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Provability and Transhumanism Options
jdlaw
Posted: Sunday, May 23, 2021 5:55:08 AM

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Another great video by Veritasium

I Can Prove It

My exact thought from the title of the video before even watching it was that nothing is provable. I guess I had that bias going in, but since I already subscribe this YouTube channel I knew it was going to be pretty good. 

I watched the whole thing anyway.  The video does explain "incompleteness" Paradox (which is similar to Trilemma) eventually.  It was a 30 minute video.

It is also fascinating (to me) that Munchausen Trilema (infinite regression) and Munchausen Syndrome (factitious disorder or psychosis of needing health care when not sick) are both named after the same "Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen" who was a real survivor of the Russuan-Turkish war who after the war became known for his tall tales about his own conquests during the war.  Munchausen  later became a sort of 18th Century "Chuck Norris" because the satirists of the time would use Baron Munchausen as a character for telling unbelievable stories (like how Baron Munchausen was so strong that he pulled himself out of quicksand by his own hair). 

It all returns us to the simple and fundamental nature of reality (even when it comes to mathematics) that there is an inexplicable (ineffible) state of first person human experience that defies all objective truth. The simple act of observation  (observing something) is never complete, but remains always a construct of the mind only and made possible by the way we think.

Which makes this all a perfect video in Transhumanist discussion circles.  "Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed." Moses 1:10 Pearl of Great Price (or for the secularists out there "Onions have layers" quote from Shrek).
"Bot"-tee-licious
Posted: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 6:05:36 AM
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jdlaw wrote:
Another great video by Veritasium

I Can Prove It

Yep, it is, jdlaw. The content, the animations and everything else about it are superb. A second viewing is a must to really absorb its contents. Russell's Paradox, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, and Turing's Halting problem all in the one video, what more can one want (or maybe, not want, if it leaves you more confused than ever!).

Something for us to bear in mind is William Shakespeare's quote about wisdom from 'As You Like It': "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." No matter how much you know, it is nothing compared to everything that there is yet to know.

And, this one, by Confucius, which really hits home for me: "By three methods we may learn wisdom. First by reflection, which is the noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest, and third by experience, which is the bitterest."

jdlaw wrote:
My exact thought from the title of the video before even watching it was that nothing is provable.

I suppose if nothing is provable then one can't go wrong by taking the Taoist/Buddhist 'Middle Way' approach to life. It shows us the paradox of the Universe, within and beyond the opposites. Neither a path of denial nor of affirmation. A way to peace and liberation in this very life.

"Bot"-tee-licious
Posted: Tuesday, May 25, 2021 8:23:56 AM
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Oops, Edit.

Sorry jdlaw, on reading it seemed that I was directing my words to you personally but I meant them to encompass everyone, hence I've now inserted the words 'for us' in the first line of the second paragraph, and substituted 'one' for 'you' in the first line of the last paragraph. I really should read over the content carefully before posting!

jim
Posted: Saturday, June 19, 2021 1:07:37 PM

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Great video - thanks for sharing, jdlaw.

A few random observations...

1. My brain hurts and I need to watch it again
2. He narrates this from my favorite hiking trail, which isn't far from where I live
3. Unknowable things makes intuitive sense in the "physical" world (dynamic reality generation). In the mathematical world, they are almost more interesting. Not sure if there is anything fundamental about it though, rather than it being due to forced inconsistencies.
4. The gapless quantum system bothers me. I feel like even the so-called continuous energy band is really just a finite set of energy levels; the gap between which is just way smaller than a gapped system.
"Bot"-tee-licious
Posted: Sunday, June 20, 2021 4:15:43 AM
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jim wrote:
4. The gapless quantum system bothers me. I feel like even the so-called continuous energy band is really just a finite set of energy levels; the gap between which is just way smaller than a gapped system.

So are analog and continuous concepts in maths such as continuous functions and spaces, real and complex numbers, only useful inventions of the human mind, to solve problems in a discrete world with approximations? Are continuous concepts ontologically real or not? Is the Universe computable? Still, the controversy lives on!

jdlaw
Posted: Thursday, August 26, 2021 6:38:46 PM

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Well hopefully this is not too nonsequiter, but would you rather be, or a duck?

The universe is "computable" (quotation marks) because the universe is the universe. If the universe is programmed, then it computes itself in order to be.

