Re: truth
On 06 Jul 2012, at 22:45, John Mikes wrote:
Bruno:
Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2
are just imagining something else. -
do you mean: imagining something else
THAN WHAT YOU WERE IMAGINING? sounds like a claim to some
priviledge to imagining - only YOUR WAY?
(I know you will vehemently deny that - ha ha).
I meant something else with respect to anything obeying to the axioms
on which we already agreed, at the least. Like 0 ≠ s(0), x ≠ y -
s(x) ≠ s(y), addition and multiplication law.
Actually it is a bit more, which is what the logicians call the
standard model of arithmetic, and known as the structure (N, +, *) in
high school. But that is not really relevant here. The magic of
numbers is that humans have a good sharable intuition about them.
Are you doubting that the s(0) + s(0) = s(s(0)) ?
If that is the case, nothing in math, physics, chemistry can make much
sense, and I have no way to explain you anything in computer science.
And you can abandon relativiy theory and quantum mechanics which are
based on elementary arithmetic.
In fact, if you doubt that 1+1=2, then I have to doubt what you mean
by telling us that we are humans, or that we are not human, and even
what is a human.
The reason to doubt 1+1=2 are more doubtable than 1+1=2.
To Guitarist:
It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do
stuff like: 1 + 1 = 11
You made my point - which was to (agnostically) expose that we have
no approved authority to a ONE AND ONLY opinion.
Not even within what we may call 'possible'.
That is why we do semi-axiomatic.
The question is only: do you agree with the axioms (together with
classical logic):
0 ≠ s(x)
x ≠ y - s(x) ≠ s(y)
x + 0 = x
x + s(y) = s(x + y)
Then you should agree with 0 ≠ s(0), s(0) ≠ s(s(0), etc., and s(0)
+ s(0) = s(s(0)), even if we did not succeed in defining completely
what are those numbers.
Bruno
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
wrote:
Hi Guitar boy,
On 04 Jul 2012, at 16:12, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
Hello Everythinglisters,
First post here, and seems fun to get lost reading the discussions
from time to time, so here somebody contributing with a more
musical tendency.
It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do
stuff like: 1 + 1 = 11
If people are sincere about pulling whatever sums they feel like
with personal justification, then we might as well say 1 + 1 = 0,
with a kind of zen logic, where everything = nothing as a fancy
justification.
Well in Z_2 = {0, 1}, we do have a law with 1+1 = 0. (modular
arithmetic). But 1 is still different from 0. But I get your point.
And anybody still willing to assert this could post their bank
account details and pin numbers and be freed from arithmetic
dictatorship by having their account cleaned out by other
everything listers that DO believe in sums, successors etc. as 0 =
whatever they want, and the sum of their balance doesn't really
matter, as it's only some personal belief shared by a few control
freaks.
Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2
are just imagining something else. It is not an arguent that a truth
is not absolute, but that the notation used to described it can have
other interpreations. In the Z_2 structure, which plays a key role
in many places: 2 = 0. But 2 does not represent the successor of of
the successor of zero, it represents the rest when we divide by the
usual number 2. It really means:
odd + odd = even (the rest of 1 + 1 divided by 2 = 0)
even + even = even (the rest of 2 + 2 divided by 2 = 0)
odd + even = odd (the rest of 1 + 2 divided by 2 = 1)
Guitar and composition imho, have arithmetic overlap, albeit in a
less than total sense, which is why I won't have to post my details
here :)
Guitar is hardest, imo. You need good trained digits!
Looking forward to contributing from time to time.
You are welcome,
Bruno
On Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:09:53 AM UTC+2, JohnM wrote:
Bruno asked:
. Is that an absolute truth?
By no means. It is a word-flower, a semantic hint, something in MY
agnosticism and I feel like a semantic messenger only. I accept
better expressions.
(Except for absolute truth - ha ha).
And Teilhard was a great master of words.
