Re: Who believe in Concepts ? (Was: An All/Nothing multiverse model)
Hal Ruhl wrote: At 07:56 AM 11/14/2004, you wrote: Hal Ruhl wrote: I would appreciate comments on the following. I placed the definitions at the end for easy group reference. Proposal: The Existence of our and other universes and their dynamics are the result of unavoidable definition and logical incompleteness. Justification: 1) Given definitions 1, 2, and 3: [see original post] I have already a problem here. It might not be specific to this proposal but this is a good opportunity to raise the question. Defintion 1 and everything that follows depends in a strong way of the concept of concept and on strong properties of that concept (like the possibilty to discrimate what is a concept from what is not and to gather all concepts in a set/ensemble/collection with a consistent meaning). Perhaps I could find a more neutral word or define what I mean by concept. Please note however that the complete ensemble can not be consistent - after all it contains a completed arithmetic. Generally smaller sets can not prove their own consistency. snip It des not sound consistent to me for various reasons. Is seems not to be consistent for you either. Yet you mean to draw something from it ? Let's assume nothingness exists. Therefore something (nothingness) exists. That is one of my points if one replaces your nothingness with my nothing and your something with my All. Indeed I inserted that because I perceived a similarity between this and what you said. But this was rather an illustration for the question of whether words used in this utterance actually get at something and whether their combination can make sense. Put in such an extreme form, it appears to me as a mere game of word or a sophism and I wonder if anyone can get convinced by such reasonning. Any definition defines two entities simultaneously. Generally but not necessarily the smaller of the two entities is the one about which the definition says: This entity is:. The definition creates a boundary between this entity and a second entity which is all that the first is not. Most of the second entities may have no apparent usefulness but usefulness of an entity is not relevant. Therefore nothingness doesn't exist. Do you mean to cite the first instance or the second instance here ? Therefore nothingness doesn't exist (because something exists) or Therefore nothingness doesn't exist (because assuming it exists leads to the assertion of both a proposition and its negation) ? Not at all. One can not define a something without simultaneously defining a nothing and vice versa. This is not obvious to me. Defining a property that would always be true does not imply that it have to or even it just could be false sometimes. But this is not the point. My first therefore (and therefore the second one) holds even though because this is the minimum property that one would expect of any solid sense of nothingness. In case you insist to define simultaneously a something and a nothing, you would just have demonstrated the inconsistency of any sound (nothing,something) theory. I think that (at least) Heidegger seriously claimed that. That is the usually unnoticed aspect of the definitional process. This leads you to the exclusionary statement below. That's why there's something rather than noting. To the contrary both exist if either does. You insist to claim that. Yet they are also exclusive since by its very nature, nothingness excludes the existence of any something. Georges. I disappear when I am named. Who am I ?
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hal Ruhl wrote: At 08:16 AM 11/14/2004, you wrote: Hal Ruhl wrote: 4) A Something: A division of the All into two subparts. That too, sounds bad to me. It might well be that the only something that deserve the title of Something would be the All itself. Everything else might appear so only in our minds (and/or in other types of minds). I believe my use of the term Something in the text of the justification is consistent with my definition. One must allow for the case that the All could have internal boundaries of some sort. Hi Hal, I would say that this is a matter of faith. Indeed, It *could*. But no one has the ability to prove either It has or It hasn't any such boundary (in an absolute sense, of course). From this point of view, I am at best agnostic and I seriously doubt It actually has. That's why I would also like to say : One must allow for the case that the All could have no (true) internal boundaries of any sort. Georges.
Who believes in Boundaries ? (Was: An All/Nothing multiverse model)
Georges Quenot wrote: Hal Ruhl wrote: At 08:16 AM 11/14/2004, you wrote: Hal Ruhl wrote: 4) A Something: A division of the All into two subparts. That too, sounds bad to me. It might well be that the only something that deserve the title of Something would be the All itself. Everything else might appear so only in our minds (and/or in other types of minds). I believe my use of the term Something in the text of the justification is consistent with my definition. One must allow for the case that the All could have internal boundaries of some sort. Hi Hal, I would say that this is a matter of faith. Indeed, It *could*. But no one has the ability to prove either It has or It hasn't any such boundary (in an absolute sense, of course). From this point of view, I am at best agnostic and I seriously doubt It actually has. That's why I would also like to say : One must allow for the case that the All could have no (true) internal boundaries of any sort. In a previous post, I asked TOE participants their opinion about the existence of Concepts. What I meant might not be clear. It is in fact equivalent to the (hopefully) clearer idea of Boundary mentionned here. Again, using the upper case for Boundary, I mean here something that would exist in an absolute sense and not just the relative, contingent and fuzzy boundaries we use in everday life. A Concept would be something tht would be on one side of a Boundary ande vices versa. Do some TOE participants believe in such Boundaries, even at least in some particular cases ? If yes, which ones and on whice bases ? To take a particular example. It is often considered in this group the concept od Self-Aware Structure (SAS). Who believes that Boundaries can be drawn around individuals SASs and/or around the category ? Georges.
