Something that has been fermenting in the back of my mind for years is beginning to crystallize. I'm not sure if it is nonsense or not so I thought my fellow Virians might provide a critical sounding board.
Quantity along a QontinuumIf and only ifI am the object of knowledge of the original vibration manifesting as sound
So my interpretation is : Reality only exists if there is Knowledge
Works for me as an axiom. It sure sums up the pointless nature of power and control by organized religion through ignorance.
As a side bar, I had to toss Nietzsche and Platos diverging views in on this one
http://the-aesthete.blogspot.com/2005/03/plato-is-dead-divisions-between.html The key difference between Nietzsche and Plato is one regarding 'making' and 'discovering'. To Plato, one discovers the objectively true values and ideas that are reflected in the actual world, while to Nietzsche, since there is no objective truth, it is up to the individual to create for themselves their own values and ideas. To Nietzsche, this lack of objectivity makes the world fundamentally non-rational. Pointing to the bias through which man must see his world, Nietzsche comes to an Humeian understanding that in the mind of each individual is a collection of individual impressions and interpretations about the world, but Nietzsche carries it even further than Hume by saying that ultimately these perceptions don't correspond to any objective reality. There is no grand design to the world and no absolute truth, so it follows the role that reason can play under such conditions is tremendously limited. If there are no facts and only individual perspective then there can be no standard by which one can ever say if their reason is operating correctly.
Interesting interpretation, Fritz. Tell me if it is consistent with mine:
The left side of the equation is the Metaverse, representing the ultimate reality. It can be understood as the set of all unique patterns. One representation is the set of all unique infinite bit strings. Each one of those unique patterns maps to a unique real number (binary expansion), so another valid representation of the Metaverse is the set of real numbers.
The right side, Aum, represents the set of all real things. Everything that can be identified can have its description (state, pattern) encoded as a bit string (which has a corresponding real number). This is obvious for things like books, images, songs, movies and programs (the things we typically store on digital media). Not so obvious is it is also true (I suggest) for everything else you can name: furniture, tools, vehicles, houses, organisms (including people), planets, stars, etc. Anything that has a pattern can be encoded so it has a corresponding bit string (real number).
So everything that can exist is realized in the Metaverse, it already contains all possibilities. Time, space, energy and matter emerge as an interpretation of the patterns by minds (which are also existing patterns).
« Last Edit: 2011-12-04 21:35:56 by David Lucifer »
[Blunderov] I'm still grappling with the equation itself and it seems quite an attractive one. But doesn't it run into the incompleteness problem? By this I mean that the moment you describe a pattern that descibes reality you immediately create a new description which falls outside what was originally described and thus does not contain all of reality?
Posted by: Blunderov Posted on: Today at 02:20:34 [Blunderov] I'm still grappling with the equation itself and it seems quite an attractive one. But doesn't it run into the incompleteness problem? By this I mean that the moment you describe a pattern that descibes reality you immediately create a new description which falls outside what was originally described and thus does not contain all of reality?
Does this side step Godel's "incompleteness problem" ?
In mathematics, Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice, named after mathematicians Ernst Zermelo and Abraham Fraenkel and commonly abbreviated ZFC, is one of several axiomatic systems that were proposed in the early twentieth century to formulate a theory of sets without the paradoxes of naive set theory such as Russell's paradox. Specifically, ZFC does not allow unrestricted comprehension. Today ZFC is the standard form of axiomatic set theory and as such is the most common foundation of mathematics.
ZFC has a single primitive ontological notion, that of a hereditary well-founded set, and a single ontological assumption, namely that all individuals in the universe of discourse are such sets. Thus, ZFC is a set theory without urelements (elements of sets which are not themselves sets). ZFC does not formalize the notion of classes (collections of mathematical objects defined by a property shared by their members) and specifically does not include proper classes (objects that have members but cannot be members themselves).
ZFC is a one-sorted theory in first-order logic. The signature has equality and a single primitive binary relation, set membership, which is usually denoted ∈. The formula a ∈ b means that the set a is a member of the set b (which is also read, "a is an element of b" or "a is in b").
There are many equivalent formulations of the ZFC axioms. Most of the ZFC axioms state the existence of particular sets. For example, the axiom of pairing says that given any two sets a and b there is a new set {a, b} containing exactly a and b. Other axioms describe properties of set membership. A goal of the ZFC axioms is that each axiom should be true if interpreted as a statement about the collection of all sets in the von Neumann universe (also known as the cumulative hierarchy).
The metamathematics of ZFC has been extensively studied. Landmark results in this area established the independence of the continuum hypothesis from ZFC, and of the axiom of choice from the remaining ZFC axioms. <snip>
[Blunderov] I'm still grappling with the equation itself and it seems quite an attractive one. But doesn't it run into the incompleteness problem? By this I mean that the moment you describe a pattern that descibes reality you immediately create a new description which falls outside what was originally described and thus does not contain all of reality?
[Lucifer] No new patterns can be created because all patterns exist in R outside of space and time. At any given instant the state of our particular universe corresponds to a particular pattern. If we create a new pattern in our universe (or anything else changes in our universe) then its state will correspond to a different pattern in R. Does that avoid your objection?
One of the biggest hurdles for this theory is it it is not at all obvious (to me) how something that is timeless and spaceless (the Metaverse) can give rise to the universe we see around us. Where does time and space come from?
