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Nick,
Jon says: "Next, you make an appeal to *flesh in the game*..." Perhaps better here, we can again talk about Quantum theory. While some on this list will find it to be blasphemy to question the theory, you and I can clearly call its ultimate authority into question. Some will inevitably continue to argue for determinism while paying tithes to QM. I can imagine there one day being other valid and verifiable theories based on different ontological commitments, but why should this prevent the progress of further developing a QM theory? -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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In reply to this post by Gary Schiltz-4
Gary, Is this what others meant earlier by “truncation”? N Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz If I am honest, which I at least usually try to be, most beliefs that I have are only supported by the amount of effort I'm willing to put into the endeavor of supporting them. I can rationalize this by saying that nobody's brain, not even Einstein's, has (or had) the capacity to calculate and keep track of all the assumptions necessary to support our beliefs. I do believe this is true, even though it is more the result of my simply getting tired of or bored with trying to do so. Maybe this has a lot to do with why people have "faith", they just get tired of trying to figure it all out, and it is so much easier to accept what a large group of your peers tells you. I think true wisdom starts when one realizes those limitations. On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 12:44 PM Jon Zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:
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I can't speak for anyone else, but I suspect so. As an example of partially supported beliefs, I have no direct way of knowing that George Washington was the first president of the United States, or that he even existed. I choose to believe this, because I've heard and read about him, and I find it hard to believe that a conspiracy to instill a false assertion could have been pulled off. I could research further, which *might* reveal enough contradictions to invalidate my belief, but I choose not to. I take a similar approach to, for example, climate change. On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 2:00 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Gary, well put.
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In reply to this post by Gary Schiltz-4
Gary, I assume you have your doubts about the “cherry tree” incident, even tho it was told to you on the authority of your 4th grade school marm. How we make these distinctions is fascinating. How “we” take vitamins, even though our doctors assure us that the only consequence is that we have “expensive pee”. Quine, it think it is, following Peirce, in a way, argues that every belief is in enmeshed in a vast trodden-down midden of beliefs. Given this, it’s a miracle that we ever change our minds about anything, without dynamiting the whole midden. N Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz I can't speak for anyone else, but I suspect so. As an example of partially supported beliefs, I have no direct way of knowing that George Washington was the first president of the United States, or that he even existed. I choose to believe this, because I've heard and read about him, and I find it hard to believe that a conspiracy to instill a false assertion could have been pulled off. I could research further, which *might* reveal enough contradictions to invalidate my belief, but I choose not to. I take a similar approach to, for example, climate change. On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 2:00 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
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For me, it isn't a big house of cards where pulling one out will make the whole thing collapse. It' more like a tangled, knotted ball of string, Cut a few strings, and it's probably still a big mess, but still won't come apart. On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 2:15 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by thompnickson2
Nick says: "Given this, it’s a miracle that we ever change our minds
about anything, without dynamiting the whole midden." Is this effectively what Glen seeks to investigate with his paths and memory model? How is the path and memory model different than Rupert Sheldrake's theory that physical law followed from habit? -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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Jon, You wrote: Is this effectively what Glen seeks to investigate with his paths and memory model? How is the path and memory model different than Rupert Sheldrake's theory that physical law followed from habit? Just to taunt you all, Sheldrake probably got this from Peirce who wrote that “matter is just congealed mind.” I am still trying to extract Glen’s model from the splatter. GEEZUZ it’s difficult, even with nabble on my side. N Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ -----Original Message----- Nick says: "Given this, it’s a miracle that we ever change our minds about anything, without dynamiting the whole midden." Is this effectively what Glen seeks to investigate with his paths and memory model? How is the path and memory model different than Rupert Sheldrake's theory that physical law followed from habit? -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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In reply to this post by gepr
Despite my reputation for doing otherwise, I don't *intend* to
splatter this already splattered thread, but I can't help
observing that from what little biosemiotics I am familiar with,
it seems like what we are hashing significantly overlaps their
core tenets. From Biosemiotics (Hoffmeyer, von Uexkull): “[i]n a world where nothing was predictable, Life would be out of a job” (Hoffmeyer, Signs 28).
