Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Thanks for telling me Telmo, Have a good day, Bruno On 22 Jun 2010, at 11:42, Telmo Menezes wrote: Hi Bruno, Ok, nothing to add. I fully agree with what you say. Best, Telmo. On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 10:13 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi Telmo, I'm having a hard time understanding this particular statement: "The lobian error is that prohibition at the start deprive its target of its responsibility. Eventually it dissolves irresponsibility in a unsustainable economical pyramidal power which can only crash. Better to stop that asap!" It is foolish to believe that some people can decide at your place what they estimate to be good or bad. For you! It makes you irresponsible adult. It is a lack of respect of all *person* in general. It is spiritually foolish. It is also a typical technic for taking power on others. Indeed, it allows a collectivity (apparently) to think for you (instead as acting along a social contract), and thus to control you. It leads to pyramidal economical structure where the upper part benefit strongly (in the short run) of lies which kill the foundation (the people) at the base of the pyramid. The problem today is planetary. Democracy is the right tool, but it works only through some amount of trust, (and thus honesty, playing fair), and powers regulation and independence. This need some amount of self- honesty (which is about the same as Löbianity, in the world of universal machines). Honesty leads to more money to your descendants. Dishonesty can strongly benefit locally from such money, but at the expense of your descendants. "Descendant" in a large sense, it may be you older. Things accelerate. You might be interested in this 1-year old article from Time, discussing how drug use decriminalization in my home country (Portugal) resulted in a decrease in said drug use: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html Thanks. It is interesting. To be sure I share the views of the cops in the LEAP videos. Although decriminalization is a big step in harm (and drugs) reduction, it does not solve the problem, at his root. The black money fluxes and the merchandising remains opaque and this remains both socially fragile and economically dangerous. You are in advance compared to many countries, but the big step, legalization, remains to be done. What I would like to suggest would be to legalize all drugs, and to tax them with respect to their damages. I am pretty sure alcohol and tobacco will very soon be the most expensive one, and that after some time, the insurance company would *pay* you to smoke marijuana and salvia divinorum ;-) Best, Bruno 78 % of the heroin consumers have begin with cannabis. This is a confusion between A => B and B => A, or A included in B with B included in A. To see if the consumption of substance A leads to the consumption of substance B, you have to look at the proportion of the consumers of B among A; not at the proportion of the consumers of A among B. You could as well say water is a gateway drug, given that 100% of the heroin consumers have begun with water. I have a paper in a magazine with a big title: 'the first death by salvia divinorum". It relates the case of a guy who get an heart attack when smoking salvia. I let you see it is the same error as above (together with the non genuine idea of using a sample with only one element). The same error are done, even by "expert" in the relation made between cannabis and lung cancer, or cannabis and (Mexican) violence. Another example, one day a car accident nearby involved three drivers having smoked cannabis, and already some minister said we have to be more though on drugs. Again to derive this you have to look at the quantity of car accident among those who smoked cannabis, not at the quantity of smokers of cannabis among those who have a car accident. It is always a confusion between A included in B and B included in A. That same error occurs pretty everywhere, and I think purely associative neural nets does that error. It is easy to do that error, as implication is a not so intuitive concept. Note that *in the circumstance of prohibition*, cannabis is indeed a gateway drug. A non negligible number of cannabis smoker get addicted to tobacco by their first joints. That number decreases thanks to the legality of ... tobacco. That legality makes transparent 'soon or later' the 'truth' about the product. We know today (smoked) tobacco is killer one in the world. To add tobacco to cannabis consists to put a toxic and addictive product to enjoy a product which by itself has never been found to led to any problem. Also, the prohibition of cannabis makes it available only in underground market where sellers don't ask your ID, and could add addictive product to cannabis for making you coming back, or just may advertise you on other drugs.
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Bruno, Ok, nothing to add. I fully agree with what you say. Best, Telmo. On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 10:13 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > Hi Telmo, > > > > I'm having a hard time understanding this particular statement: > > > > "The lobian error is that prohibition at the start deprive its target of > its responsibility. Eventually it dissolves irresponsibility in a > unsustainable economical pyramidal power which can only crash. Better to > stop that asap!" > > > It is foolish to believe that some people can decide at your place what > they estimate to be good or bad. For you! It makes you irresponsible adult. > It is a lack of respect of all *person* in general. It is spiritually > foolish. > > It is also a typical technic for taking power on others. Indeed, it allows > a collectivity (apparently) to think for you (instead as acting along a > social contract), and thus to control you. > > It leads to pyramidal economical structure where the upper part benefit > strongly (in the short run) of lies which kill the foundation (the people) > at the base of the pyramid. The problem today is planetary. Democracy is the > right tool, but it works only through some amount of trust, (and thus > honesty, playing fair), and powers regulation and independence. This need > some amount of self-honesty (which is about the same as Löbianity, in the > world of universal machines). > > Honesty leads to more money to your descendants. Dishonesty can strongly > benefit locally from such money, but at the expense of your descendants. > "Descendant" in a large sense, it may be you older. Things accelerate. > > > > You might be interested in this 1-year old article from Time, discussing > how drug use decriminalization in my home country (Portugal) resulted in a > decrease in said drug use: > > http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html > > > > Thanks. It is interesting. To be sure I share the views of the cops in the > LEAP videos. Although decriminalization is a big step in harm (and drugs) > reduction, it does not solve the problem, at his root. The black money > fluxes and the merchandising remains opaque and this remains both socially > fragile and economically dangerous. You are in advance compared to many > countries, but the big step, legalization, remains to be done. > > What I would like to suggest would be to legalize all drugs, and to tax > them with respect to their damages. I am pretty sure alcohol and tobacco > will very soon be the most expensive one, and that after some time, the > insurance company would *pay* you to smoke marijuana and salvia divinorum > ;-) > > Best, > > Bruno > > > > 78 % of the heroin consumers have begin with cannabis. >> >> This is a confusion between A => B and B => A, or A included in B with B >> included in A. >> >> To see if the consumption of substance A leads to the consumption of >> substance B, you have to look at the proportion of the consumers of B among >> A; not at the proportion of the consumers of A among B. You could as well >> say water is a gateway drug, given that 100% of the heroin consumers have >> begun with water. >> >> I have a paper in a magazine with a big title: 'the first death by salvia >> divinorum". It relates the case of a guy who get an heart attack when >> smoking salvia. I let you see it is the same error as above (together with >> the non genuine idea of using a sample with only one element). >> >> The same error are done, even by "expert" in the relation made between >> cannabis and lung cancer, or cannabis and (Mexican) violence. >> Another example, one day a car accident nearby involved three drivers >> having smoked cannabis, and already some minister said we have to be more >> though on drugs. Again to derive this you have to look at the quantity of >> car accident among those who smoked cannabis, not at the quantity of smokers >> of cannabis among those who have a car accident. It is always a confusion >> between A included in B and B included in A. >> That same error occurs pretty everywhere, and I think purely associative >> neural nets does that error. It is easy to do that error, as implication is >> a not so intuitive concept. >> >> >> Note that *in the circumstance of prohibition*, cannabis is indeed a >> gateway drug. A non negligible number of cannabis smoker get addicted to >> tobacco by their first joints. That number decreases thanks to the legality >> of ... tobacco. That legality makes transparent 'soon or later' the 'truth' >> about the product. We know today (smoked) tobacco is killer one in the >> world. >> To add tobacco to cannabis consists to put a toxic and addictive product >> to enjoy a product which by itself has never been found to led to any >> problem. Also, the prohibition of cannabis makes it available only in >> underground market where sellers don't ask your ID, and could add addictive >> product to cannabis for making you coming back, or just may advertise you on >> other drugs. So prohibition