John M
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
wrote:
On 29 Jun 2012, at 16:21, John Mikes wrote:
Brent, thanks for the appreciation!
My point was simply that anybody's 'truth' is conditioned.
We have no (approvable?) authority for an ABSOLUTE truth. Whatever
WE accept is human.
Is that an absolute truth?
In my humble opinion, WE = human seems to me quite relative. When
I listen to the jumping spiders or the Löbian machines, most seems
to disagree.
Bruno
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are
spiritual beings having a
Re: Autonomy?
On 06 Jul 2012, at 19:31, John Clark wrote: On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote This is a rephrasing which does not suppress in any way the fact that in Helsinki I am uncertain about the experience I will feel next. But that is ALWAYS true regardless of whether identity splitting or duplicating chambers enter the picture; it's true because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the unpredictable nature of your external environment, and even without that fact and even if the world was as deterministic as Newton thought it was it would remain true that you don't know what the results of a calculation will be until you finish the calculation. The new result is that A - Indeterminism And you tell me that it is not interesting because B - Indeterminism and that C - indeterminism. That is hardly a critic. It would be if I was using B and C, but the whole point is in the fact tha I do not assume B nor C (in that derivation). Bruno If you have a better theory, you might mention it. Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
My comments to Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, especially to the statement from the book “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/07/philosophy-is-dead.html Evgenii -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: Hawking and Mlodinow start with the statement that free will is illusion If they said that, and I don't recall that they did, they were being much too kind in equating the free will noise to something as concrete as illusion. An interesting question is however, where resulting visual mental concepts are located. I find it about as interesting as asking where big or the number eleven is located and shows the same profound misunderstanding of the situation on so many different levels that it's hard to know where to begin. “*Today we know that helium and lithium, atoms whose nuclei contain two and three protons, were also primordially synthesized, in much smaller amounts, when the universe was about 200 seconds old*.” However, is this knowledge or a belief? Assume that there was Big Bang described by the M-theory as supposed by the book. The Big Bang does not need anything as exotic as M-theory to make that prediction, from just humdrum nuclear physics, the same ideas that made the H-bomb, we can calculate that if the universe started from 100% hydrogen, the simplest element, that was at several hundred billion degrees Centigrade then in about 200 seconds as a result of fusion reactions you'd have 74.9% Hydrogen 24.9% Helium and .01% deuterium and 10^-10 % Lithium, and you can calculate that in the in 13.7 bullion years since then these percentages should have changed very little, and when know that these are exactly the observed values we see today. This is far too good a agreement for it to be coincidence. It well might be that philosophers are less informed about the M-theory but Forget M-theory, most professional philosophers are totally ignorant about ANY of the huge philosophical developments that have happened in the last 150 years; they know nothing about Quantum Mechanics or Relativity or the profound works of Godel or Turing, they know that DNA has something to do with heredity but could not tell you exactly what or how it works, they don't even know it's digital; they've heard of Darwin but have only the haziest understanding of what he said and have even less interest in it; maybe they know the Universe is expanding but the knowledge that it's accelerating hasn't trickled down to them yet because that was only discovered 15 years ago and they're slow learners; they don't even know that light is a wave of electric and magnetic fields or understand simple classical mechanics and prefer to talk about the worst physicist who ever lived, Aristotle. In short most modern philosophers are philosophical ignoramuses. In the book, there are many statements against religion. Thank God! comments in Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy isn't dead but professional philosophers are as good as, they haven't made a contribution to our understanding of how the world works in centuries, scientists and mathematicians have had to pick up the slack. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: truth
Dear Bruno: here we go again (quote from Ronald Reagan).
The vocabulary of different (belief?) systems. You seem to abide firmly
at axioms, meaning not more in MY vocabulary than postulates to make *OUR
*(actual, conventional, ongoing) theories VALID. Changing theories make
axioms invalid.
