Redface - ME!
Michael, you picked my careless statement and I want to correct it:
"...You cannot *build up* unknown complexity from its simple parts..."
should refer to THOSE parts we know of, observe, include, select, handle, -
not ALL of the (unlimited, incl. potential) parts (simple or not). From
such ALL parts together (a topical oxymoron) you can(?) build anything,
although it does not make sense.
What I had in mind was a cut, a structural, functional, ideational select
model (system organization) FROM which you have no way to expand into the
application of originally not included items.
I agree with your 'whole caboodle' as a deterministic product (complexity),
as far as its entailment is concerned. I don't understand "holy trinities" -
yours included.
"Growing out" your -it*- requires IMO the substrates it* grows by, - by
addition - I dislike miraculous creations. A crystal grows by absorbing the
ingredients already present. Cf (my) entail-determinism (- no goal or aim).
John
On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 8:32 AM, Michael Rosefield
<rosyatrandom.domain.name.hidden>wrote:
> "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 - 09:34:23 PDT