My summary of the issues is roughly that what makes "life" unique
from all other forms/organizations of matter is the *apparent*
ability/goal of sensing/predicting/acting. - Steve
On 6/17/20 12:29 PM, ∄ uǝlƃ wrote:
Yes! That's an excellent example of when faith is useful. I've argued that that particular usage isn't canonical, though. The canon I learned was that faith is a truncation of inference useful in many types of circumstance. In the end, it boils down to let's just get on with it and see what happens ... as opposed to hand-wringing and worrying - analysis paralysis. I also think it plays an important role in hypothesis formation. E.g. if we take physics *seriously*, there must be some thing, XYZ, that plays the role of a magnetic monopole. Such "taking seriously" is an act of (revocable) faith. I.e. you don't have to stop the presses and derive everything from first principles ever day all day, arguing about fundamental concepts ... you just get on with it and see what happens. Relatedly, the "shut up and calculate" accusation is really a strawman. Everyone *wants* to go deeper. But many of us have jobs, and grass to mow, and children to raise, etc. We can't spend all our time thinking about the One True Meaning of "free will". On 6/17/20 11:09 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:Maybe this has a lot to do with why people have "faith", they just get tired of trying to figure it all out, and it is so much easier to accept what a large group of your peers tells you. I think true wisdom starts when one realizes those limitations. - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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In reply to this post by thompnickson2
Here it is again. And note that I'm not committed to *anything* in this. I'd simply like to talk about something relatively concrete. Feel free to come up with your own constructive MECHANISM for what we call "free will". Simply denying it's existence is inadequate, gets us nowhere.
On 6/16/20 5:35 AM, glen∉ℂ wrote: > As usual, I am below arguing a position that I don't necessarily believe. This is a game, a temporary hypothesis. Precede every assertion with "Let's say that ..." > > 1) There's no need for two of you. You are a steady mesh of choices in parallel, from the tiniest cellular process to picking up the cranberry. And I agree, there's no need for free will there. > > 2) The "two behavioral tendencies" are not *two*. They are a loose collection of many behaviors that *might* group, ungroup, and regroup. The compositional machinery that does the grouping does NOT pit one group of behaviors against another group of behaviors. It mixes and matches behaviors to arrive at a grouping that (kinda-sorta) optimizes for least effort. > > 3) The "first person sense" is the perception of irreversibility. It is the mesh of you clipping the tree of possibilities. In a different post, you asked "freedom from what?" The answer I'm proposing here is: freedom from evaluating/realizing every POSSIBLE next event. At any given instant, there's a (composite) probability distribution for everything that *could* happen in the next instant. Some events are vanishingly unlikely. Other events are overwhelmingly likely. The interesting stuff is somewhere in between, like 50% likely to happen. Within some ε of 50% are the things you sense/feel/perceive. And as the options fall away, you feel/realize the lost opportunity. That is the first person perspective you talk about. Again, no free will is required. > > 4) When you feel that lost opportunity, i.e. when you sense that you've now gone down an irreversible path, for a little while, you can ask "what if I'd taken that path and not this one?" Again, no free will is required, only the ability to *perceive* that there were other paths your mesh/machine could have taken if the universe had been different. > > 5) That cohesive sensing is identical to the compositional machinery in (2) above. There's a storage/memory to that compositional machinery that can remember the historical trace the mesh took ... the "choices" made by the mesh. So, the NEXT time your mesh is on a similar trajectory, your compositional machinery will be slightly biased by your history. > > That memory of lost opportunities is what we call free will. On 6/17/20 12:39 PM, [hidden email] wrote: > I am still trying to extract Glen’s model from the splatter. GEEZUZ it’s difficult, even with nabble on my side. -- ☣ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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In reply to this post by Gary Schiltz-4
Some historians would argue that Washington was the 8th President of the US. The other seven, beginning with John Hanson, were Presidents under the authority of the Articles of Confederation that established the US as a political entity prior to the drafting and adoption of the Constitution. Washington was the first President under the authority of the Constitution. davew On Wed, Jun 17, 2020, at 1:06 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
And in yet another a parallel (tangetial?) thread on QM, free will,
and Life.