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Telmo, I'm having a hard time understanding this particular statement: "The lobian error is that prohibition at the start deprive its target of its responsibility. Eventually it dissolves irresponsibility in a unsustainable economical pyramidal power which can only crash. Better to stop that asap!" It is foolish to believe that some people can decide at your place what they estimate to be good or bad. For you! It makes you irresponsible adult. It is a lack of respect of all *person* in general. It is spiritually foolish. It is also a typical technic for taking power on others. Indeed, it allows a collectivity (apparently) to think for you (instead as acting along a social contract), and thus to control you. It leads to pyramidal economical structure where the upper part benefit strongly (in the short run) of lies which kill the foundation (the people) at the base of the pyramid. The problem today is planetary. Democracy is the right tool, but it works only through some amount of trust, (and thus honesty, playing fair), and powers regulation and independence. This need some amount of self-honesty (which is about the same as Löbianity, in the world of universal machines). Honesty leads to more money to your descendants. Dishonesty can strongly benefit locally from such money, but at the expense of your descendants. "Descendant" in a large sense, it may be you older. Things accelerate. You might be interested in this 1-year old article from Time, discussing how drug use decriminalization in my home country (Portugal) resulted in a decrease in said drug use: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html Thanks. It is interesting. To be sure I share the views of the cops in the LEAP videos. Although decriminalization is a big step in harm (and drugs) reduction, it does not solve the problem, at his root. The black money fluxes and the merchandising remains opaque and this remains both socially fragile and economically dangerous. You are in advance compared to many countries, but the big step, legalization, remains to be done. What I would like to suggest would be to legalize all drugs, and to tax them with respect to their damages. I am pretty sure alcohol and tobacco will very soon be the most expensive one, and that after some time, the insurance company would *pay* you to smoke marijuana and salvia divinorum ;-) Best, Bruno 78 % of the heroin consumers have begin with cannabis. This is a confusion between A => B and B => A, or A included in B with B included in A. To see if the consumption of substance A leads to the consumption of substance B, you have to look at the proportion of the consumers of B among A; not at the proportion of the consumers of A among B. You could as well say water is a gateway drug, given that 100% of the heroin consumers have begun with water. I have a paper in a magazine with a big title: 'the first death by salvia divinorum". It relates the case of a guy who get an heart attack when smoking salvia. I let you see it is the same error as above (together with the non genuine idea of using a sample with only one element). The same error are done, even by "expert" in the relation made between cannabis and lung cancer, or cannabis and (Mexican) violence. Another example, one day a car accident nearby involved three drivers having smoked cannabis, and already some minister said we have to be more though on drugs. Again to derive this you have to look at the quantity of car accident among those who smoked cannabis, not at the quantity of smokers of cannabis among those who have a car accident. It is always a confusion between A included in B and B included in A. That same error occurs pretty everywhere, and I think purely associative neural nets does that error. It is easy to do that error, as implication is a not so intuitive concept. Note that *in the circumstance of prohibition*, cannabis is indeed a gateway drug. A non negligible number of cannabis smoker get addicted to tobacco by their first joints. That number decreases thanks to the legality of ... tobacco. That legality makes transparent 'soon or later' the 'truth' about the product. We know today (smoked) tobacco is killer one in the world. To add tobacco to cannabis consists to put a toxic and addictive product to enjoy a product which by itself has never been found to led to any problem. Also, the prohibition of cannabis makes it available only in underground market where sellers don't ask your ID, and could add addictive product to cannabis for making you coming back, or just may advertise you on other drugs. So prohibition of cannabis, or anything, leads to gateway effect. The evidence are on the side that cannabis and salvia are among the safest and most efficacious known medication. In the Netherlands and in France, some study seems to s
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
On 21 Jun 2010, at 12:43, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear Bruno, I am learning something very valuable from this experience. I think that, coming from different backgrounds, if we want to have an exchange of ideas we need to create a common language. My lack of a common language with you prevents me to follow you through your argumentations. I sense that what you say is important and interesting, but we seem to speak in different languages. A way to move forward could be not to take for granted that the other is familiar with our concepts. If you explain a concept at a time it would be also very helpful for me. I have worked a long time alone. Eventually I need only zero, succession, addition and multiplication, beyond some imagination to grasp the idea that relative local 'consciousness' is invariant for a digital substitution made at some level. There is a long reasoning implying yourself and then a translation in arithmetic. The most difficult steps have been handled by mathematicians, notably Gödel, Löb and Solovay. Strictly speaking there is nothing new. It is a common theory among mystics and it has been study all along a path from Pythagoras to Damacius in Occident, with Plotinus and his students as a peak in clarity, imo. In about 500, such thinking has been prohibited in Occident, and much later in the Orient. All self-honest people looking inward can discover that, indeed all universal machines can. The christians will saved a part of that heritage thanks to Augustin and some followers, but it will never be the main line. The same with judaism, where that heritage which be saved through the Kabbalah (but not Maimonides already to much blinded by Aristotelianism, I would say); and the Muslims where it will be saved among the Sufi. I'm afraid it will be also hidden, due to its necessary secrecy (at different levels). In India, it is well represented in many schools, but not all. My favorite text is 'The Question of King Milindha' (Milindapanha). This text makes the relation with mechanism, using chariot instead of computer, but the idea of substitution is used to illustrate the relativity of identity. Milinda is supposed to be the Greek King Menander, and he made a rather big impression on the rather sleepy (at that time) buddhist 'theologians'. I can try to sum up, but to understand it is also a chapter of mathematics, once we interpret 'belief' by 'formal (3-person sharable) proof', some investment in math is unavoidable. I am ready to answer any question if you are interested. I can also provide title on some good books. The greeks were aware that to study theology, you have to master big classical filed like, Logic, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, ... Best regards, Bruno On Jun 19, 9:26 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 18 Jun 2010, at 17:03, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear George, Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of Genesis). By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root "Seper" is related to the words "letter", "number" and "speech"). This 10 Sefirot are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part of) God. I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Well that is exactly what the digital, or numerical, mechanist hypothesis provide. The choice between letter or number is not relevant. You can choose for the ontology the formal existential quantifier on any term taken from a f
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Bruno, I am learning something very valuable from this experience. I think that, coming from different backgrounds, if we want to have an exchange of ideas we need to create a common language. My lack of a common language with you prevents me to follow you through your argumentations. I sense that what you say is important and interesting, but we seem to speak in different languages. A way to move forward could be not to take for granted that the other is familiar with our concepts. If you explain a concept at a time it would be also very helpful for me. Yours truly, R. Rabbit On Jun 19, 9:26 pm, Bruno Marchal wrote: > On 18 Jun 2010, at 17:03, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: > > > > > Dear George, > > > Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of > > Genesis). > > > By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic > > Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 > > Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root "Seper" is > > related to the words "letter", "number" and "speech"). This 10 Sefirot > > are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious > > relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over > > the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could > > influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and > > human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued > > pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah > > is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. > > > The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a > > different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in > > turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian > > philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union > > with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah > > was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part > > of) God. > > > I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. > > From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than > > consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be > > probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is > > surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by > > suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a > > single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter > > combinations accompanied by body motions. > > > I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations > > could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? > > Well that is exactly what the digital, or numerical, mechanist > hypothesis provide. > The choice between letter or number is not relevant. You can choose > for the ontology the formal existential quantifier on any term taken > from a first order specification of a universal, in Post, > Church,Turing sense, system. > > It happens that any system with terms for numbers, that is 0 and its > successors, together