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
I received the following comments from Eric Cavalcanti but did not see them post on the Everything list. It is the same idea as Godel's approach to showing the incompleteness of arithmetic. The structure of arithmetic was asked a question [the truth or falseness of a grammatically valid statement] it could not answer [resolve]. The Nothing can not escape being asked if it is stable or not and has no ability to resolve the question. But it's not as wave-handing as you make it sound. Godel's theorem has a precise meaning and proof given the axioms of Mathematics. It works within those axioms, and has no meaning outside that scope. If you want to use a similar argument, you need to carefully define what you mean by It's the same idea as Godel's approach. Godel's theorem was about arithmetic but the idea behind the theorem was to ask a system a question meaningful to that system which it could not in its present state resolve. That is what is happening in my model. My Nothing can not avoid determining its stability [i.e. its persistence] but can not make this determination without changing. It may sound pedantic, but the problem is that you are trying to create a theory that describes everything, and therefore it's desirable that its constructs are self-evident and certainly required that they are self-consistent. The idea that defining a thing actually defines two things seems self evident [once you notice it]. At least one case of unavoidable definition also seems self evident [once you notice it]. The All is not internally consistent because it is complete. What do you mean by self-consistent in this case. In my view there is no need for universes to be consistent. See #10 and #11 of the original post. What sense does it make to say that the Nothing must answer a question if no question is actually asked? As Pete Carlton said, I believe that you are using a metaphor for something else, but then you need to carefully explain what it is, without the metaphor. See above for the unavoidable meaningful question. I also don't understand why the Nothing should be the kind of thing that penetrates boundaries, attempts to complete itself, etc. It seems that your Nothing gets up to quite a lot of action considering that it's Nothing. Are these actions metaphors for something else, and if so, what? The Nothing can not escape answering the stability question so it must try to add structure [information] to itself until it has an answer. The only source of this structure is the ALL . Thus the Everything boundary must be breached. What is the stability question? Why is it that the Nothing cannot escape answering it? See above What does it mean for the Nothing to penetrate the boundary, There are three components in the system: The All The Nothing Boundaries The only component that may be capable of answering the question is the All. Thus the Nothing must breach the boundary between them [the Everything]. It can not avoid this because it persists or it does not. When this happens an evolving multiverse [a Something] and a renewed Nothing are formed and the cycle starts again. and in what sense does the Nothing complete itself in this process? It adds information that resides in the All. What is information? I have else where defined information as: The potential to divide as with a boundary. An Example: The information in a Formal Axiomatic System [FAS] divides true statements from not true statements [relevant to that FAS]. How does Nothing know when it has found an answer? A Something pays no active attention to what it was. In fact it can not because each new added bit of information creates a new system. This continues until it is a one for one with the All. How can a Nothing become something else? It must do so by filling itself with information. - see above - What does it become if it does? A different Nothing? It becomes a Something i.e. an evolving multiverse as outlined in the original post. How can you distinguish between the former and the latter? It will no longer meet the definition of Nothing. Hal
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hal, I'm way out of my depth, but if I'm correctly interpreting what you are saying, it looks to me that your multiverse model cannot be valid. This is because it answers the question Why does anything exist? with the answer Because it's not possible to conceive of Nothing, since the concept of Nothing is Something. However, this answer requires Something that conceptualizes. Suppose that Something is not there? If there were Nothing, there could be no Something. Norman
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hi Norman: My model has both a Nothing, the All, and a set of Somethings simultaneously. Hal At 06:10 PM 11/15/2004, you wrote: Hal, I'm way out of my depth, but if I'm correctly interpreting what you are saying, it looks to me that your multiverse model cannot be valid. This is because it answers the question Why does anything exist? with the answer Because it's not possible to conceive of Nothing, since the concept of Nothing is Something. However, this answer requires Something that conceptualizes. Suppose that Something is not there? If there were Nothing, there could be no Something. Norman
