"You cannot *build up* unknown complexity from its simple parts"
That would be the case if we were trying to reconstruct an arbitrary
universe, but you were talking about 'the totality'. My take is that the
whole caboodle is not arbitrary - it's totally specified by its requirement
to be complete. You could take a little bit of it* and 'grow' it out like a
crystal in some kind of fractal kaleidoscopic space; eventually its
exploration would completely fill it. This makes a kind of holy trinity of
equivalence of (Whole | Parts | Process) which I like.
* That little bit could even be unitary or empty in nature, solving for me
the issue as to why something rather than nothing, and why anything in
particular.
2008/8/20 John Mikes <jamikes.domain.name.hidden>
> Brent wrote:
> "...But if one can reconstruct "the rest of the world" from these simpler
> domains, so much the better that they are simple...."
>
> Paraphrased (facetiously): you have a painting of a landscape with
> mountains, river, people, animals, sky and plants. Call that 'the totality'
> and *select the animals as your model* (disregarding the rest) even you
> continue by Occam - reject the non-4-legged ones, to make it (even) simpler.
> ((All you have is some beasts in a frame))
> Now try to *"reconstruct"* the 'rest of the total' ONLY from those remnant
> 'model-elements' dreaming up (?) mountains, sunshine, river etc. *from
> nowhere*, not even from your nonexisting fantasy, or even(2!) as you say:
> from the *Occam-simple*, i.e. as you say: from those few 4-legged animals,
> - to make it even simpler.
> Good luck.
> You must be a 'creator', or a 'cheater', having at least seen the *total *to
> do so. You cannot *build up* unknown complexity from its simple parts -
> you are restricted to the (reduced?) inventory you have - in a synthesis,
> (while in the analysis you can restrict yourself to a choice of it. )
>
> John
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 3:19 PM, Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>wrote:
>
>>
>> John Mikes wrote:
>> > Isn't logical inconsistency = insanity? (Depends how we formulate the
>> > state of being "sane".)
>>
>> As Bertrand Russell pointed out, if you are perfectly consistent you are
>> either
>> 100% right or 100% wrong. Human fallibility being what it is, don't bet
>> on
>> being 100% right. :-)
>>
>> In classical logic, an inconsistency allows you to prove every propositon.
>> In a
>> para-consistent logic the rules of inference are changed (e.g. by
>> restoring the
>> excluded middle) so that an inconsistency doesn't allow you to prove
>> everything.
>>
>> Graham Priest has written a couple of interesting books arguing that all
>> logic
>> beyond the narrow mathematical domain leads to inconsistencies and so we
>> need to
>> have ways to deal with them.
>>
>> > Simplicity in my vocabulary of the 'totality-view' means mainly to "cut"
>> > our model of observation narrower and narrower to eliminate more and
>> > more from the "rest of the world" (which only would complicate things)
>> > from our chosen topic of the actual interest in our observational field
>> > (our topical model).
>> > Occam's razor is a classic in such simplification.
>>
>> And so is mathematical logic and arithmetic. But if one can reconstruct
>> "the
>> rest of the world" from these simpler domains, so much the better that
>> they are
>> simple.
>>
>> Brent Meeker
>>
>> > John M
>> >
>> > On 8/18/08, *Bruno Marchal* <marchal.domain.name.hidden
>> > <mailto:marchal.domain.name.hidden>> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 18 Aug 2008, at 03:45, Brent Meeker wrote:
>> >
>> > > Sorry. I quite agree with you. I regard logic and mathematics
>> > as our
>> > > inventions - not restrictions on the world, but restrictions we
>> > > place on how we
>> > > think and talk about the world. We can change them as in para-
>> > > consistent logics.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I think it depends of the domain of inquiry or application.
>> > Para-consistent logic can be interesting for the laws and in natural
>> > language mind processing, but hardly in elementary computer science
>> or
>> > number theory.
>> >
>> > Then recall that any universal machine, enough good in the art of
>> > remaining correct during introspection, discovers eventually at
>> least
>> > 8 non classical logics (the arithmetical hypostases) most of them
>> > being near "paraconsistency" (by Godel's consistency of
>> inconsistency)
>> > making the most sane machine always very near insanity.
>> > And so easily falling down.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Bruno
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/<http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> >
>
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Received on Thu Aug 21 2008 - 08:33:07 PDT