say that computers computate, but only
> intelligent minds calculate.
> Elephant, I think this is actually a pretty good answer to the question:
>>> Do you think digital computers perform mathematical calculations? The
>>> difference seems to be that while "computation" is a blind mechanical
>>> process, "calculation" contains elements of weighing up the results,
>>> eVALUating them and looking for MEANING i.e. computation is calculation
>>> without QUALITY.
ELEPHANT:
Absolutely! (I guess that you're quoting yourself and reminding me that you
already said what I tried to say in a previous post! - too true, but
remember: I quite often don't bother to comment when I think someone is
talking obvious good sense. Not the best habit - but there is a maximum
amount one guy can type.) One good way of uniting your contribution with
mine on this point would be to point out that when I say that the unique
thing about what a human being does when it perfoms the maths is the
*attention*, the *refering* and *aboutness* of our thoughts - well, what we
are attending to, refering to ultimately through these digits, is Quality.
What do you say to that? What makes calculation a kind of seeing and not a
blind process is the eye we have on The Good: all is apprehended in the
light of the Good. Good maths is what we are aiming at. And in the case of
the computer, there is no "aiming" - and no consciousness of good, no
Quality. No intelligence. No life.
On to other things....
>> JONATHAN:
>>> It's strange that you dismiss the idea of the "analogue computer" as
>>> "oxymoronic". The idea has been around for years, and machines by that name
>>> have been built.
>>
>> ELEPHANT:
>> On the last point: that proves nothing. The idea of artificial intelligence
>> has been around for years, and machines to which its name has been
>> attributed have also been built. That doesn't stop the whole notion of
>> artificial intelligence being based on a mistake about what we ordinarily
>> call 'intelligence'.
JONATHAN:
> Personally, I consider digital computers to be a (particularly useful) subset
> of analogue computers. The digital computer is restricted because it is
> designed to work only with rational numbers, and then only a subset of
> rational numbers (because of the need to put a finite limit on accuracy). In
> principal, the analogue computer could represent any REAL number (not just the
> rational numbers). In practice though, even the analogue system is restricted
> by the quantum nature of its own components. I hold to my original position
> that many physical systems can be configured and used as computational
> devices, including electric currents through silicon semiconductors, beads on
> wires and even falling apples.
ELEPHANT:
OK. Analogue computers. Well, like I said, you can divide things up that
way if it seems high quality. But as far as I'm concerned, there do seem to
be some low quality aspects to this particular use of words. Sure, you can
say that "digital computers are ... a subset of analogue computers" - and I
can see what you're driving at, given that even the binary digital functions
of circuit are subject to some analogue variations of flow. Sure. But what
I'd say is that these analogue variations are in this case not part of the
identity, and thus the being, of the machine in question. They aren't
design features. Computers compute, and compute, as a verb, is as we've
both agreed a description for calculation with the quality taken out.
Calculation. Hm. Well I guess that this has to be with rational numbers.
I mean, you can get an irrational number as the result of a calculation (the
calculator or computer would indicate it by giving so many decimal points
and then some kind of sign), but the whole point about what makes an
irrational number is that it can't go in the input section of any
completable calculation - that's kind of a definition of what an irrational
number is. To use these kinds of numbers we have to cheat and *make* them
be rational: lop of everything bar so many decimal points, that kind of
thing. I suppose that's why I don't think you can have such a thing as an
analogue computer: such a machine would have to complete calculations or a
regular basis that are, by definition, incompleteable, because atleast one
of the terms has this irrational infinitely extending numerical description.
Isn't that relevant? This being the case, it looks like digital computers
aren't just a subset of analogue processors: instead they are designed to be
as unlike analogue processors in their actual processing as is conceivably
possible. They depend on numericising and computing (calculating with the
quality removed). Such is the digital watch. A sundial, by contrast, isn't
a computer by any stretch of the imagination - nor are those sophisticated
star-dials in India. A sophisticated escapement mechanism is maybe some way
between the two. It translates analogue movement (the spring), via a
carefully numericised filter (the escapement) into an analogue
representation (the clockface).
> ELEPHANT
>> force=mass*acceleration
>>
>> This is really the key Newtonian contribution, and yes, you are absolutely
>> right, it is a distinction between acceleration and force.
>
> Quite right, but there is something interesting that Newton never explained.
> The mass above refers to the inertial resistance to acceleration. In the law
> of gravity, gravitational attraction is directly proportional to the same
> mass. The result is that in a vaccuum all bodies (from feathers to cannon
> balls) fall with the same acceleration, because inertial resistance and
> gravitational force cancel each other out . There is absolutely no intuitive
> reason why this should be so.
ELEPHANT:
Maybe. But there might be a logical reason, to do with the meaning of
words. I probably won't go anywhere interesting with these thoughts, but
here they are:
If all that "mass" means is "intertial resistance to accelleration", and all
that "force" means is "mass*acceleration", then we might say that all there
really is in the universe is bodies and their accelerations. Everthing else
- force, mass, and so on - is merely a mathematical extrapolation from these
first two basic observations (try to remember that I'm not an empiricist as
I warm to this theme).
Now if we apply this hypothesis "there are only really bodies and
accelerations" to the action of a 'force' in a vacuum, which is, ex
hypothesi, the situation in which only one 'force' is in operation, some
interesting conclusions follow.