with the addition law and the multiplication law, > provides a universal system, so I use it to fix the things. > > In that system I can enumerate all partial computable functions: > phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, phi_3, ... > A number u can be said universal if phi_u() = phi_x(y). > > This u is like the Golem. You write x on its forehead, and it compute > phi_x on some input y. is some number describing the "program", > x, and the data, y. > > This defined, or show to exist, sequence of "causal relation" like > sequences, with fixed x and y, of terms: > phi_x(y)_1, phi phi_x(y)_2, phi_x(y)_3, phi_x(y)_4, describing > faithfully computations. Faithfully means that there are implemented > in some genuine intensional sense, relatively to u. > > A tiny, yet universal, part of arithmetical truth describes > (faithfully) all possible computational relations. > > Such universal machine cannot distinguish the infinitely many > computations going through its computational states, so that its > consciousness is distributed on the projection of infinitely many > computations, and that ... leads to awfully complex mathematical > problems. > > Yet, ideally correct machine (number) can reflect (proves, relatively > asserts) that problem relatively to themselves, and extract the logic > obeyed by such projection. > > Let us write Bp for the machine proves (asserts and justified if > asked) p. > > Obviously Bp -> p. Because we restrict ourself to correct machine. > > But the machine cannot always prove Bp -> p. It would prove Bf -> f (f > = the constant false of propositional logic, or "0 = 1" from > elementary arithmetic). But (elementary classical logic: Bf -> f is > equivalent with ~Bf, (~ = NOT), which asserts self-consistency, and > correct classical machines can't do that (Gödel's second > incompleteness theorem). > > Now machine can reflect that
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Marty and George, I answer you together since you had some questions about translation. Regarding your question, Marty, I think you should embrace whatever interpretation of Exodus 3,14 that is most meaningful to you. Maybe, as you suggest, God could identify with Frank Sinatra singing "I faced all and I stood tall / and did it my way". Otherwise you can interpret it in many other ways. One, let's call it the philosophical mode, could be that God is just equal to itself and cannot be defined otherwise. (This ties nicely with the self-referentiality discussion). Another possibility is to interpret it in a dramatic sense: God is just about to reveal his true name to Moses -YHWY- and verse 14 is a way to increase and prolong the dramatic tension. Regarding your question, George, in Genesis 1,4 "ki-tov" I would not read it as if it was modern Hebrew ("because it was good"). In this case, "ki" refers to an object clause. I would therefore translate it as usual with the words "And God saw the light, that it was good". You are entitled, of course, to make your own interpretations and midrashim. That's what the text is there for! Regarding your comment: "Too much information is no information at all and a white sheet of paper carries just as much information as a black one. So overstimulating one's mind with a barrage of letters may achieve the same results as understimulating it." I think you are completely right. Abulafia's personal accounts point in this direction, too. That is also the message in Borges' "The Library of Babel". In principle all possible books are contained in the library, but since they are mixed with an overwhelming majority of books filled with gibberish, the result is that the library is useless and contains no information at all. There is a tension between information and noise. Too much information becomes noise. The library is flooded with noise and the librarian that writes the story seems disheartened and pessimistic. The inability to make sense of the library is bringing humanity to extinction. On the other hand, Abulafia filled his mind with noise (overstimulation) and came out with an ecstatic experience, full of joy and bliss. Why is it so that we have two outcomes so opposed to each other? Yours truly, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Bruno, Thank you for the detailed response. I was aware of most arguments up until the self-referential machine part and, of course, agree with them. That part I'm still digesting, although I believe I understand most of your argument there. I'm having a hard time understanding this particular statement: "The lobian error is that prohibition at the start deprive its target of its responsibility. Eventually it dissolves irresponsibility in a unsustainable economical pyramidal power which can only crash. Better to stop that asap!" You might be interested in this 1-year old article from Time, discussing how drug use decriminalization in my home country (Portugal) resulted in a decrease in said drug use: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html Best Regards, Telmo. > 78 % of the heroin consumers have begin with cannabis. > > This is a confusion between A => B and B => A, or A included in B with B > included in A. > > To see if the consumption of substance A leads to the consumption of > substance B, you have to look at the proportion of the consumers of B among > A; not at the proportion of the consumers of A among B. You could as well > say water is a gateway drug, given that 100% of the heroin consumers have > begun with water. > > I have a paper in a magazine with a big title: 'the first death by salvia > divinorum". It relates the case of a guy who get an heart attack when > smoking salvia. I let you see it is the same error as above (together with > the non genuine idea of using a sample with only one element). > > The same error are done, even by "expert" in the relation made between > cannabis and lung cancer, or cannabis and (Mexican) violence. > Another example, one day a car accident nearby involved three drivers > having smoked cannabis, and already some minister said we have to be more > though on drugs. Again to derive this you have to look at the quantity of > car accident among those who smoked cannabis, not at the quantity of smokers > of cannabis among those who have a car accident. It is always a confusion > between A included in B and B included in A. > That same error occurs pretty everywhere, and I think purely associative > neural nets does that error. It is easy to do that error, as implication is > a not so intuitive concept. > > > Note that *in the circumstance of prohibition*, cannabis is indeed a > gateway drug. A non negligible number of cannabis smoker get addicted to > tobacco by their first joints. That number decreases thanks to the legality > of ... tobacco. That legality makes transparent 'soon or later' the 'truth' > about the product. We know today (smoked) tobacco is killer one in the > world. > To add tobacco to cannabis consists to put a toxic and addictive product to > enjoy a product which by itself has never been found to led to any > problem. Also, the prohibition of cannabis makes it available only in > underground market where sellers don't ask your ID, and could add addictive > product to cannabis for making you coming back, or just may advertise you on > other drugs. So prohibition of cannabis, or anything, leads to gateway > effect. > The evidence are on the side that cannabis and salvia are among the safest > and most efficacious known medication. In the Netherlands and in France, > some study seems to show that driving under cannabis reduced the frequency > of car accident. It has been known 20 years ago in the USA that it can cure > some cancers, and this has been only recently confirmed on both mouse and > humans that it does so. I can give hundreds of reference/links on this. > > Today many lies and many correct reasoning and genuine information can be > found by just surfing on YouTube. > > See this video (among many), on the legalization of cannabis illustrating > the error, and its correction: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlXULsBdS0&feature=related > > > Now, at a deeper level, the whole prohibition may be seen as a logical > error, from a self-referential logical perspective. But I have to be > cautious, for not falling myself in the trap I will try to describe. > > Recall that G describe the communicable or provable part of the correct > self-referential machine, and G* \minus G, describes the true but non > communicable/provable part. Some times (notably in "Conscience et > Mécanisme") I call the elements of G* minus G, the Protagorean virtues. > Plato said that Protagoras asked once if such virtue can be taught. Those > 'Protagorean virtues", that is those elements belonging to G* minus G, obeys > to the following logical equation: Bx -> ~x. If you try to make them > necessary by finite combinatorial structure, being proof, laws, literal > texts, teaching, etc. you get the opposite or the negation of what you tried > to communicate. Alan Watts, in his book "the wisdom of insecurity" argues > that security has such property: to constrain or solidify security leads to > insecurity. Happiness is like that, and alm
