Hello, Cy, OMF II - Part 2

First topic message reminder :

And for the insane, or other wise, we present:

Schroedinger's Cat is not Alone

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.4206v4

Beatriz Gato, Beatriz Gato-Rivera
(Submitted on 23 Apr 2010 (v1), last revised 31 Mar 2011 (this version, v4))
We introduce the `Complete Wave Function' and deduce that all living beings, not just Schroedinger's cat, are actually described by a superposition of `alive' and `dead' quantum states; otherwise they would never die. Therefore this proposal provides a quantum mechanical explanation to the world-wide observation that we all pass away. Next we consider the Measurement problem in the framework of M-theory. For this purpose, together with Schroedinger's cat we also place inside the box Rasputin's cat, which is unaffected by poison. We analyse the system identifying its excitations (catons and catinos) and we discuss its evolution: either to a classical fight or to a quantum entanglement. We also propose the BSVΨ scenario, which implements the Complete Wave Function as well as the Big Bang and the String Landscape in a very (super)natural way. Then we test the gravitational decoherence of the entangled system applying an experimental setting due to Galileo. We also discuss the Information Loss paradox. For this purpose we consider a massless black cat falling inside a massive black hole. After that we outline a method to compute the contribution of black cats to the dark matter of the universe. Finally, in the spirit of Schroedinger, we propose that next generation double-slit experiments should use cats as projectiles. Cat interferometry will inevitably lead to the `Many Cats' interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, allowing to shed new light on old mysteries and paradoxes. For example, according to this interpretation, conservative estimates show that decision making of a single domestic cat will create about 550 billion whole universes every day, with as many replicas of itself.

Words, of course, are the atoms of thought.
...
Before words there was the potentia. Potentia is the mythos.

Allow me to play with words for a moment, in that this wordplay may accord with some of your explorations:

Vatican ... Vatechon ... Vatecon {vatican and eonomics = Vat-econ}. Thus, what would happen if the Vat-econ morphed into the Vatican {assuming here that the Vatican is meant to be something along the lines of Potentia, or Mythos)? Would such a morphing transport man beyond atoms or even beyond transactions that have no material basis at all?
Vat y can: or barrel and jar; or, wine and activity ... or word play, or reaching for stars that do not exist?

Or, a vat of wine and a can do attitude? Thus, the Vat y Can aka Vatycan aka Vatican.
Or, a vat of wine is like a beautiful woman, and a can do attitude like a great man: So, there you have it; we're back to square one, aka the mythos of woman and her great potentia.

Skai,

Yes, now you're getting into the spirit of the katechon........


4:40-----------

Had convos w/ princess and Paul Z, and a call into Colton.  

Trying to get the comm straightened out.  Might be able to use skype for outgoing calls.  Not sure what the charge is for incoming calls.  


6:05------------

For future reference, it is 2.50/min for calls in/out with no plan or no card. ATT does the billing. The cheapest 'passport' plan reduces that to 1.00/min. The local phone cards reduce the outgoing calls to about .33/min. Skype over wifi reduces that to .05/min. It took me all afternoon to figure this out.

After dinner, I can get back to complementarity.......


(cont.)

We are having a close encounter with either the Sea Cloud or one of the Windjammer boats.  This is only the second year that they have been sailing to cyb out of Cuba.  Tonight it will sail on to Grand Cayman, or maybe to Jamaica.  Quite a sight, even from shore.  

Paul was not immediately enamored with a revision or extension of complementarity, but he has not read Greg's book, yet.  

We're off to see the boat dock, and then to the lighthouse on the east end.  There are lots of boat wrecks on these little islands.


5:50--------

I had recently downloaded Picknett and Prince's Forbidden Universe, and I don't recall on whose recommendation, but it does seem to fit well with GD/OSG. PP/FU picks up where Hermes Trismegistus left off. Clearly, the magical and the sacred overlap, virtually in full. Pico della Mirandola is one of the main Renaissance proponents of Hermeticism. Augustine and Aquinas touted HT as being proto-Christian.




(cont.)