To begin with, it actually makes no sense to talk of the feather as having
less mass than the cannon ball in such a situation. Because mass is
hypothesised on the basis of the differences in accelleration. What puzzles
us that we think "that cannon ball and that feather have different masses -
so how can they not resist acceleration differently?" This puzzlement is
due to a conceptual mistake. It's behaviour under acceleration, and
particularly behaviour under various accelerations in different directions,
which tells you what the mass is. "Mass" simply has no meaning otherwise,
and the case of the feather and the cannon ball in the vacuum is one in
point.
In reality of course the feather and the cannon ball could not be in the
same experiment and yet suffer accelleration in only one direction only: the
two objects would also be accellerating all the time towards each other, and
their accelerations in this respect would reveal which of the two was the
more massive.
This suggests to me that you need more than one vector of acceleration in
order for mass to make sense. What do you think?
Suppose that there are only two objects in the universe, of different sizes.
Let us suppose that this is a universe where accelerations happen in accord
with what we expect gravity to do. But we can't yet attribute this
acceleration to a force, and we can't really hypothesis gravity as such,
because there are no reference points from which it cane be observed which
of the two objects travels the furthest or accellerates the most, and so no
way in which we can accord any comparative mass to either of the objects.
There are only two possible veiw points. From the larger body, we see the
smaller one approaching ever more swiftly, and then bang. From the smaller
body, we see exactly the same. And this is all we see. All the information
we can possibly extract from this experience is one of a combined
approach-acceleration. We cannot say whether A acclerated towards B, or B
towards A, or some proportion of one and some proportion of the other. This
being so, we cannot measure the mass of either object. And given that we
cannot measure the mass of either object, neither can we hypothesise any
force attached to this experience, because force is a function of
acceleration *and* mass. So it would be true to say of this experience that
if cannot have been caused by gravity, because gravity is a force, and it
makes no sense to talk of forces in a thought experiment containing no
masses.
If we go back to the cannon ball and the feather hurtling through vacuous
space together in the direction of the distant earth, the comparison is
obvious. It is only because there is this third veiwpoint and second
tradjectory - the trajectory towards the earth - that the masses of the ball
and of the feather can be measured as their deviation from that straight
line towards the earth. Otherwise they would be in the situation of objects
A and B: objects with no mass in a universe without force.
So, why does inertial resistance exert the very same influence as gravity,
and cancel each other out? Because the very concept of inertial resistance,
that is to say "mass", depends on gravitational acceleration with atleast
three bodies involved, and because that mass is *determined* by gravity thus
triangulated? What do you think?
>> JONATHAN:
>>> The story doesn't stop there. [with Newton]
>>> Acceleration requires the action of a FORCE on a
>>> MASS, and Newton implicitly accepted the idea of force at a distance. This
>>> was
>>> not acceptable to Einstein;
>
> ELEPHANT
>> BTW - I never did understand what was supposed to be so worrying about
>> action at a distance.
>
> This is a terrible problem for materialists. The gravitation would have to be
> communicated by contact with something physicial (material) in order to
> explain it. How does the moon "know" that the earth is there pulling on it
> from a quarter of a million miles away. Science demands an explanation and
> Newton didn't give it.
ELEPHANT:
Not all scientists are materialists - Einstein wasn't for one. And the kind
of materialism that's required to suggest that forces can only act in
contiguity is of a particulary dunderheaded variety (good indian word that).
I mean, to think that, you would have to assume that not only is the world
discoverable by empirical enquiry alone, but also that when you discover it
you will discover only the behaviour of particular things and no real
relations over and above the particulars. Crazy. That kind of account
doesn't just make it difficult for the moon to gravitate towards the earth,
it even makes it difficult for the word "moon" to mean (that is relate to)
the moon. Barmy.
>> ELEPHANT:
>> I'm confused (as many have been) about how space can be curved, given that
>> "curved" is a spatial decription. You seem to know about this and might be
>> able to guide us through the detail distinguishing the metaphor from the
>> maths. Have you any neat clarifications to offer? (please don't recommend
>> books - I can reread feynman any time but I have alot of other stuff to get
>> through)
JONATHAN:
> I'm not really qualified to answer this - my understanding is as a layman. One
> of the best examples I know of relates to a flat two dimensional map. On the
> map, you can trace a route that goes 10 miles North, turns 90 degrees
> Eastwards and goes 10 miles, then turns another 90 degrees Eastwards and goes
> another 10 miles.
> This route gives three sides of a square, so start and finish are 10 miles
> apart. Now if you plot a similar map on the curved surface of planet Earth,
> and go not 10 miles but 6000 miles each stage, the route is actually a
> "triangle" with 3 right angles in it!!! Thus the simple rules of geometry that
> apply in a single plane are no longer applicable when the "flat" surface
> becomes curved. Similarly, the simple geometry of 3 dimensions can become
> "curved" in a 4th dimension.
>
> Does that help at all? (I thought not ;-)
ELEPHANT:
No, not really. If it's this forth dimension that things are curved in, ie
time, then that doesn't make sense because "curve" is still a spatial
expression, not a temporal one. I guess you might be thinking along the
lines of a metaphor? The problem with me is, I get so stuck on the
incoherences in the metaphors that are supposed to help - someone one day
will explain it to me in really simple maths.
There was this thing about trains and stuff. I can remember thinking I had
cracked it then.....
Oh woe is dimwit me,
Elephant
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