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Norman's answer sounds pretty good to me. I also checked http://www.nothing.com/ found maybe or maybe not nothing there. Something's also at http://www.something.com - Ben Udell. - Original Message - From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 6:10 PM Subject: Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model Hal, I'm way out of my depth, but if I'm correctly interpreting what you are saying, it looks to me that your multiverse model cannot be valid. This is because it answers the question Why does anything exist? with the answer Because it's not possible to conceive of Nothing, since the concept of Nothing is Something. However, this answer requires Something that conceptualizes. Suppose that Something is not there? If there were Nothing, there could be no Something. Norman
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hi Benjamin: Norman's comments as I indicated in a response completely miss the essence of my model. Hal At 06:25 PM 11/15/2004, you wrote: Norman's answer sounds pretty good to me. I also checked http://www.nothing.com/ found maybe or maybe not nothing there. Something's also at http://www.something.com - Ben Udell. - Original Message - From: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Hal Ruhl [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 6:10 PM Subject: Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model Hal, I'm way out of my depth, but if I'm correctly interpreting what you are saying, it looks to me that your multiverse model cannot be valid. This is because it answers the question Why does anything exist? with the answer Because it's not possible to conceive of Nothing, since the concept of Nothing is Something. However, this answer requires Something that conceptualizes. Suppose that Something is not there? If there were Nothing, there could be no Something. Norman
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
To answer a few other comments/questions: Boundaries: I have as I said in one post of this thread and as I recall in some earlier related threads defined information as a potential to erect a boundary. So the All is chuck full of this potential. Actual boundaries are the Everything and any evolving Something. Something(s): In my model these are evolving universes and not anti Nothings. The All is the anti Nothing. Definitions: The only definitions for which I identify both members of the [is, is not] pair are the [All,Nothing] pair and the complementary Somethings pairs. [Is, is not] pairs are not alternates or true/false comparisons but are rather information/content complements. The Everything is a boundary and its complement is all other boundaries. True noise is a concept re information flow and its complement is all other concepts. The All and the Nothing are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps the exclusive idea is based on a hidden assumption of some sort of space that can only be filled with or somehow contain one or the other but not both. Hal
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
To respond to comments on consistency. I see no reason why components of the system need to be internally consistent. And I have indicated that the All is not internally consistent. Generally speaking evolving Somethings are also not consistent. Actually evolving Somethings are a sequence of Somethings in that each new quantum of information incorporated into a Something makes it a new system. Arithmetic and any system that incorporates it can not prove its [their] own consistency. Hal
Re: An All/Nothing multiverse model
Hi Eric: At 09:46 PM 11/15/2004, you wrote: On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 10:13, Hal Ruhl wrote: To respond to comments on consistency. I see no reason why components of the system need to be internally consistent. And I have indicated that the All is not internally consistent. Generally speaking evolving Somethings are also not consistent. Actually evolving Somethings are a sequence of Somethings in that each new quantum of information incorporated into a Something makes it a new system. Arithmetic and any system that incorporates it can not prove its [their] own consistency. Not to be able to prove its consistency doesn't mean it's inconsistent, does it? Going a little further Turing showed that there is in general no decision procedure. Godel's proof is a corollary of this. So if arithmetic ever became complete it would have to be inconsistent. The All contains all arithmetics including the complete and inconsistent one. So the All is internally inconsistent. Also if you did add an axiom to arithmetic how could this be done so it was known to be consistent with the previous axioms? I'm thinking about an inconsistent system as one that can prove both a statement and its negation. That is right What exactly do you mean by your All? All systems of representations, or All that 'exists'? If the latter, what does it mean 'to exist'? If the former, do these systems necessarily have a one-to-one correspondence to something that 'exists', and in what sense? As I said in an earlier post the information within the All may have a separate physical existence. I left open for now what that might be. I do believe this to be in any way essential as part of the description of worlds. The All since it contains all information sums to no net information. Concepts would be packets of associated information. All this points to the first of the above which is a position I have preferred for awhile. I just can't grasp what you could possibly mean by an inconsistent All. And therefore I can't see what use this model could possibly have, and how can it possibly represent Anything. :) See above. If our world is indeed subject to true noise as I state in my model it would be a sequence of new systems - how does prove which is a step by step process within a given system have any relevance? Hal
