Dear George,
Interleaving...
George Levy wrote:
> Hi Stephen
>
> Stephen Paul King wrote:
>
> > Dear George,
> >
> > George Levy wrote:
> >
> > > Stephen Paul King wrote:
> > I am suggesting that *all* "objects" are either an observer or a part of an observer. I am
> > attacking the anthrocentrist definition of "observer." I am suggesting that any "object" that can have a
> > QM wave function associated with it *is an observer*, this would apply to an electron, a human, a
> > galaxy, etc. I am taking the work of Prof. Hitoshi Kitada to its logical conclusion (See:
> > http://www.kitada.com/time_III.html )
> >
> [GL]
> hmmm... .. make electrons and human equivalent as far as their observer status are concerned..and in so
> doing demote the word "observer" to nothing.... that would be fine if we restrict our discussion to third
> person perspective... but we don't..... first person perspective admit some differences which are function
> of the nature of consciousness of the observer...
[SPK]
Oppps, I forgot to mention the notion of expressiveness... I am trying to keep my posts concise... Please
read this paper by Peter Wegner which explains the notions of expressiveness and introduces Non-Well Founded
sets, my thinking draws strongly from it:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/~pw/papers/math1.ps
snip
> > > [SPK]
> > > > > > I am exploring the idea that communication
> > > > > > between observers plays an important role in restricting and/or distinguishing the two.
> > > > > > I hope that you understand this difference between a priori and a posteriori that I am
> > > > > > writing about. ;-)
> > > > > [GL]
> > > > > I don't understand. In the constext of Markov chain, all the information is contained in the
> > > > > current states.
> > > >
> > > > [SPK]
> > > >
> > > > Right, but consider how it is that "current states" are concatenated (strung together),
> > > > especially when you have to consider concurrency issues.
> [GL]
> > > hmmmmm. I don't know.... concatenation implies sequence and therefore seems to smuggle the answer
> > > in. Is concatenation necessary?....
> >
> > [SPK]
> >
> > Yes, if we are going to consider logical implication chaining and seek to explain the appearance of
> > temporal "flow" we must include concatenation. If we throw out the possibility of partial orderings what
> > do we have left?
> >
> [GL]
> I do not believe that logical concatenation from apriori and a posteriori implies or require temporal flow.
> Imagine a computer program listing. All the relationships are there, yet the whole thing is on paper. A
> logical graph, similarly requires no temporal flow. It is just there.
[SPK]
Just read the Wegner paper and get back to me. The idea is bloody obvious to me and I don't have the time to
spoon feed it to you.
> > > [GL]
> > > > > Kind of. They are connected by a web-like set of allowed logical transitions.
> > > >
> > > > [SPK]
> > > >
> > > > I agree. But could you get into detail on the nature of "allowed"? What is the constraint?
> > > > (I think that all that is needed is the weak anthropic principle but I could be missing
> > > > something.)
> > > [GL]
> > > The constraint is the "I" (Anthropic principle)
> >
> > [SPK]
> >
> > Ok, but I think that the self-reference implicit in "I" is not necessary. That is the "strong"
> > anthropic principle. Let's just stick to a "very weak" version, were the observers are not necessarily
> > carbon based.
> [GL]
> I have never been able to get a rigorous explanation of the diverse Anthropic Principles. Just to say that
> the world is such because carbon life is here, or life is here, or humanity is here, is fuzzy. How about
> the world is such because the Canadians are here, or the Yanomamo of central America? In my mind the only
> way to resolve this issue is to go all the way to the "I." However, since I am not a solipsist, I must admit
> to several "I's." The result, therefore, is a relativistic perception of the world in which each "I" has his
> own perception. I don't know if other people use the Anthropic Principle in this way.
[SPK]
There is a lot of work on the anthropic principle. Research it.
> > > [SPK]
> > > > I think that we should consider the rule "All is allowed that is not Forbidden" (by
> > > > logical contradiction) instead of the usual notion " All is forbidden that is not allowed" (by
> > > > prespecification, e.g. a priori algorithms) Peter Wegner has done a lot of research on this
> > > > issue:
> > > >
> > > [GL]
> > > I agree fully with the above. The plenitude provides the principle of "All is allowed" and the
> > > anthropic principle the restriction imposed by ***your own*** existence "that is not forbidden."