*HUMAN? *I doubt if we have a universally agreed-upon definition
(and please, count me into the 'universal) standing up to both
'living/nonliving' creatures, computers (as we knew them yesterday -
including the skeletally composed AI) with all the potentials that can be
filled in future, additionally, as it has been supplied in the past
millennia. Mathematical logic is IMO a human achievement of yesterday. It
is fine and supports our conventional sciences (more than usually presumed
so) but not the 'total' of an infinite view. (What I do not have).
You may say: un-scientific, baseless, etc., I agree.
What I disagree about is a firm belief of we know it all.
Not even 1+1=2. Hence my joke of 1+1=11. Or Brent's 10.
I claim: there are no numbers in Nature, it is us (allow me to call
ourselves: 'humans') representing observations of 'natural' hints with
their ongoing explanations into number-related (calculable?)
formulations. Hence (our?) arithmetic.
As I already explained: the (human) genius formulated out of such theories
an ingenious technology that is ALMOST good.
And I bow to that.
John M
On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 4:45 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote:
Bruno:
*Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2 are
just imagining something else.* -
do you mean: imagining something else
THAN WHAT YOU WERE *IMAGINING*? sounds like a claim to some priviledge
to imagining - only YOUR WAY?
(I know you will vehemently deny that - ha ha).
To Guitarist:
*It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do
stuff like: 1 + 1 = 11*
You made my point - which was to (agnostically) expose that we have no
approved authority to a ONE AND ONLY opinion.
Not even within what we may call 'possible'.
John M
* *
On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
Hi Guitar boy,
On 04 Jul 2012, at 16:12, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
Hello Everythinglisters,
First post here, and seems fun to get lost reading the discussions from
time to time, so here somebody contributing with a more musical tendency.
It's funny how this game keeps cropping up where people want to do stuff
like: 1 + 1 = 11
If people are sincere about pulling whatever sums they feel like with
personal justification, then we might as well say 1 + 1 = 0, with a kind of
zen logic, where everything = nothing as a fancy justification.
Well in Z_2 = {0, 1}, we do have a law with 1+1 = 0. (modular
arithmetic). But 1 is still different from 0. But I get your point.
And anybody still willing to assert this could post their bank account
details and pin numbers and be freed from arithmetic dictatorship by having
their account cleaned out by other everything listers that DO believe in
sums, successors etc. as 0 = whatever they want, and the sum of their
balance doesn't really matter, as it's only some personal belief shared by
a few control freaks.
Right. I think that people believing that 1+1 can be different of 2 are
just imagining something else. It is not an arguent that a truth is not
absolute, but that the notation used to described it can have other
interpreations. In the Z_2 structure, which plays a key role in many
places: 2 = 0. But 2 does not represent the successor of of the successor
of zero, it represents the rest when we divide by the usual number 2. It
really means:
odd + odd = even (the rest of 1 + 1 divided by 2 = 0)
even + even = even (the rest of 2 + 2 divided by 2 = 0)
odd + even = odd (the rest of 1 + 2 divided by 2 = 1)
Guitar and composition imho, have arithmetic overlap, albeit in a less
than total sense, which is why I won't have to post my details here :)
Guitar is hardest, imo. You need good trained digits!
Looking forward to contributing from time to time.
You are welcome,
Bruno
On Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:09:53 AM UTC+2, JohnM wrote:
Bruno asked:
. Is that an absolute truth?
By no means. It is a word-flower, a semantic hint, something in MY
agnosticism and I feel like a semantic messenger only. I accept better
expressions.
(Except for absolute truth - ha ha).
And Teilhard was a great master of words.
John M
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.bewrote:
On 29 Jun 2012, at 16:21, John Mikes wrote:
Brent, thanks for the appreciation!
My point was simply that anybody's 'truth' is conditioned.
We have no (approvable?) authority for an ABSOLUTE truth. Whatever WE
accept is human.
Is that an absolute truth?