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Telmo, Nobody knows logic. Marijuana illegality, and the whole prohibition politics are based on error in the most elementary part of logic. And formal logic, a branch of mathematics, is virtually known only by professional logicians. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I would love to know about your formal argument against Marijuana illegality and prohibition politics. For example, when most lies on cannabis are defeated, prohibitionists claim it is a gateway drug. It would lead to the consumption of stronger drugs. If asked to justify, they say propositions like that: 78 % of the heroin consumers have begin with cannabis. This is a confusion between A => B and B => A, or A included in B with B included in A. To see if the consumption of substance A leads to the consumption of substance B, you have to look at the proportion of the consumers of B among A; not at the proportion of the consumers of A among B. You could as well say water is a gateway drug, given that 100% of the heroin consumers have begun with water. I have a paper in a magazine with a big title: 'the first death by salvia divinorum". It relates the case of a guy who get an heart attack when smoking salvia. I let you see it is the same error as above (together with the non genuine idea of using a sample with only one element). The same error are done, even by "expert" in the relation made between cannabis and lung cancer, or cannabis and (Mexican) violence. Another example, one day a car accident nearby involved three drivers having smoked cannabis, and already some minister said we have to be more though on drugs. Again to derive this you have to look at the quantity of car accident among those who smoked cannabis, not at the quantity of smokers of cannabis among those who have a car accident. It is always a confusion between A included in B and B included in A. That same error occurs pretty everywhere, and I think purely associative neural nets does that error. It is easy to do that error, as implication is a not so intuitive concept. Note that *in the circumstance of prohibition*, cannabis is indeed a gateway drug. A non negligible number of cannabis smoker get addicted to tobacco by their first joints. That number decreases thanks to the legality of ... tobacco. That legality makes transparent 'soon or later' the 'truth' about the product. We know today (smoked) tobacco is killer one in the world. To add tobacco to cannabis consists to put a toxic and addictive product to enjoy a product which by itself has never been found to led to any problem. Also, the prohibition of cannabis makes it available only in underground market where sellers don't ask your ID, and could add addictive product to cannabis for making you coming back, or just may advertise you on other drugs. So prohibition of cannabis, or anything, leads to gateway effect. The evidence are on the side that cannabis and salvia are among the safest and most efficacious known medication. In the Netherlands and in France, some study seems to show that driving under cannabis reduced the frequency of car accident. It has been known 20 years ago in the USA that it can cure some cancers, and this has been only recently confirmed on both mouse and humans that it does so. I can give hundreds of reference/links on this. Today many lies and many correct reasoning and genuine information can be found by just surfing on YouTube. See this video (among many), on the legalization of cannabis illustrating the error, and its correction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlXULsBdS0&feature=related Now, at a deeper level, the whole prohibition may be seen as a logical error, from a self-referential logical perspective. But I have to be cautious, for not falling myself in the trap I will try to describe. Recall that G describe the communicable or provable part of the correct self-referential machine, and G* \minus G, describes the true but non communicable/provable part. Some times (notably in "Conscience et Mécanisme") I call the elements of G* minus G, the Protagorean virtues. Plato said that Protagoras asked once if such virtue can be taught. Those 'Protagorean virtues", that is those elements belonging to G* minus G, obeys to the following logical equation: Bx -> ~x. If you try to make them necessary by finite combinatorial structure, being proof, laws, literal texts, teaching, etc. you get the opposite or the negation of what you tried to communicate. Alan Watts, in his book "the wisdom of insecurity" argues that security has such property: to constrain or solidify security leads to insecurity. Happiness is like that, and almost all qualitative positive moral things are like that in my opinion. Many institution falls in the trap to make necessary such values, and destroys their cause in the process. Love, which is always the love of the good, or g
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi rand, On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 8:56 AM, r wrote: > I'm not Bruno but here's my take: > > 1. The demands of those who use addictive/habituating substances are > without limit. > Surely that's not true? There is a finite amount of people with a finite amount of time to consume drugs. > 2. There is a finite limit to the number of attempts possible to deter > supply shipments. > 3. Such attempts will always fall short as the futile waste of money/time > which they are. > 4. Legalize it and PROFIT via taxes. > > Except those with the power would rather subvert our addictive tendencies > to any number of fine consumer products like booze, tobacco, cars, video > games, and the internet. > > rand > > > On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > >> Hi Bruno, >> >> >>> Nobody knows logic. Marijuana illegality, and the whole prohibition >>> politics are based on error in the most elementary part of logic. And formal >>> logic, a branch of mathematics, is virtually known only by professional >>> logicians. >>> >>> >> Sorry if this is off-topic, but I would love to know about your formal >> argument against Marijuana illegality and prohibition politics. >> >> Regards, >> Telmo. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
I'm not Bruno but here's my take: 1. The demands of those who use addictive/habituating substances are without limit. 2. There is a finite limit to the number of attempts possible to deter supply shipments. 3. Such attempts will always fall short as the futile waste of money/time which they are. 4. Legalize it and PROFIT via taxes. Except those with the power would rather subvert our addictive tendencies to any number of fine consumer products like booze, tobacco, cars, video games, and the internet. rand On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 6:12 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > Hi Bruno, > > >> Nobody knows logic. Marijuana illegality, and the whole prohibition >> politics are based on error in the most elementary part of logic. And formal >> logic, a branch of mathematics, is virtually known only by professional >> logicians. >> >> > Sorry if this is off-topic, but I would love to know about your formal > argument against Marijuana illegality and prohibition politics. > > Regards, > Telmo. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi John Thanks for your appreciation. John Mikes wrote: Dear George, I was missing more of your contributions on this list lately (years?). Let me reflect to a few of your topics: *Chaos.* A decade or so ago I was named 'resident chaotician' on another list - later changed my mind when I was disenchanted by the 'physical chaologists' who picked some 'chaotic' problems that seemed to them as calculable in the original (greek mythological) chaos: the unfathomable uncalculable (pre-geometrical?) plenitude of which the Chronos-Zeus family derived our "Kraxlwerk" (world). Since then I put 'chaos' into the maze of scale-differences (more than just SOME orders of magnitude?) that conflate our math-based thinking. We learn to think about 'chaotic' (very slowly, but we do, indeed). Thank you for leading (me?) towards Tohu-va-Bohu (what I always wrote in one 'tohuvabohu' in ANY language and applied it for some unresolvable mixup in a conglomerate. The Tohu va Bohu is the nothingness full of potentiality. It reminds me of my son's room when he was a teenager. *"And God saw the light and it was good"* is translated in some other languages as "And God saw THAT the light was good" (Rabbit: which one is close to the original?) With my limited knowledge of Hebrew I can translate it as And God saw the light "because-good" (ki-tov). I will let the rabbi confirm. Interestingly it is the first mention of "good" therefore you can take it as a "definition". Pursuing the reasoning in my previous post, Goodness is defined as the awakening consciousness coemergent with, and creating, the world. In other words creation is goodness itself. Does not underline an omniscient God. Now - your God = Consciousness is to my liking: I could not identify either of them. I consider Ccness a covering noumenon of many phenomena detected over a long cultural history and in my speculations I boiled it down to "responding to information" - self-recursively, or not. E.g. the response of an electron to a + charge etc. So it really covers the entire World as you connotation would imply for God = Consciousness. Yes. God=Consciousness=World kind of a trinity...(please take this as a joke) :-) From this position it is obvious that I am not much for the Anthropic Principle. It is a backwards thinking from visualizing "US" (as God's children?) as the main actors in the world. We are not. George -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Rabbi Rabbi Rabbit wrote: What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. Too much information is no information at all and a white sheet of paper carries just as much information as a black one. So overstimulating one's mind with a barrage of letters may achieve the same results as understimulating it. Abulafia may have been suppressing his conscious mind by overstimulating it. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Numbers and more generally mathematics and logic (more precisely self referential logic) is an essential requirement of consciousness. Using the same Anthropic reasoning that I used in my previous post, one could infer that mathematics and logic also co-emerged with consciousness and the world out of chaos. - Bruno is an expert in the field of self referential logical system. Who knows, self referential logical systems implemented in software may become a reality within our lifetime. George -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Bruno, > Nobody knows logic. Marijuana illegality, and the whole prohibition > politics are based on error in the most elementary part of logic. And formal > logic, a branch of mathematics, is virtually known only by professional > logicians. > > Sorry if this is off-topic, but I would love to know about your formal argument against Marijuana illegality and prohibition politics. Regards, Telmo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