> > > Thus each "I" is an initial boundary condition for an anthropic causal chain. When the anthropic
> > > principle is taken back all the way to its source, the "I", the result is a relativistic perception
> > > of the plenitude by each "I." Thus there is only one universe... the plenitude. The only difference
> > > is our perception of it.
> >
> > [SPK]
> >
> > The problem that I have with that is that we can run into severe problems with the notion of a
> > "source". It looks to me that your statement here contradict your earlier statement that "There is no
> > "previous" in the sense of previous time, only in terms of logical antecedent.
> [GL]
> Are you saying that taking "I" as a logical source for the anthropic causal chain is a problem? It is the
> only rational starting point.
[SPK]
No, I am saying that Initiality, in general, is problematic! Read the Wegner paper...
> > In addition, the
> > conscious points are multiply connected and the connections are a function of the points themselves. In
> > other words each point could have several priors and several successors." I t would make more sense if
> > the "initial boundary condition" were given within each and every instantiation of an observation, e.g.
> > every time an observation is made a new universe is created.
> [GL]
> Oops!.. And how is a whole universe created?
[SPK]
Each and every observation is a creative act in the sense that some subset of the Plenitude, to borrow your
phrase, is actualized as the first person perspective of some observer. You seem to forget what we previously
agreed upon! That the "third person perspective" is the intersection of many first person perspectives. What is
a "whole universe" to you?
> [SPK]
> > What you call the "one Universe" is what I
> > call the Totality. Each observer has a "universe" as its percept.
> >
> [GL]
> Let's say that this "universe" is simply a subset of the Plenitude or of the Totality that comes about as
> the result in the limitations in the perceptual senses and mental capabilities of the observer. The
> formation of this subset is just an artifact of our consciousness. It is not an active event caused by an
> observation.
[SPK]
Sure, I would agree with that. This begins to approach the notion of expressiveness... But to dismiss the
formation of the subset as "just an artifact of our consciousness" is NOT EVEN WRONG! That is the same kind of
"sweep the problem under the rug" behavior that we find in orthodox physics when questions concerning the role
of observers comes up. Have you ever read papers on the Measurement problem in QM?
> > > > [SPK]
> > > >
> > > > Sure, I agree in principle with that but it is easy to see that something somehow IS
> > > > changing.
> > > [GL]
> > > hmmmm... phase space for example provides the information of movement while being itself
> > > static....To say that the plenitude itself is changing leads to a paradox....The illusion of change
> > > is embedded in each conscious point and is a result of the directional logical links which depend
> > > themselves on the type of consciousness we have.
> >
> > [SPK]
> >
> > Right, right! This is a tricky idea! The Totality is "paradoxical" for it is Complete (in the
> > Goedelian sense) and is this equal to it representation. Paradox is *NOT* necessarily problematic! (See:
> > http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~svozil/cgi-bin/out.cgi?manu=paradox ) While there is no unique factorization
> > of the Totality into "parts" it is decomposable into "Incomplete" subsets. Prof. Kitada has shown how
> > this works and how time can be derived there from: http://www.kitada.com/time_VI.html
> >
>
> Saibal wrote:
>
> > George Levy wrote:
> > Even with the null set I have my doubt. Why not use the Not(null set)
> ..... which is the plenitude eh??? :-)
>
> > How do you avoid Russel's paradox?
>
> The Plenitude is not a set.... so strictly speaking the operation Not(null set) cannot be performed using
> the set operator "Not".... The fact that the result of the operation does not fall into the domain of sets
> indicates incompleteness of the sets just like taking the square root of a negative number indicates
> incompleteness of the reals. The solution for the square root problem is to invent imaginary numbers and to
> continue doing square roots. I am not sure what the solution for the sets would be.... invent an object of
> the class Not(null set)???
> I guess this would lead to logical contradictions.....The fact is that the plenitude in its entirety does
> include contradictions...What restores rationality is the presence of consciousness....it is a rational
> locus in the plenitude, imposed by the anthropic principle....
[SPK]
The use of Non-well Founded sets solves this conundrum!
> George
Kindest regards,
Stephen
Received on Thu Mar 08 2001 - 06:22:50 PST