In my humble opinion, WE = human seems to me quite relative. When I
listen to the jumping spiders or the Löbian machines, most seems to
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 07 Jul 2012, at 19:40, John Clark wrote: On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 Evgenii Rudnyi use...@rudnyi.ru wrote: Hawking and Mlodinow start with the statement that free will is illusion If they said that, and I don't recall that they did, they were being much too kind in equating the free will noise to something as concrete as illusion. It depends on the definition. An interesting question is however, where resulting visual mental concepts are located. I find it about as interesting as asking where big or the number eleven is located and shows the same profound misunderstanding of the situation on so many different levels that it's hard to know where to begin. OK. “Today we know that helium and lithium, atoms whose nuclei contain two and three protons, were also primordially synthesized, in much smaller amounts, when the universe was about 200 seconds old.” However, is this knowledge or a belief? Assume that there was Big Bang described by the M-theory as supposed by the book. The Big Bang does not need anything as exotic as M-theory to make that prediction, from just humdrum nuclear physics, the same ideas that made the H-bomb, we can calculate that if the universe started from 100% hydrogen, the simplest element, that was at several hundred billion degrees Centigrade then in about 200 seconds as a result of fusion reactions you'd have 74.9% Hydrogen 24.9% Helium and .01% deuterium and 10^-10 % Lithium, and you can calculate that in the in 13.7 bullion years since then these percentages should have changed very little, and when know that these are exactly the observed values we see today. This is far too good a agreement for it to be coincidence. Some people mean by Big Bang: the origin of the universe. I have few doubt that we share a reality with a big explosion sometimes ago, but I am quite neutral on the idea that this is the beginning of the (even just physical) story. And it is the not the beginning of the non physical story (arithmetic). It well might be that philosophers are less informed about the M- theory but Forget M-theory, most professional philosophers are totally ignorant about ANY of the huge philosophical developments that have happened in the last 150 years; they know nothing about Quantum Mechanics or Relativity or the profound works of Godel or Turing, they know that DNA has something to do with heredity but could not tell you exactly what or how it works, they don't even know it's digital; they've heard of Darwin but have only the haziest understanding of what he said and have even less interest in it; maybe they know the Universe is expanding but the knowledge that it's accelerating hasn't trickled down to them yet because that was only discovered 15 years ago and they're slow learners; they don't even know that light is a wave of electric and magnetic fields or understand simple classical mechanics and prefer to talk about the worst physicist who ever lived, Aristotle. In short most modern philosophers are philosophical ignoramuses. I can agree, and I think this comes from the abandon of the scientific attitude in the human science, since theology get transfered from the academy to the political argument from authority. It is the passage from ? to !. In the book, there are many statements against religion. Thank God! Indeed. I mean if religion is identify with some of its terrestrial current manifestation, those using argument from authority. comments in Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy isn't dead but professional philosophers are as good as, they haven't made a contribution to our understanding of how the world works in centuries, scientists and mathematicians have had to pick up the slack. By method they do rigorous philosophy implicitly, except some times in the intro and conclusion of papers. They do bad philosophy when they talk philosophy, as they imitate the philosophers who does bad philosophy professionally. Philosophy should not be taught by words. It can be taught only through the art, music, novel, movies, fictions, ... Nobody can think at your place. Philosophy, and a part of theology, are private things. Inspiration is possible, but communication miss the points. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
On 07 Jul 2012, at 15:31, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: My comments to Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, especially to the statement from the book “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/07/philosophy-is-dead.html I am not so much in favor of professional philosophers, which does not mean that some of them do good ... science (like Maudlin, Slezak, even McGuin: it is real reasoning). But that statement looks like the blind arrogance of physics, which ignores the mind body problem systematically for years. Consciousness might be the grain of sand which will remind us that we might try to be a bit more modest. To say that scientists have become the bearer of the knowledge quest is a truism becoming false when the scientist put a problem under the rug. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
