[FRIAM] quotes and questions
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon May 16 08:26:05 EDT 2022
DaveW -
I'm glad you invoked Indra's net in this context. I'm not very learned
in Hindu or Buddhist texts or ideas beyond the westernized superficial
exposure that comes through various popular literature/science so I
don't trust much if anything I think I know to refer to the original (or
more aptly dependently co-arising?) intent of that language.
However, this continuing theme, often re-introduced by you (mostly) of
the limits of language and in particular formal languages and ideas such
Universal Computation never gets old for me.
I remember a perplexing conversation for both student and professor in
College when I took my budding knowledge/interest in language and logic
and philosophy into my physics classroom and asked (assertively) of my
professor "why cant we just invent a language where only truth can be
told? which was not far from the open ended contemplation among the
small cadre of upper division physics and chemistry grad students that
got thrown together in advanced physics seminars (because there was no
graduate physics program). I say perplexing to both myself and the
professor simply because my question was so naive as to feel like a
simple statement of fact to me and to him I think it actually confronted
his own naivety in the opposite way.
A year or two ago I stumbled into Glen with his occasional invocation of
"the holographic principle
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle>" in physics, by
imposing my own "excess meaning" (perhaps) into his use of this, wanting
it to evoke the same thing Dave's "All Contextualizes All" does. While
it is a "truism" that when you cut a (photographically captured
interference pattern) holograph into pieces, each piece carries the
entire hologram. Reductio ad-absurdum aside, it is the case that every
little bit of the holograph carries a little it of every bit of the
hologram, such that the quality/fidelity of the hologram is divided up
as one divides up the holograph. The emphasis in Glen's use (as I
thought I understood it sans my excess meaning) was on the
dimension-reduction-without-loss-of-fidelity aspect.
Despite the proofs (by example?) that any dimensionally embedded CA
could be implemented as a lower dimensional CA, I have always been
mildly suspicious of the holy grail of serialization as an illusion.
The phenotype-genotype duality exposes well the "dependent origination"
of program and execution environment, albeit in a genetic/biological
context. Embryology as well as "childhood development" seems to be no
more (or less) than a study in "dependent co-arising". The scaffolding
of complexity is what I find fascinating and I think maybe is key to
DaveW's harping about LBL vs RBL and trying to "eff the ineffable.
A year ago maybe, SteveG reminded me of Hesse's last work "the Glass
Bead Game" which is often considered an allegorization of Indra's Net in
the modern (1949) idiom. I only made about 1/2 of that correlation to
this conversation at the time. Everything unfolds in the fullness of time?
My own shriveled work with UNM/DTRA of over a decade ago on a project
called "pre-incident indicator analysis" was aiming at implementing an
Indra's Net of sorts as a "hairball of interrelated event reports"
which would be organized into what we came to call a "faceted ontology"
with the ontology speaking for itself and the "facets" being in some
sense, pre-computed projections from the all-contextualizes-all hairball
into a lower-dimensional space of one of many known-to-be-useful
subject-matter-expertise areas. I still believe this to be the problem
of internet search with human-in-the-loop solutions in the form
(primarily) of Wikis.
I'm writing this in a mild-fever dream state of jet-lag and food
poisoning. At the Reykjavik airport we grabbed a plastic-wrapped
sandwich which it appears to have been the source of food-poisoning.
Mary suffered the brunt of it, but I am more prone to acute jet-lag so
we have been roughly equally miserable over somewhat different if
overlapping reasons. The point of this point is the interesting (to me)
way that dysfunction can offer a certain clarity (thus fever-dream) that
is seems similar qualitatively to the dimension-reduction/projection of
"the holographic principle" or the creation/utilization of a "facet". I
forget the idiom used in the glass-bead-game precisely and don't know
the equivalent in Indra's Net terminology.
For those who know Roy Wroth, Matt and Janire, and Jenny Q... they are
all on our itenerary, though Jenny is traveling the wilds of Alaska
while we inhabit her sweet little renovated bit of a 18c Farmhouse in
Veesp for the month of June.
- Steve
On 5/15/22 5:26 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> Thank you Marcus for the insightful comments.
>
> I agree with you that the issue is one of communication, and in some
> sense, one of language. I would depart from your response with regard
> the assertion that the language must be precise; and further, the
> implication that equations, computer programs, or a simulacrum could
> constitute a "language."
>
> I would claim that a language with perfect and complete syntax and
> precise denotation will, necessarily be insufficient to express and
> communicate the vast majority of human experiences and
> knowledge/awareness/understanding. [This is a more nuanced version of
> my frequently made claim that, "science and math are only useful for
> the simplest of problems."]
>
> Humans can, with reasonable efficacy, communicate by means other than
> a precisely defined language. Evocative and connotative poetry,
> imagery, allusion, and metaphor, within a rich body of context is far
> more powerful than any formal language.
>
> Consider this alternative means of communication as a "language," RBL
> (Right-brain language). It seems reasonable to expect that RBL might
> be improved and extended, with added rigor, while avoiding the
> reductionism that exemplifies formal, precisely defined languages of
> math and science (left-brained all). I can imagine a RBL-grounded
> metaphysics and epistemology.
>
> A robust RBL might provide the communication channel essential to
> communicate the ineffable, the mystical, the psychedelic—with one big
> caveat, the lack of shared experience. RBL would be an evocative
> language, and that which is invoked in each individual must have
> sufficient experiential overlap with others that "that which is
> invoked" provides sufficient common context.