Is complementarity normative, we might wish to know.  At the very least, we have an interpretive issue.  Interpretation is an irreducibly normative process, is it not?  Descriptive language is employed.  Descriptions are intentional.  All language is intentional.  

Applied mathematics is intentional, sure.  Pure mathematics is symbolic.  There are various ontological interpretations of mathematics and logic, mainly divided between the ontological and the nominal, or between realist and anti-realist positions.  

It is hard to find a mathematician who is not a realist, or a philosopher who is.  It occurs, then, that AI folks must be anti-realist.  They must be complete nominalists wrt all things mental.  

Hermeneutics is another word that springs to mind, especially in the context of HT.  Nominalists may rail against the mystifications of us 'hermenauts'.  Hermeneutics is largely about bringing out or exploring the coherence of various texts, of rendering them possibly consistent.  

Philosophers might aver that quantum physics is incoherent.  Physicists would agree only to a limited extent.  They would say, shut up and calculate.  There is nominalism for you.  Or is it?  You calculate a number, sure, but then you have to know where and how to go measure it.  That is normativity with a vengeance.  

Nominalists would, and have, said that complementarity is just a decoration, just word salad, as Jack would say.  Could we claim to comprehend the world, without metaphor?  Could we claim to communicate?  How do we learn a new language?  


4:20--------

Following up on PP/FU/HT and David's interest in the Samaritans, I have read the wiki entry on Simon Magus, and also the speculations on the legend of the Exodus.  



(cont.)

Our last day on cyb....... the wind continues, while reverting to the normal tradewind, which usually suffices to raise a few whitecaps.  

Yes, we do need to combine PP/FU with GD/OSG, but they both fail to grasp the crucial, and I do mean crucial, complementarity between quantity and quality.  This is where chicken little comes into his little lonesome.  

Absolutely no one has gotten this.  No one quite has the chutzpah to dislodge the Pillars of Hercules.  

Quantity and quality cannot both reign.  One has to usurp the other.  It was Giordano, the great Hermeticist, who concocted that mathematical tower of Babel, the one that Cantor reluctantly cannonized with his 'infinity of infinities'.

Yes, Giordano led us into the false dawn of the quantitative transcendental.  And so we have been mesmerized by the infinities of physics, and the absolutes of space and time.  Those absolutes have only been slightly 'restrained' by the quantum and the 'geon'.  

Then there was Robert Pirsig with his New Age classic, ZAMM.... a metaphysics of quality (MoQ), which he juxtaposes to the Cartesian dichotomy of subject and object.  Yes, Pirsig's MoQ could well be our monument to Complementarity.  Hegel was on to this, of course, but he could not quite relinquish his death-grip upon the Absolute.  

It is the Personalists, Boston/California, who best anticipated the mad genius of ZAMM......

The Personal Idealism of Howison was explained in his book " The Limits of Evolution and Other Essays Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Idealism". Howison created a radically democratic notion of personal idealism that extended all the way to God, who was no more the ultimate monarch, no longer the only ruler and creator of the universe, but the ultimate democrat in eternal relation to other eternal persons.

Just slightly too democratic, perhaps, or not sufficiently trinitarian.  


10:15-----------

From: Dan
Date: January 30, 2015 at 10:10:25 AM EST
To: Princess, Paul, David and Colton

Subject: warming up for the Trieste......

.... and the final showdown with (we know) Jack......

https://openmindsforum.forumotion.com/t175p795-hello-cy-omf-ii-part-2#5896

I trust that we can enlist the Princess, in this regard.  

Against Giordano and Cantor, I juxtapose Srinivasa and the Mandelbrot, to bring out the qualitative organicity of mathematics.  I think that Penrose gets this with his metaphysical triangle of math, matter and mind.....

http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0510188v2.pdf .


11:45--------

The basic premise of the BPWH is that if you ever allow mind to get its foot in the ontological door, it will, in very short order, take over the cosmos.  This fact of life is exactly why the materialists get so uptight about anything that smacks of the mind.  Strong AI is their last hurrah.  They must defend that beachhead against all odds.  Their odds are getting slimmer, by the day.  