I think this is an *interestingly different* or at least *complementary* ontological commitment:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1302.5545.pdf
On 6/17/20 1:44 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
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In reply to this post by thompnickson2
I like this intuition: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10670-019-00165-8 From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]> Gary, Is this what others meant earlier by “truncation”? N Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of
Gary Schiltz If I am honest, which I at least usually try to be, most beliefs that I have are only supported by the amount of effort I'm willing to put into the endeavor of supporting them. I can rationalize this by saying that nobody's brain, not even
Einstein's, has (or had) the capacity to calculate and keep track of all the assumptions necessary to support our beliefs. I do believe this is true, even though it is more the result of my simply getting tired of or bored with trying to do so. Maybe this
has a lot to do with why people have "faith", they just get tired of trying to figure it all out, and it is so much easier to accept what a large group of your peers tells you. I think true wisdom starts when one realizes those limitations. On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 12:44 PM Jon Zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:
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...mathematical real numbers are not physically relevant... N. Gisin Physics is not relevant to the real numbers. F. Wimberly --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 6:49 PM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Thank goodness that academia is not overspecialized! From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> ...mathematical real numbers are not physically relevant... N. Gisin Physics is not relevant to the real numbers. --- On Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 6:49 PM Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
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This post was updated on .
The paper makes a commitment to the idea that physical information is
finite and thus is poorly modeled by real numbers, there will be assumptions we make in our calculations with real numbers that are ultimately unphysical when we treat the world as if it were our model. Gisin writes: "Note that these numbers contain all computable numbers, but are not restricted to them: they also contain “numbers” whose far away digits are undetermined, i.e. not yet determined..." This seems to be in harmony with Glen's scoping criterion. Gisin then continues by importing the Bekenstein bound, the holographic principle, and minimum/maximum energy densities required for information storage. While I love what is going on so far, Gisin oversteps a little when he claims: "Furthermore, today all predictions can be—and most of the time are—encoded in computers, computers that obviously hold at most a finite amount of bits, as emphasized in the next section. Consequently, physics is actually done using only finite-information numbers..." To some extent, I wonder if he is pulling a sleight of hand here. Because simple dynamics are dominated by their leading digit, he argues, the latter digits do not matter. Fine, but also in the spirit of Chaitin†, we can reason about a machine language whose primitives are incommensurable with whatever language we otherwise agree to fix. From the little bit of Chaitin I have read directly (thanks Ed!), he seems to emphasize a language dependence. While I admit I have only partially thought this through, it seems to me that representations base Euler's number will finitely describe some numbers that are non-finite base 2. Does this matter for Gisin's argument? Even if it doesn't, I am happy to live in a world where I can continue to go about my business thinking whatever non-physical thing. Thanks, Marcus for the enjoyable read! †) For instance from the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity the Kolmogorov complexity of an object, such as a piece of text, is the length of a shortest computer program (in a predetermined programming language) that produces the object as output. -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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Great! It seems that I am wrong about the restrictions imposed by
language dependence. From this Scientific American article by Chaitin: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~km9/Randomness%20and%20Mathematical.pdf Defining randomness or the simplicity of theories through the capabilities of the digital computer would seem to introduce a spurious element into these essentially abstract notions: the peculiarities of the particular computing machine employed. Different machines communicate through different computer languages, and a set of instructions expressed in one of those languages might require more or fewer bits when the instructions are translated into another language. Actually, however, the choice of computer matters very little. The problem can be avoided entirely simply by insisting that the randomness of all numbers be tested on the same machine. Even when different machines are employed, the idiosyncrasies of various languages can readily be compensated for. Suppose, for example, someone has a program written in English and wishes to utilize it with a computer that reads only French. Instead of translating the algorithm itself he could preface the program with a complete English course written in French. Another mathematician with a French program and an English machine would follow the opposite procedure. In this way only a fixed number of bits need be added to the program, and that number grows less significant as the size of the series specified by the program increases. In practice a device called a compiler often makes it possible to ignore the differences between languages when one is addressing a computer. Thanks again Marcus, a wonderful read. -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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In reply to this post by gepr
> read the code. Read the code! READ THE DAMNED CODE! gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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Ha! I have no idea what that means. Google tells me its some ancient Chinese secret <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzixL7Ef-bI>.
On 6/17/20 9:42 PM, David Eric Smith wrote: > >> read the code. Read the code! READ THE DAMNED CODE! > > gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha -- ☣ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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I think Glen is saying "Don't take the simple story on face value," not necessarily "Read a canonical prescription," and that Eric is saying "The story is inherently ambiguous." I am probably wrong both times. :-)
On 6/18/20, 7:33 AM, "Friam on behalf of ∄ uǝlƃ" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote: Ha! I have no idea what that means. Google tells me its some ancient Chinese secret <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzixL7Ef-bI>. On 6/17/20 9:42 PM, David Eric Smith wrote: > >> read the code. Read the code! READ THE DAMNED CODE! > > gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha -- ☣ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ |
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