>
> Or one might assume Indra's Net where all contextualizes all.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Fri, May 13, 2022, at 5:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>
>> If one wants to translate subjective experience into a narrative, or
>> compare & contrast experiences, then negotiating some language is
>> necessary. If one wants to carefully compare experiences, then one
>> must be prepared to make the language precise. The language could
>> be “equations”, or some computer program or some careful use of the
>> English language, or it could be some use of a well-modelled physical
>> system to mimic another physical system, etc. But it is must to be
>> possible to create experiments and evaluate the results in an
>> objective, reasoned way using a shared, deconstructable language.
>> This says nothing about the Big Picture of the diverse things that
>> happen in the universe by itself, of course. But the (presumably)
>> narrow window we have on the whole universe can be categorized into
>> knowledge we share – objective language, and private experiences we
>> don’t know how to share, or are too large and complicated to compress
>> into a readable academic paper (e.g. some massive generative learning
>> system). If one wants to go further and say there are some
>> experiences that can’t, in principle, be shared, that’s fine, but
>> then shut up about it already! There’s nothing to **talk** about
>> because it is private **and** subjective **and** opaque.
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Friday, May 13, 2022 4:51 PM
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] quotes and questions
>>
>>
>> I will channel McGilchrist here, not assert my own opinions/reasoning:
>>
>>
>> The argument you have posited is an example of left-brain arrogance
>> *(NOT MARCUS ARROGANCE)* in assuming that the left-brain perception
>> and apprehension, a totally reductionist and representationalist one,
>> of the universe is the only truth. All that holism, connectedness,
>> empathy, stochastic dynamism, etc. that the right-brain believes to
>> be truth is woo-woo nonsense and it can be ignored.
>>
>>
>> There is also the purely pragmatic problem, ala the 19th century
>> physics of Mach, that if you had perfect knowledge of every particle
>> in the universe at time 1 you could predict with perfect accuracy its
>> state at time 2. Replicating the totality of sensors and the variable
>> range of sensitivity in context (e.g. changes in pressure as the
>> water cools as a function of distance from jet), plus the variability
>> in the pattern of sensors that are simultaneously reporting, and,
>> and, and
>>
>>
>> Even if true in principle, it is pragmatically impossible.
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 13, 2022, at 3:47 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>
>> > I am sure I have said it dozens of times before: Create a robot
>>
>> > covered in sensors of similar pressure and temperature sensitivity.
>>
>> > Have it sit in the tub and use some algorithm to learn the distribution
>>
>> > of the sensors and how relates to the performance of its own motor
>>
>> > system.
>>
>> >
>>
>> >> On May 13, 2022, at 3:36 PM, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> On 5/12/22 13:56, Jon Zingale wrote:
>>
>> >>> An interesting property of turbulence is that it need not be a
>> statement about fluids, but rather a property entailed by a system of
>> equations.
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> McGilchrist would assert that the "reality" that is apprehended by
>> the left-brain is precisely that set of abstract equations. However,
>> the right-brain apprehension of "reality" is the totality of the
>> experience of sitting in the spa and feeling the bubbles and jets
>> caress your body.
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> The latter is not expressible in equations.
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >> davew
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >>
>>
>> >>> On Fri, May 13, 2022, at 1:47 PM, glen wrote:
>>
>> >>>> On 5/12/22 10:32, Steve Smith wrote:
>>
>> >>>> I personally don't think "Turbulent Flow" is an oxymoron.
>>
>> >>>
>>
>> >>> Exactly! That's the point. By denouncing negation, I'm ultimately
>>
>> >>> denouncing contradiction in all it's horrifying forms. It's judo, not
>>
>> >>> karate.
>>
>> >>>
>>
>> >>>> On 5/12/22 13:56, Jon Zingale wrote:
>>
>> >>>> An interesting property of turbulence is that it need not be a
>> statement about fluids, but rather a property entailed by a system of
>> equations.
>>
>> >>>
>>
>> >>> I'm a bit worried about all the meaning packed into "property",
>>
>> >>> "entailed", and "system of equations". But as long as we read
>>
>> >>> "equations" *very* generously, then I'm down.
>>
>> >>>
>>
>> >>>> On 5/12/22 19:54, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>
>> >>>> Unitary operators are needed. Apply a Trumping operator you get a
>> Biden and apply another one to get a Trump back. To make this work
>> a bunch of ancillary bits are needed to record all the wisdom that
>> Trump destroys. I am afraid we are dealing with a dissipative
>> system, though.
>>
>> >>>
>>
>> >>> IDK. The allowance of unitary operators seems to be a restatement of
>>
>> >>> orthogonality. In a world where no 2 variates/objects can be perfectly
>>
>> >>> separated, there can be no unitary operators. (Or, perhaps every
>>
>> >>> operator has an error term. f(x) → y ∪ε) I haven't done the work. But
>>
>> >>> it seems further that we can define logics without negation and logics
>>
>> >>> without currying. Can we define logics with neither? What's the
>>
>> >>> expressive power of such a persnickety thing? Is it that such a thing
>>
>> >>> can't exist? Or merely that our language is incapable of talking about
>>
>> >>> that thing with complete faith? Biden is clearly not not(Trump), at
>>
>> >>> least if the object of interest is "too damned {old, white, male}". If
>>
>> >>> that's the object, clearly Biden ≡ Trump and ∀x|x(Trump) = x(Biden) ∪
>>
>> >>> ε, where |ε| >> |x(Trump)-x(Biden)|.
>>
>> >>>
>>
>> >>> --
>>
>> >>> Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙
>>
>> >>>
>>
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