They are about to be driven into the Sea, into the Apeiron.  In the Apeiron, quality has both feet in that door.  How do I know?  Just think about it.......

Once we let go of the Newtonian absolutes of space and time, we get to Space, Time and Beyond.  Beyond Ananda?  Who rules the Apeiron, if it is not Agape?  The Apeiron is nothing without a dab of cosmic glue.  Once you grasp this little fact of life, you are.... all ye, all ye, in free......


1:20--------

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/01/tom-stoppards-new-play


3:40---------

I have spoken with David, Paul and the Princess.....

It seems that we have Jack on the hook, but we will probably need the Princess to pull the line, i.e. to sink the hook.  

But, yes, Jack is a tad skeptical of the Princess' powers.  We do need to turn Jack into a believer.  I don't think that will be too difficult.  

I'll be talking to Colton in a couple of hours.  Has he spoken to Joshua or Loren, the Princess would like to know?  We are preparing for a go-to-meeting on Sunday.  


4:15--------

I'm still onto the Hut, Alford and Tegmark 15p paper.  It may be crucial.  

It is possible, sports fans, that the HAT paper, '05, will turn out to be the most important 'scientific' paper written, up until just about now.  But, hey, I've been wrong before.    

The diagrams on p7 are are very important.  


4:30---------

As someone once said, we only need a mustard seed of faith.  


5:35---------

I finally realize that Tegmark is the 'fundamentalist'. None of them, HAT, have any concept of the eschaton. This is their fundamental problem. I just spoke with JB of SfA. I hope to maintain this contact, therewith. They do have a concept of the eschaton. That is why we take each other seriously, I do believe.



(cont.)

Dan, re: HAT, you might also recall this (and the possibly related Quantum Immortality argument (see https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality.html):

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0512204v2.pdf

Numerous Earth-destroying doomsday scenarios have recently been analyzed, including breakdown of a metastable vacuum state and planetary destruction triggered by a "strangelet'' or microscopic black hole. We point out that many previous bounds on their frequency give a false sense of security: one cannot infer that such events are rare from the the fact that Earth has survived for so long, because observers are by definition in places lucky enough to have avoided destruction. We derive a new upper bound of one per 10^9 years (99.9% c.l.) on the exogenous terminal catastrophe rate that is free of such selection bias, using planetary age distributions and the relatively late formation time of Earth.

From: Dan
Date: February 1, 2015 at 10:59:36 AM EST
To: Princess
Cc: Paul, David and Colton

Subject: Agenda issue........

I'll be heading down to Tyson's microsoft store where the Princess, et al, will be presiding over the second class in the third of her six-week drone series, as outlined on KWF.  

The phone conference is tentatively set for 4pm eastern.  We understand that Colton has spoken with Loren and maybe with Joshua.  I had a six minute convo with Colton on Friday.  I don't recall that we discussed any particular agenda.  I was more focused on the meeting in SF, the 3rd week of this month.  But, yes, our little conference this pm might likely touch upon or allude to our SF agenda.  

Besides, Kashmir, princess-in-training, who is, admittedly, a bit of a captive audience, our various and sundry interns might be viewed as a (relatively) naive audience, especially wrt items philosophical and/or political.  Kashmir, the country, is, somehow, on our collective agenda, for instance, explicitly and implicitly.  

At last count, there had been 40+ prospective interns who had signed the roster for the KWF.  Colton and Sheeva had specifically signed onto the Academia section.  Colton has done a lot of work on that section, with precious little direct help from me.  Rather, if you put it to me bluntly, I use much of Colton's precious time to interact on the specific topic of the BPWH.  Yes, mea-culpa, I'm inclined to use any and all passers-by as an ad hoc focus group wrt BPWH/SWH.  And, yes, 'small' is just my euphemism for eschatological, and I certainly don't mean that in any sort of merely 'academic' sense.  