On the other hand if "computable" means 1s and 0s -- then probably not?
"Bot"-tee-licious
Posted: Saturday, August 28, 2021 2:06:53 AM
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jdlaw wrote:
The universe is "computable" (quotation marks) because the universe is the universe. If the universe is programmed, then it computes itself in order to be.

On the other hand if "computable" means 1s and 0s -- then probably not?

jdlaw, what does it mean for something to be computable?!

My understanding is as follows:

If it is possible to create a Turing Machine to solve a problem in a finite number of steps we say it is computable and if not then it is incomputable/undecidable.

But some problems are just not computable. For instance, such a problem exits in set theory called Russell's Paradox, or for example, the Barber's Paradox. These types of problems are contradictions because they are always false; thus, are unsolvable. It is impossible to think of a Turing Machine to solve the Barber's Paradox because it contradicts itself: it has not a 'yes or no' answer, which in turn means it is incomputable/undecidable.

There are just so many contradictions, so my conclusion is that you can never get to the bottom of what the critical mind is by using the mind. You can only understand the nature of mind by transcending the mind. We are trying to use logic; we are trying to use concepts; we are trying to use the mind to understand the mind; to use logic to understand logic; to use concepts to understand concepts, and that is never going to work according to Gödel's Incompleteness Theroem. If you use a system to look at itself there will always be a blind spot. That is why we have to go above the level of whatever we're in, in order to understand it.

jdlaw
Posted: Saturday, September 4, 2021 4:56:29 AM

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"Bot"-tee-licious wrote:

jdlaw, what does it mean for something to be computable?!

My understanding is as follows:


We are talking about the same "computabilty." I am thinking that the first step to understanding computability is the realization that more things exist than are observable (by us).

I define "reality" along the lines of observability. Things are "real" because we can "see" them ("see" as in both observing and comprehending something). "Existance" is a much bigger realm than reality in this model.

This goes back to my notion that all "first person experience" is -- is nothing more than highly evolved data error.

In other words it is nothing more than computational error for us sentient (sensing) creatures—to use to complete a free will act. We do this by transforming sensory input data after storing it somewhere in the brain, to then actually fathom its existence.

For example, not just "seeing" that something is red with a 700nm wavelength relection of light, but "seeing" and contemplating what it means to be "red."

Your very "being" (or sense of "is" in the abstract) is by very definition uncomputable (in a Turing Machine construct). Some call it "epiphenominal." You cannot program (compute) a data error. But, you can register the parsing of sensory and personality data input that occurred immediately before that data error crash occurred. This hedging effect is turned into what we call a belief or doubt, which in turn are two sides of the coin. We can freeze like a deer in the headlights or react. In the end, it is more efficient in nature to have that data crash happen rather than to instinctively just carry out a predetermined programmed response. In other words, better to mistakenly "see" that tiger lurking in the shrubs and react than it is to not see it and be eaten.

But, when we enlarge our concepts of existence to include the unobservable (or beyond just observable reality) -- we then begin to fathom that the universe is computable in the mere fact that it computes itself. We can never compute it, because we are a "nested variable" within it.

To me this all goes back to my work on the understanding of "nested variables" (and borrowing those concepts from Jon Stewart Bell) to realize that quantum computers "compute" many things, but those computations are only useful when the output is given in a classical computing form (or "1s" and "0s") . Nested Variables - "The Son"
"Bot"-tee-licious
Posted: Monday, September 6, 2021 4:40:33 AM
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jdlaw, I really enjoyed reading your article on "nested variables." I guess it all boils down to semantics and the way we use and understand words. It is a definitional argument. :-)

jdlaw
Posted: Tuesday, September 7, 2021 5:12:00 AM

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"Bot"-tee-licious wrote:
jdlaw, I really enjoyed reading your article on "nested variables." I guess it all boils down to semantics and the way we use and understand words. It is a definitional argument. :-)



Just like "the law of attraction" we hear about, I think that the sub rule of attraction is that the created (or "programmed") nature of the Universe prevents our mutual understanding of how data error can be the cause of first person experience.

I think that these concepts of "nested variables" affecting all observations is pretty straight forward, but.these attraction forces in the Program matrix (that is our reality) prevent a broad swath of the population from ever truly understanding it.

I guess in this exchange (here in this forum) I have just fully become a deciple to Jim's "The Universe Solved" way of thinking (though I have been following this forum since about 2007). It all comes full circle. Somebody actually read and made a cogent comment about how "nested variables" affects our entire concept of reality.

As that famous animated character played by Michael Myers once said to his animated donkey, "Onions have layers" and so do Ogres.
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