Take a look at the cellular automaton Rule 30, in particular the graphical representation of the evolution over 100 steps. Each row is generated from, top to bottom, by applying rule 30 to the previous row of cells. Time arises from considering each row in a sequence. All rows, the whole pattern, is entailed by the rule and the initial conditions. In a sense the whole pattern exists outside time, so time is just a particular interpretation of the whole pattern.
I suggest that real time in our universe in similar. It arises from a particular interpretation of a sequence of states, each one a different pattern. Each state in the sequence is implied by applying a set of rules (the "laws of physics") to a previous state. The laws of physics in one particular pattern that is consistent across time (more or less by definition). In other words, the sequence (order) is defined (only) relative to another pattern (physical laws).
rule30.gif « Last Edit: 2011-12-09 11:52:03 by David Lucifer »
One of the biggest hurdles for this theory is it it is not at all obvious (to me) how something that is timeless and spaceless (the Metaverse) can give rise to the universe we see around us. Where does time and space come from?
Take a look at the cellular automaton Rule 30, in particular the graphical representation of the evolution over 100 steps. Each row is generated from, top to bottom, by applying rule 30 to the previous row of cells. Time arises from considering each row in a sequence. All rows, the whole pattern, is entailed by the rule and the initial conditions. In a sense the whole pattern exists outside time, so time is just a particular interpretation of the whole pattern.
I suggest that real time in our universe in similar. It arises from a particular interpretation of a sequence of states, each one a different pattern. Each state in the sequence is implied by applying a set of rules (the "laws of physics") to a previous state. The laws of physics in one particular pattern that is consistent across time (more or less by definition). In other words, the sequence (order) is defined (only) relative to another pattern (physical laws).
[Fritz]This is way out of my feeding the wood stove and making sure the bird feeders are full between shoveling snow; so feel free to humble me.
I'm interpreting Rule 30 as generating random patterns. How can any temporal horizons be established ? Doesn't randomness imply no states exist that could be attributed to Physical laws ?
I'm interpreting Rule 30 as generating random patterns. How can any temporal horizons be established ? Doesn't randomness imply no states exist that could be attributed to Physical laws ?
I picked Rule 30 to illustrate my message because it is somewhat special, being the simplest cellular automaton to generate aperiodic, chaotic behaviour. But since it is deterministic I wouldn't call it random. How would you define "random"?
I'm interpreting Rule 30 as generating random patterns. How can any temporal horizons be established ? Doesn't randomness imply no states exist that could be attributed to Physical laws ?
I picked Rule 30 to illustrate my message because it is somewhat special, being the simplest cellular automaton to generate aperiodic, chaotic behaviour. But since it is deterministic I wouldn't call it random. How would you define "random"?
[Fritz] You are correct, I did not differentiate between Random and Pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) as I've used in programming. Fractal patterns come to mind though, but after snooping around I discovered that fractal patterns are seeded in a similar way as the Rule 30 patterns.
Okey, so, one one side; you have the seeds for all possible patterns and then on the other side you have all possible patterns expressed and they exist in a synchronized state ?
It is a meta model of; infinite combinations the building blocks of the universe could have and the infinite assembled variations of these building blocks on the other side. aka infinite list of axioms = infinite constructs using these axioms
Next Hmmm ....Would this have be an end state from the get go or did the equilibrium evolve ?
This model would have to sit above the infinite possible universes (multi-verse) since I suspect not all possible state could be expressed in a finite single universe ?
Should I through in the towel or am I showing even a grimmer of comprehension ?
Okey, so, one one side; you have the seeds for all possible patterns and then on the other side you have all possible patterns expressed and they exist in a synchronized state ?
It is a meta model of; infinite combinations the building blocks of the universe could have and the infinite assembled variations of these building blocks on the other side. aka infinite list of axioms = infinite constructs using these axioms
Next Hmmm ....Would this have be an end state from the get go or did the equilibrium evolve ?
This model would have to sit above the infinite possible universes (multi-verse) since I suspect not all possible state could be expressed in a finite single universe ?
Should I through in the towel or am I showing even a grimmer of comprehension ?
Yes, I can definitely see a grimmer there.
Though I usually avoid answering a question with "yes and no", I think it is warranted in this case. You can look at it as seeds generating constructs like axioms generating theorems. The evolution view is valid, but it is predicated on as assumption of time or a time-like dimension. But another valid perspective is the overview, looking down on evolution from above and seeing the whole pattern.
This led me to the Mathematical universe hypothesis proposed by the eminently qualified theoretical physicist Max Tegmark. I think the MUH is essentially identical to the Reality Equation. Coincidentally I saw Tegmark speak on another topic at the Singularity Summit a couple months ago. Maybe (probably) something he mentioned sparked my recent interest in the MUH.
Tegmark's key idea is summarized in a very readable short article, Shut up and calculate (pdf). I look forward to delving deeper!
« Last Edit: 2011-12-11 12:43:50 by David Lucifer »
So I'm still obsessed by this idea that math is the ultimate reality and that everything is literally a number. I wrote a tiny python program that emulates the "big bang" of the metaverse. It generates all possible bit strings of all lengths recursively. Imagine it runs on an infinitely fast computer and the condition "if len(X) < 16" is removed. It defines a function f that takes a bit string and calls itself twice, first adding a 0 to the end and again adding 1 to the end. The big bang is invoking the function with an empty string, it generates all possible bit strings, all possible values, all possible patterns. You and everything you can name are encoded somewhere in the output.
import math
def show(X): sum = 0.0 for i in range(len(X)): #print X[i], if X[i] == "1": sum += math.pow(2, -i-1) print "{0:>20}, {1}".format(X, sum)
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