So there we are, and I've barely gotten warmed up, as you all know.  It would be helpful if the Princess and I could speak with you, Colton, prior to 4pm.  Perhaps, Paul, you could be available at sometime during the conference call.  

cc: OMF



On Jan 31, 2015, at 7:04 PM, Princess Aliyah wrote:

Dan this is your big day. We will let you and Colton take the lead. I will provide my input throughout.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 31, 2015, at 17:24, Dan wrote:

Princess,

First of all, we will want to welcome Loren and Joshua to the Kashmir World Foundation, and ask them to tell us about their interests and concerns, and invite their questions.  

Quite possibly, or even most likely, Loren and Joshua will be quite innocent of things eschatological.  I will attempt to briefly explain the best possible eschaton.  And then.....what?  

Let's suppose that L&J politely demur or defer.  With Colton's permission, we can invite them to join with him in a more general philosophical quest, being especially on the lookout for less radical versions of 'postmodern' philosophy.  I could still provide guidance.  

Or, Princess, we could simply let you and Colton take the lead with the new interns, and I would act as the interested observer.  I have not yet asked Paul or David for their suggestions.  

Dan


On Jan 30, 2015, at 11:03 PM, Aliyah wrote:

What will we be covering?

The latest New Yorker has a profile of Yitang Zhang, an 'obscure' mathematician who made a major advance in number theory in 2013.  A documentary about him has just been released.  He had a mustard seed of faith that kept him working on the problem for ten years, where everyone else had just walked away.  

Zhang was working on a version of the twin-prime conjecture, a conjecture so ancient that it has no known author.  This has to do with the distribution of the primes.  

If you are interested in the distribution of the primes, or many other interesting aspects of math, the person to watch is Terrence Tao.  Terry makes liberal use of pseudorandom generators to model the primes.  Such models invariably demonstrate the twin-prime conjecture that there will be an infinity of such twins.  The question is whether the primes may conspire to violate randomness in subtle ways.  

The eigenvalues of random unitary matrices are notoriously shy of one another, for instance.  The roots of the Riemann function exhibit a similar property.  OTOH, the Ulam spiral of primes, exhibits their unusual gregariousness, in certain locales, whose provenence remains conjectural, but easily demonstrable.  Deep areas of number theory are known to be related to these prime congruences.  

Zhang's breakthrough was to prove that there had to be a finite number, N, such that there would be an infinite number of primes separated by just that number of spaces.  He was able to demonstrate that there had to be at least one such N < 70 million.  Yes, 70 million is a lot bigger than the conjectured 2.  Terry T quickly organized a team to bring that upper bound all the way down to 256, but then the going gets tough.  Some of the next 254 steps are conjectured to be truly fiendish, particularly at step 16.  

What is going on here?  Yes, it is as if the primes were conspiring to conceal their conjugacy.  Or are they actually performing the dance of 256 veils?  From an eschatological view, I tend to favor the latter.  Here we see the Katechon in action.  Nature abhors a singularity, perhaps more so than a vacuum.  It is here that the Apeiron hoves into view.  The aether lifts her skirts.  This is where we learn the lesson of the Logos, about the birds and the bees...... where physics becomes Physis.  


1pm-------------

We might wonder, how deep is mathematics?  As deep as necessary?  It has to be deep enough to be organic.  It must be able to reflect the logic of the logos.  It must be able to support an anthropic physics (=Physis).  It must be able to contain a monster and a mandelbrot.  

It must challenge and demonstrate the trans-comutational intuitions of the mind, as with Srinivasa and his mock thetas.  Do the integers conspire to conceal so much structure?  Did numerology speak to the organicity of the numbers.  The stars ought to reflect this, and perhaps the moon does.  Are we not microcosms?  If not, we have missed our calling, as the braincells of God.  

When will we be able to see the complementarity of quanity and quality?  Even Marx claimed to see this in his dialectic.  10^10 may speak to this complementarity.  


3pm-------

Yes, somehow the numbers have conspired to produce sapience, or is it the other way around?  Do the numbers reflect our conspiracy?  

But, wait, I said I would try to locate Bronson's (?) son, ACB, for some unspecified purpose.  Ron used to communicate with him.  Last known location was in the VA suburbs.  I see no further info, relevant or otherwise.  

Talking to Bill L, he suggests that the father could have been the film actor.  That is the extent of my investigation.  