On 18 Jun 2010, at 17:03, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear George, Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of Genesis). By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root "Seper" is related to the words "letter", "number" and "speech"). This 10 Sefirot are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part of) God. I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Well that is exactly what the digital, or numerical, mechanist hypothesis provide. The choice between letter or number is not relevant. You can choose for the ontology the formal existential quantifier on any term taken from a first order specification of a universal, in Post, Church,Turing sense, system. It happens that any system with terms for numbers, that is 0 and its successors, together with the addition law and the multiplication law, provides a universal system, so I use it to fix the things. In that system I can enumerate all partial computable functions: phi_0, phi_1, phi_2, phi_3, ... A number u can be said universal if phi_u() = phi_x(y). This u is like the Golem. You write x on its forehead, and it compute phi_x on some input y. is some number describing the "program", x, and the data, y. This defined, or show to exist, sequence of "causal relation" like sequences, with fixed x and y, of terms: phi_x(y)_1, phi phi_x(y)_2, phi_x(y)_3, phi_x(y)_4, describing faithfully computations. Faithfully means that there are implemented in some genuine intensional sense, relatively to u. A tiny, yet universal, part of arithmetical truth describes (faithfully) all possible computational relations. Such universal machine cannot distinguish the infinitely many computations going through its computational states, so that its consciousness is distributed on the projection of infinitely many computations, and that ... leads to awfully complex mathematical problems. Yet, ideally correct machine (number) can reflect (proves, relatively asserts) that problem relatively to themselves, and extract the logic obeyed by such projection. Let us write Bp for the machine proves (asserts and justified if asked) p. Obviously Bp -> p. Because we restrict ourself to correct machine. But the machine cannot always prove Bp -> p. It would prove Bf -> f (f = the constant false of propositional logic, or "0 = 1" from elementary arithmetic). But (elementary classical logic: Bf -> f is equivalent with ~Bf, (~ = NOT), which asserts self-consistency, and correct classical machines can't do that (Gödel's second incompleteness theorem). Now machine can reflect that: they can prove their own "second incompleteness theorem" for example. They can prove: ~Bf -> ~B(~Bf) = As far as I will never say bulshit, I will never say that I will never say bulshit. Roughly speaking, with f = false = bulshit. Its contrapositive: If I say that I will never say something false, I am saying something false, or more shortly: if I say that am sane, I am insane. So the machine can know (know p = Bp & p) that, as far as she is correct, she will not confuse Bp and B'p = Bp & p. For the first one Bf -> f is hopefully true but never provable, and for the second B'f - > f is trivially provable ((B'f & f) -> f) is an elementary truth of propositional logic. Incompleteness forces in the same way the machine to distinguish the logic obeying by p, Bp, Bp & p, Bp & ~B~p, Bp & p & ~B~p, and some other variant
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Rabbi, I wondered for a long time about the translation of God's words as "I am that I am." I finally decided that it must have been a mistranslation. I think, especially when being asked about the Holocaust and a lot of other horrible things, He would be more inclined to say:"I am what I amget used to it." Or with Popeye: "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam." What do you think?m.a. - Original Message - From: "Rabbi Rabbit" To: "Everything List" Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 11:03 AM Subject: Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse Dear George, Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of Genesis). By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root "Seper" is related to the words "letter", "number" and "speech"). This 10 Sefirot are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part of) God. I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Shabbat Shalom, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear George, I was missing more of your contributions on this list lately (years?). Let me reflect to a few of your topics: *Chaos.* A decade or so ago I was named 'resident chaotician' on another list - later changed my mind when I was disenchanted by the 'physical chaologists' who picked some 'chaotic' problems that seemed to them as calculable in the original (greek mythological) chaos: the unfathomable uncalculable (pre-geometrical?) plenitude of which the Chronos-Zeus family derived our "Kraxlwerk" (world). Since then I put 'chaos' into the maze of scale-differences (more than just SOME orders of magnitude?) that conflate our math-based thinking. We learn to think about 'chaotic' (very slowly, but we do, indeed). Thank you for leading (me?) towards Tohu-va-Bohu (what I always wrote in one 'tohuvabohu' in ANY language and applied it for some unresolvable mixup in a conglomerate. *"And God saw the light and it was good"* is translated in some other languages as "And God saw THAT the light was good" (Rabbit: which one is close to the original?) Does not underline an omniscient God. Now - your God = Consciousness is to my liking: I could not identify either of them. I consider Ccness a covering noumenon of many phenomena detected over a long cultural history and in my speculations I boiled it down to "responding to information" - self-recursively, or not. E.g. the response of an electron to a + charge etc. So it really covers the entire World as you connotation would imply for God = Consciousness. >From this position it is obvious that I am not much for the Anthropic Principle. It is a backwards thinking from visualizing "US" (as God's children?) as the main actors in the world. We are not. *Consciousness can only see order in the world that it perceives:* reminds me both David Bohm's *'ORDER'* as whatever we know of (and could arrange into the order of our knowledge) - as contrasted such *'explicit (order)'*to the *'implicit' world -- *a n d also to Colin Hales' mini-solipsism about everybody carrying as a personalized (partial) world-content (reality?) the content of one's mind *in the personally adjusted formulation.* I like to call it a *"perceived reality".* Which I find congruent with your "consciousness filters out the world from chaos". I still feel that R.Rabbit would add more content to 'God' than just consciousness. (Cf: Bruno's 'Theos'). John M On 6/17/10, George Levy wrote: > > Hi Rabbi Rabbit. > > Welcome > > I haven't contributed to this list for a while but I have been reading it. > > Here is a possible connection between the Kabbalah and the Multiverse, > which I will describe in a bulleted fashion for brevity. > > The initial chaos, "Tohu va Bohu," (from which the French word tohu bohu) > is equivalent to what is known in this list as the Plenitude. > > The first light "Or" is not a physical light at all but it is the awakening > of consciousness. > > The separation that God performs (And God divided the light from the > darkness), is mediated by what is called on this list the Anthropic > Principle. In essence, the just awakened consciousness can only be aware of > the part of the Tohu va Bohu that can support the consciousness's own > existence. Consciousness can only see order in the world that it perceives. > > The sentence "And God saw the light and it was good" is interesting because > consciousness is a self referencing phenomenon. God saw the light but > consciousness also saw the light - itself. This means that God and > consciousness are identical. > > God, consciousness and the world co-emerge out of chaos. Consciousness > filters the world out of Chaos. More specifically, *any instance* of > consciousness "to be what it is" (in the human experience, with consistent > memories and logical capabilities) requires the corresponding world "to be > what it is" (to be ordered, with consistent histories and logical physical > laws). Consciousness and the world mirror each other and therefore, they are > in their own image. There can be many different consciousnesses, each one > being in fact a whole world. > > Best Regards > > George > > > Rabbi Rabbit wrote: > > Dear Jason, > > My assumption is that the Name of God, according to Abraham Abulafia, > could be made of any possible combination of the 22 letters, as long > as this name does not exceed 22 characters. This includes repetitions > of letters and any combination between 1 and 22 characters. > > Thank you for your wise remark, it was indeed not clear enough as I > formulated it previously. > > Yours truly, > > R. Rabbit > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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. > -- You re
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear George, Thank you for your beautiful interpretation of B'reshit (Book of Genesis). By your description, I have the feeling that you think about Sefirotic Kabbalah. Briefly, Sefirotic Kabbalah believes that God emanated in 10 Sefirot (the meaning of the word is unclear, the root "Seper" is related to the words "letter", "number" and "speech"). This 10 Sefirot are attributes of the divine that need to be in a harmonious relationship with each other in order to pour the divine influx over the world. This school of kabbalists believed that they could influence the Sefirot and in this way exert changes in the divine and human realms, basically making sure that the divine influx continued pouring and sustaining the world. For this reason Sefirotic Kabbalah is also described as Theurgical Kabbalah. The kabbalist I have been talking about, Abraham Abulafia, created a different school. Deeply influenced by Maimonides philosophy (who, in turn, adapted Jewish beliefs to harmonize with Aristotelian philosophy) Abulafia practiced a form of Kabbalah aimed at the union with the divine intellect. To put it in radical terms, his Kabbalah was not about influencing God's divine emanations but to become (part of) God. I think your insight into consciousness is very thought-provoking. >From the whole Creation, nothing makes me feel greater wonder than consciousness. The union with the divine intellect (prophecy) could be probably described as a higher state of consciousness. What is surprising about Abulafia is that he did not reach this state by suppressing his conscious mind, as most mystics do by repetition of a single formula/mantra, but by overstimulating it with letter combinations accompanied by body motions. I haven't thought enough how the technique of letter combinations could be related to consciousness. Any ideas? Shabbat Shalom, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear John, In Kabbalah letters are numbers and vice versa. Regarding your question of what is the meaning of the Name of God, if you ask me, I think it is meaningless. It is pure, full presence. It is up to us to predicate something out of it and to turn it meaningful. Due to its claim of totality, the Name of God is also absurd. It is one thing and it's opposite at the same time. I am not sure how this relates to the multiverse. I think its infinite possibilities of predication and meaningfulness could be the linguistic expression of all possible universes. Someone more daring (Derrida?) would say that they ARE all possible universes. > Is God a product of numbers, or are numbers product of God? What answer would you like the most? I guess it depends on what kind of God you believe in, if you believe in God at all. I -although very un-Jewish- do not believe in a personal God, though I clearly see the virtues of a personal relationship with God. I think there are ways to scape the either/or trap. God and numbers (and letters) could be one and the same thing: God - the Number of God - the Name of God. I don't have an answer, I just hope I can offer you more alternatives -and in this way escape the excruciating dilemma ;) > How does my question relate to Kabbalah? I consider 'mysticism' a subchapter > of our ignorance: once we learn the explanation it ceases to be mystical. Notwithstanding your definition, more and more I tend to think that breakthroughs in science are based on irrational intuitions proved by rational methods. Kabbalists and other mystics had the insights and their own set of tools to proof their point (their own experiences, for instance). They were similar to modern day physicists in the sense that they needed a creative spark to come to their hypothesis. Their ways depart when it comes to the method of proving these hypotheses correct. My question is if they meet again, somewhere, when it comes to reach conclusions. For me it is rather telling that kabbalistic ideas (probably from Sefer Yetzirah, maybe from Abulafia) influenced Borges and that through Borges they shaped ideas of the multiverse or the Library of Mendel, as described in Daniel Dennet's book "Darwin's dangerous idea". With your help maybe we can bring this fruitful cooperation one step further! > So is there a 'definition' below ( 22^22 ! ) letters long? There is a shorter definition, if you take only the 22 letters of the alphabet and consider each one of them a different Name of God. If you want even a shorter one, what about this: 0 and 1. Yours truly, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Bruno, Let me answer a few of your remarks. > Nobody knows logic. Marijuana illegality, and the whole prohibition > politics are based on error in the most elementary part of logic. And > formal logic, a branch of mathematics, is virtually known only by > professional logicians. I think that a fair amount of people has a notion of Aristotelian logic, at least from high school. For me the most intriguing part was the concept of G*. I will look into your paper for more! > A machine is self-referential if it asserts something about itself. > Imagine a robot saying "I have five legs". > But that machine can be non self-referentially correct. Imagine that > the machine has six legs. Since you were talking of a self-referential machine in relation to the divine intellect, and later on you elaborated on the idea of the "introspective universal machine" and the "universal machine" I didn't assume you were thinking of an external observer being able to determine if the assertions made by the machine are correct or not. Now that you have explained it to me, it makes much more sense, thank you. > "Tron" is also the title of an early movie introducing the notion of > virtual environment. A key notion in mechanist philosophy. I remember the movie. A forerunner to Matrix? > I guess you mean the number 137. > I am a but skeptical with the coincidences, theoretical statistics > shows that they are more numerous that our intuition accounts for. You are completely right. The number is 137. My mind has been playing kabbalistic games with me, reshuffling the order. Yours truly, Rabbi Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Rabbi Rabbit. Welcome I haven't contributed to this list for a while but I have been reading it. Here is a possible connection between the Kabbalah and the Multiverse, which I will describe in a bulleted fashion for brevity. The initial chaos, "Tohu va Bohu," (from which the French word tohu bohu) is equivalent to what is known in this list as the Plenitude. The first light "Or" is not a physical light at all but it is the awakening of consciousness. The separation that God performs (And God divided the light from the darkness), is mediated by what is called on this list the Anthropic Principle. In essence, the just awakened consciousness can only be aware of the part of the Tohu va Bohu that can support the consciousness's own existence. Consciousness can only see order in the world that it perceives. The sentence "And God saw the light and it was good" is interesting because consciousness is a self referencing phenomenon. God saw the light but consciousness also saw the light - itself. This means that God and consciousness are identical. God, consciousness and the world co-emerge out of chaos. Consciousness filters the world out of Chaos. More specifically, _any instance_ of consciousness "to be what it is" (in the human experience, with consistent memories and logical capabilities) requires the corresponding world "to be what it is" (to be ordered, with consistent histories and logical physical laws). Consciousness and the world mirror each other and therefore, they are in their own image. There can be many different consciousnesses, each one being in fact a whole world. Best Regards George Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear Jason, My assumption is that the Name of God, according to Abraham Abulafia, could be made of any possible combination of the 22 letters, as long as this name does not exceed 22 characters. This includes repetitions of letters and any combination between 1 and 22 characters. Thank you for your wise remark, it was indeed not clear enough as I formulated it previously. Yours truly, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
On 16 Jun 2010, at 01:04, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: Dear Bruno, Thank you for your ample and generous answer. I want to play with my cards on the table and I take as a rule not to pretend to understand what I do not understand. That is a good idea, especially if you want understand. I must confess you that your answer was for me as promising as it was obscure. I'll try to break down my doubts. Ah! The divine intellect is a typical (neo)platonist notion. It is Plato's Noûs, and its rôle is played by the modal logic G* all along this list. It is the canonical divine intellect that you can associate to any self-referentially correct machine. The (pegagogical) problem is that it assumes some background in mathematical logic. I have no idea what is the modal logic G*. Nobody knows logic. Marijuana illegality, and the whole prohibition politics are based on error in the most elementary part of logic. And formal logic, a branch of mathematics, is virtually known only by professional logicians. Propositional logic is the mathematical analysis of argument involving abstract propositions. The goal is to analyse the validity of arguments independently of the meaning of the proposition. For example, to deduce p from p & q, is valid. To deduce p from p OR q, is not valid. Propositional modal logic introduce new operator, like POSSIBLE p and NECESSARY p. There are many modal logics (when there is only one classical two- valued propositional logic). I may give you reference, but the work I was alluding too asks for a rather big investment in mathematics. I understand that I need to go through the archives of the list to get the details, but I didn't have the time yet to do so. I am also at lost with your concept of a "self-referentially correct machine". As I understand it, If the machine is self-referential, either it is a tautology to say that it is correct or the categories of correct and false are irrelevant. A machine is self-referential if it asserts something about itself. Imagine a robot saying "I have five legs". But that machine can be non self-referentially correct. Imagine that the machine has six legs. Likewise, if I tell you that I am 42 km tall, I am making a self- reference, but I may be wrong (lying, distract, etc.). I am not 42 km tall, to be sure :) An altimeter in a plane is implicitly self-referential, when given the altitude, and may be non correct. Most mystics, including the introspective universal machine, agree that God has simply no name at all. The "little god" (the universal machine) has no definite name: each time you give it a name or description it can change it (refute it) and get other names (an infinity of names are then available). The explosion of universal machines and programming languages can be related to this phenomenon. Do you mean that the so-called "introspective universal machine" is a mystic? At this stage, take it as a poetical shortcut for summing up the major discoveries of Gödel (and others) and their consequences in theoretical computer science. We know that a proving machine, once above some treshold of complexity, can discover and bet on the truth on some proposition, yet without being able to prove them. So machines, when looking inward, discover the gap between provable and true. I am still struggling to understand what you mean by the self- referentially correct machine. Now there is an introspective universal machine and a universal machine that it is also a "little god". In Judaism, the "little god" is associated to the angel Metatron, as for instance in Yom Kippur. On a second thought, "Metatron" sounds pretty much like the name you would give to a machine! This is Metatron 2.0. "Tron" is also the title of an early movie introducing the notion of virtual environment. A key notion in mechanist philosophy. A problem I have with Kabbalah, the Sufi and some other mystical is that many forget the initial insight from numbers and develop many "numerical superstition". This did already begin with Pythagoras. What do you mean by "the initial insight from numbers"? This looks particularly promising. I mean the birth of elementary arithmetic. It seems that in Africa (Mesopotamia?), people already knew that there is an infinity of triples of natural numbers such that x^2 + y^2 = y^2. (*) see the Universal Dovetailer Argument (in the list, or in my url below, search the archive for UDA). I visited your site, but unfortunately the only way to access the article about UDA was to buy the whole magazine. I didn't find it either in "The Theory of Nothing". Any CC version of your article available? I would love to read it. Weird! A complete version of UDA (but quite quick at the eighth step) is in this paper (click there on the PDF or HTML as you prefer. Click on PDF slide for one slide summing up the argument diagrammatically). http://iridia.ulb.ac.
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear R.Rabbit, thanks for the consideret reply and your willingness to expand your domain into relations with other domaines. You see, we are already in trouble with 22 letters (never mind 27, or the mathematical operator battle) about ONLY the NAME of God. What is in a name? whatever callers like to include. I find a different fundament: what is the MEANING of the (name?) God? How does it relate to the Multiverse: part of it, (an 'identificational question), originator of it (then comes the next: HOW, from WHERE, and the WHENCE (including mechanism and details as reasonable, not as deduced from ancient texts' ambiguities). Is God a product of numbers, or are numbers product of God? (I can't wait for your answer *"both"* as opposed to an either/or squabble). "We are children of God" and "pater semper incertus". How does my question relate to Kabbalah? I consider 'mysticism' a subchapter of our ignorance: once we learn the explanation it ceases to be mystical. (Exception - maybe - Bruno's *"many enough"* numbers to identify ANYTHING - a never reachable mass - no examples given, beyond the elementary - school math additions of single digits like 2+2=4. Or: II + II = ) So is there a 'definition' below ( 22^22 ! ) letters long? respectfully John M (you don't know yet what kind of a hornet's nest you steppedin). On 6/15/10, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: > > Dear John, > > I feel most at home in a list about our ignorance! Thank you and Bruno > for the warm welcome. > > Regarding your question, the wonderful thing is that we both are > right. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 and 27 letters. There you are, an > example of the multiverse! Not either-or, but both-and! > > The explanation is simple. The Hebrew alphabet is generally considered > to have 22 letters, all of them consonants. The reference to the 27 > letters is due to the fact that 5 out of the 22 letters (Kaf, Mem, > Nun, Pey, Tzadi) are written differently when they find themselves at > the end of a word. We don't have this phenomenon in the Latin > alphabet, so for us it is rather unusual. Therefore, depending on how > you prefer to count the letters, there might be 22 and/or 27. > > > Now I am ashamed for my 'giving in' to young-time ignorance and count on > > your remarks to make me change my opinion (what I do with pleasure any > time > > when I learn something new). > > I think that thanks to illustrious figures like Mrs. Maria Ciccone and > the like, Kabbalah has drawn the attention of the public as one more > weird cult in the new-age supermarket. Kabbalah is actually what we > could call Jewish mysticism (otherwise called prophecy by Jewish > sources) and as such it could be compared with Sufism in Islam. All > being said, the scholarly research of Kabbalah had been neglected by > scholars until relatively recent times but nowadays it is a thriving, > though quite young, field in academia. If this appeals to you, I > believe that the questions posed by the first hunters and gatherers > and the modern physicians are not that different. Kabbalah appeared in > medieval Spain and it owes its lexicon and cultural codes to its > historic and geographic setting, but if you break through the shell of > its circumstances I think -and this is why I am here- that Kabbalah > has something relevant to say to fields apparently so distant such as > literary criticism, physics and computer science. I want to make > clear, though, that this is not a particular characteristic of > Kabbalah. In the multiverse everything resonates. I just happened to > enter it through this gate. > > Now let me go back to my thread of thought from my first post. > Hopefully this will be interesting for Bruno, as well. > > I feel that when I try to understand the meaning of Abulafian letter > combinations I am groping in the dark. > > Let me recall Bruno's sentence again: "Most mystics, including the > introspective universal machine, agree that God has simply no name at > all." I think there are different ways to look at this, but I will > limit myself to the three extreme possibilities. One of them is what > Bruno says, there is no Name of God. On the other extreme we could > have those who believe that God has one name, only one true name. The > idea seems logically consistent: One God, One Name. [For many Jews, > for instance, the disclosure of the Name of God -YHWH, the > Tetragrammaton- in the Torah is the climax of divine revelation.] If > Abulafia would think like this but discard YHWH as the true Name of > God, hence believing that the true Name of God is still hidden, then > his method could be understood as a way of cracking the Name of God > through the application of an algorithm. If my maths are right, given > that there are 22 Hebrew letters (I'll stay at 22 if you don't mind, > John) that means that there would be possible combinations, an > absurdly large number for a human intellect to combine (*). In this > case, the search of Abulafia for the true Name of Go
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Jason, My assumption is that the Name of God, according to Abraham Abulafia, could be made of any possible combination of the 22 letters, as long as this name does not exceed 22 characters. This includes repetitions of letters and any combination between 1 and 22 characters. Thank you for your wise remark, it was indeed not clear enough as I formulated it previously. Yours truly, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Rabbi Rabbit, Forgive me if I missed this elsewhere in your posts, but is there the assumption somewhere that the name of God is 22 Hebrew letters long? If that is the case and some letters may be missing and others repeated, then you are correct about there being 22^22 combinations. If every letter must be used exactly once and the name is 22 characters long then there would be 22! (factorial operator) combinations (300 million times fewer, but still an infeasible size to iterate over all the combinations). Jason On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 7:15 PM, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: > Oh, bad, bad computer. > > In my previous post where it is written "" please read 22 raised > to the 22th power (base 22, exponent 22). No HTML posting here, I'll > need to take it into account! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Oh, bad, bad computer. In my previous post where it is written "" please read 22 raised to the 22th power (base 22, exponent 22). No HTML posting here, I'll need to take it into account! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear John, I feel most at home in a list about our ignorance! Thank you and Bruno for the warm welcome. Regarding your question, the wonderful thing is that we both are right. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 and 27 letters. There you are, an example of the multiverse! Not either-or, but both-and! The explanation is simple. The Hebrew alphabet is generally considered to have 22 letters, all of them consonants. The reference to the 27 letters is due to the fact that 5 out of the 22 letters (Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pey, Tzadi) are written differently when they find themselves at the end of a word. We don't have this phenomenon in the Latin alphabet, so for us it is rather unusual. Therefore, depending on how you prefer to count the letters, there might be 22 and/or 27. > Now I am ashamed for my 'giving in' to young-time ignorance and count on > your remarks to make me change my opinion (what I do with pleasure any time > when I learn something new). I think that thanks to illustrious figures like Mrs. Maria Ciccone and the like, Kabbalah has drawn the attention of the public as one more weird cult in the new-age supermarket. Kabbalah is actually what we could call Jewish mysticism (otherwise called prophecy by Jewish sources) and as such it could be compared with Sufism in Islam. All being said, the scholarly research of Kabbalah had been neglected by scholars until relatively recent times but nowadays it is a thriving, though quite young, field in academia. If this appeals to you, I believe that the questions posed by the first hunters and gatherers and the modern physicians are not that different. Kabbalah appeared in medieval Spain and it owes its lexicon and cultural codes to its historic and geographic setting, but if you break through the shell of its circumstances I think -and this is why I am here- that Kabbalah has something relevant to say to fields apparently so distant such as literary criticism, physics and computer science. I want to make clear, though, that this is not a particular characteristic of Kabbalah. In the multiverse everything resonates. I just happened to enter it through this gate. Now let me go back to my thread of thought from my first post. Hopefully this will be interesting for Bruno, as well. I feel that when I try to understand the meaning of Abulafian letter combinations I am groping in the dark. Let me recall Bruno's sentence again: "Most mystics, including the introspective universal machine, agree that God has simply no name at all." I think there are different ways to look at this, but I will limit myself to the three extreme possibilities. One of them is what Bruno says, there is no Name of God. On the other extreme we could have those who believe that God has one name, only one true name. The idea seems logically consistent: One God, One Name. [For many Jews, for instance, the disclosure of the Name of God -YHWH, the Tetragrammaton- in the Torah is the climax of divine revelation.] If Abulafia would think like this but discard YHWH as the true Name of God, hence believing that the true Name of God is still hidden, then his method could be understood as a way of cracking the Name of God through the application of an algorithm. If my maths are right, given that there are 22 Hebrew letters (I'll stay at 22 if you don't mind, John) that means that there would be possible combinations, an absurdly large number for a human intellect to combine (*). In this case, the search of Abulafia for the true Name of God would be hopeless, unless he would receive it by an act of grace (something tantamount to cheating). I think, though, that there is a third possibility much more interesting and promising than either “there is no name” or “there is one name”. The other possibly, the boldest one, is that the possible combinations, each and every one of them, is a Name of God. Now let's translate the “Name of God” to the language of our time. What is the Name of God? Using Gematria we know that the Name of God is a word but it is also a number. What we are looking for here is the key number that will unlock the secrets of the multiverse. Pauli thought it was 317. I think Pauli was right and so it is anyone who says any random number. This is the meaning of understanding the possible combinations as Names of God. The circle closes: In the multiverse everything resonates. I just happened to enter it through this gate. Yours truly, R. Rabbit (*) By the way, if you would put all these words in a book you would have the Dictionary of Abulafia, the most authorized dictionary in my opinion to check anything you would find in the Library of Babel. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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/eve
Re: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Dear Bruno, Thank you for your ample and generous answer. I want to play with my cards on the table and I take as a rule not to pretend to understand what I do not understand. I must confess you that your answer was for me as promising as it was obscure. I'll try to break down my doubts. > Ah! The divine intellect is a typical (neo)platonist notion. It is > Plato's Noûs, and its rôle is played by the modal logic G* all along > this list. It is the canonical divine intellect that you can associate > to any self-referentially correct machine. > The (pegagogical) problem is that it assumes some background in > mathematical logic. I have no idea what is the modal logic G*. I understand that I need to go through the archives of the list to get the details, but I didn't have the time yet to do so. I am also at lost with your concept of a "self-referentially correct machine". As I understand it, If the machine is self-referential, either it is a tautology to say that it is correct or the categories of correct and false are irrelevant. > Most mystics, including the introspective universal > machine, agree that God has simply no name at all. > The "little god" (the universal machine) has no definite name: each > time you give it a name or description it can change it (refute it) > and get other names (an infinity of names are then available). The > explosion of universal machines and programming languages can be > related to this phenomenon. Do you mean that the so-called "introspective universal machine" is a mystic? I am still struggling to understand what you mean by the self- referentially correct machine. Now there is an introspective universal machine and a universal machine that it is also a "little god". In Judaism, the "little god" is associated to the angel Metatron, as for instance in Yom Kippur. On a second thought, "Metatron" sounds pretty much like the name you would give to a machine! This is Metatron 2.0. > A problem I have with Kabbalah, the Sufi and some other mystical is > that many forget the initial insight from numbers and develop many > "numerical superstition". This did already begin with Pythagoras. What do you mean by "the initial insight from numbers"? This looks particularly promising. > (*) see the Universal Dovetailer Argument (in the list, or in my url > below, search the archive for UDA). I visited your site, but unfortunately the only way to access the article about UDA was to buy the whole magazine. I didn't find it either in "The Theory of Nothing". Any CC version of your article available? I would love to read it. > Hmm... remember that Pauli and Jung build their concept from the OLD > Quantum Mechanics. My reference to Pauli and Jung was, actually, the story according to which Pauli became obsessed with the number 317. It seems that in the course of his research in physics, Pauli encountered this number over and over again in all kind of different measurements and ratios, apparently unrelated and with no connection to each other. As the legend goes, Pauli became at some point a patient of Jung and explained him about his obsession. Jung told him that, following Jewish Gematria(*), 317 was the numerical value of the word Kabbalah. A very amusing "coincidence". My favourite part of the story is that through his research in physics and subsequent obsession with the number 317, Pauli had up reconnecting with his Jewish roots! It is a joke worth a God with sense of humour. (*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi, Rabbi Rabbit, welcome to our 'list about our ignorance'. You wrote about "ALL 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet (Babel)" so I clicked (as is my habbit) Google for Hebrew alphabet and found 27 letters. Also: texts I bounce into from Israeli sources look different from those images reproduced in that Google listing. Which one do you prefer in your knowledge? (And please, be prepared for 'unusual' responses on this list) I have a VAST domain OPEN in my mind for Kabbalah - what I considered in my early years as a sophisticated format of superstition - not later on, when I red about "minds" who took it seriously. Nevertheless I never took the time to investigate it (just as I swept over 'numerology' as well.) Now I am ashamed for my 'giving in' to young-time ignorance and count on your remarks to make me change my opinion (what I do with pleasure any time when I learn something new). Kabbalah must be something serious if you make a living by sudying it. Respectfully though John Mikes On 6/13/10, Rabbi Rabbit wrote: > > Dear all, > > I entered to your discussion list from the back door. I am not a > scientist or a philosopher, but a graduate student researching > Kabbalah, popularly known as Jewish mysticism. > > As others here, I knew about this site through "The Theory of > Everything". I landed on the this book through Borges' short story > "The Library of Babel". As some of you might know, this story is > packed with kabbalistic references. > > My research focuses now on Abraham Abulafia, a Sephardi kabbalist of > the 13th century. The reason why I am telling you all of this is that > Abulafia had a particular technique to achieve the mystical union > (otherwise called prophecy in Jewish sources) with the divine > intellect. To make it short, Abulafia's technique consisted in the > mental combination of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Abulafia > envisioned this technique of letter combination as endless and only > limited by human capacity. > > I claim that Abulafia's letter combination inspired Borges through the > groundbreaking work of Gershom Scholem, the pioneer of modern Kabbalah > scholarship. The Library of Babel is no other than the Library of > Abulafia. > > Abulafia gave detailed descriptions of his techniques but the ultimate > meaning of the letter combination remains elusive. In Abulafian > Kabbalah the concept of the "Name of God" is paramount. I would argue > that for him the Name of God was the total combination of the 22 > letters. The Library of Babel would then spell the Name of God. > > If we translate this religious jargon from the 13th century to our > language, Abulafia's letter combination is the verbal expression of > all possible universes. What about this as a definition for a holy > writ? > > But there has to be more to it. What do you think could be the > meanings of unlimited letter combinations? What insights could quantum > physics bring into kabbalistic interpretations? > > Let's tear down some discipline barriers! > > Yours truly, > > Rabbi Rabbit > > PD: And for those bluffed by the presence of a Kabbalah scholar here, > I recommend you to take a look to the story of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl > G. Jung as described in "Deciphering the Cosmic Number". > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@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: Kabbalah and the Multiverse
Hi Rabbi Rabbit, welcome, I entered to your discussion list from the back door. I am not a scientist or a philosopher, but a graduate student researching Kabbalah, popularly known as Jewish mysticism. We talk a lot about Plotinus in this list, and it is known that Kabbalah is related to Platonism and neoplatonism, so this is almost a front door! Among the muslims, a similar role is played by the Sufi. Augustin is also responsible for an influence of neoplatonism among the Christians. As others here, I knew about this site through "The Theory of Everything". I landed on the this book through Borges' short story "The Library of Babel". As some of you might know, this story is packed with kabbalistic references. Borges is very nice. My research focuses now on Abraham Abulafia, a Sephardi kabbalist of the 13th century. The reason why I am telling you all of this is that Abulafia had a particular technique to achieve the mystical union (otherwise called prophecy in Jewish sources) with the divine intellect. Ah! The divine intellect is a typical (neo)platonist notion. It is Plato's Noûs, and its rôle is played by the modal logic G* all along this list. It is the canonical divine intellect that you can associate to any self-referentially correct machine. The (pegagogical) problem is that it assumes some background in mathematical logic. To make it short, Abulafia's technique consisted in the mental combination of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Abulafia envisioned this technique of letter combination as endless and only limited by human capacity. I claim that Abulafia's letter combination inspired Borges through the groundbreaking work of Gershom Scholem, the pioneer of modern Kabbalah scholarship. The Library of Babel is no other than the Library of Abulafia. Abulafia gave detailed descriptions of his techniques but the ultimate meaning of the letter combination remains elusive. In Abulafian Kabbalah the concept of the "Name of God" is paramount. I would argue that for him the Name of God was the total combination of the 22 letters. The Library of Babel would then spell the Name of God. You may elaborate. Most mystics, including the introspective universal machine, agree that God has simply no name at all. The "little god" (the universal machine) has no definite name: each time you give it a name or description it can change it (refute it) and get other names (an infinity of names are then available). The explosion of universal amchines and programming languages can be related to this phenomenon. A problem I have with Kabbalah, the Sufi and some other mystical is that many forget the initial insight from numbers and develop many "numerical superstition". This did already begin with Pythagoras. Note also the connection between Mechanism and the Golem legend. If we translate this religious jargon from the 13th century to our language, Abulafia's letter combination is the verbal expression of all possible universes. What about this as a definition for a holy writ? It is closer to the universal dovetailer, than to a many primitively material universes. So I certainly do agree with you here. But the universal dovetailing can be made terrestrial. Technically G* is closer the the divine (not entirely accessible by machines) discourse. At this stage, this may be considered as technical details. But there has to be more to it. What do you think could be the meanings of unlimited letter combinations? What insights could quantum physics bring into kabbalistic interpretations? In my opinion Quantum physics confirms directly the mechanist platonist theory of mind, by showing that its most elementary prediction (non locality and indeterminacy for the first person experiences, for example(*)) to be confirmed (retrospectively) by nature, and fully explained (without putting consciousness and qualia under the rug). But the whole physical science does not address the question, for methodological reason. We have to come back to some serious theological science, in the spirit of Plato, Plotinus, etc. (*) see the Universal Dovetailer Argument (in the list, or in my url below, search the archive for UDA). Let's tear down some discipline barriers! That's necessary when working on the mind/body issue. PD: And for those bluffed by the presence of a Kabbalah scholar here, I recommend you to take a look to the story of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl G. Jung as described in "Deciphering the Cosmic Number". Hmm... remember that Pauli and Jung build their concept from the OLD Quantum Mechanics. The old QM assumes that observation collapses the wave function, transforming the "many universes" into a unique universe. This prevents the use of quantum mechanics in cosmology, and today, those a bit serious, I would say, on quantum mechanics have dropped out the collapse axiom. An interesting part of Pauli's idea remains correct