4:35--------

I still have no idea how physics became mathematical.  In retrospect, it is difficult to imagine that phyiscs might not have acquired a mathematical basis.  How else might it have 'worked'?  Logic and math, virtually by default, have ingratiated themselves into our phenomenological cycles.  

We might as well ask how atoms become embedded in phenomena, since atoms are now seen a mathematical constructs.  Same for gravity.  

We are atoms of God. Our atoms reflect our own atomhood. Atoms behave statistically, and there are statistical models for newtonian gravity. Still, we have to consider the symmetries of space and time that lead to the conservation of motion. Measurement comes into the picture at an early stage.

Was motion conserved before we got rulers and clocks? Clocks assume a constant of motion. Before that, we had heartbeats and sundials. Rain falls on the measured and the unmeasured.




(cont.)

Which came first, space or matter, or did they emerge together?  

Then there is the Buddhist concept of 'codependent arising'.  This is how a monistic emergence must work.  If time necessarily co-emerges in the same process, then we have the logical basis of a CTC, especially one that is modeled on a (toroidal) cocoon, with the single strand of 'silk' becoming the multiple loops of the cosmic monad/soul, as in the Wheeler-Feynman one-electron model of the universe.  

This could also be the Ouroboric serpent with the head at Omega biting its tail that is the Alpha.  This is the mythos of the Milkyway, that is also the path of the souls.  

KIM, that 'emergence' is being used here in a logical, rather than temporal, sense.  This is the idea of actuality 'emerging' out of potentiality.  How does a symphony emerge out of the mind of the composer?  It may be rather as Athena sprang from the forehead of Zeus.  Time is not a factor.  Time/sequence is just part of the potentiality.  

Numbers emerge from the logos.  Numbers emerged very late in the evolution of language.  Do phenomena emerge from logos?  Do the phenomena of sentients differ from those of us sapients?  

There is the philosophical canoodle that resides under the banner of the LOTH, language of thought hypothesis, or 'mentalese' - Fodor.   Which comes first, thought or language?  Are they not co-emergent?  

The idea behind mentalese is that in order to operate, thought must have a syntax, just like computer code, for instance.  Otherwise, it's just one big mushy phantasmagoria.

Wonderful.  But then we have the strong semblance of an infinite regress, with one kind of language explaining another kind.  Where resides the Ur-language?  Is this also the problem of Chomsky's universal grammar?  

...cognition and cognitive processes are only 'remotely plausible' when expressed as a system of representations that is "tokened" by a linguistic or semantic structure...

Love that phrase..... 'remotely plausible'.  And then there is this.....

The LOTH has wide-ranging significance for a number of domains in cognitive science. It relies on a version of functionalist materialism, which holds that mental representations are actualized and modified by the individual holding the propositional attitude, and it challenges eliminative materialism and connectionism. It implies a strongly rationalist model of cognition in which many of the fundamentals of cognition are innate.

Yes, there is the sense in which the LOTH poses a 'reductio' to materialism, generally.  

And all of this arises from the twin-prime conjecture?  From Zhang's mustard seed of faith?  

Thoughts must have some kind of graininess.  If they are holistic, then how can we parse our own thinking?  What is the language of Mozart's or Srinivasa's muse?  Wouldn't we love to see the dictionary?  Is this the music of the spheres, the akashic record, the logos, the aether?  

Mathematics is the bridge between holism and atomism.  Who is responsible for inspecting that bridge?  Is it not a crucial part of the cosmic infrastructure?  


12:35----------

The integers are the atoms of math.  Amongst the integers, the primes stand out, rather individualistically, independently, but how indepedent are they?  If they were completely independent, the twin-prime conjecture would have been a no-brainer.  But, no, it was ten years of concentration on a wide variety of esoteric tools, just to say that 70 million was a sufficient latitiude to permit an infinitude of 'cousins'.  Once that finite beachhead had been secured, many minds came together to squeeze that limiting proximity down to a mere 256.  Beyond that point, the obstacles to further progress are seen to magnify and multiply.  How does a no-brainer transmogrify into needing a thousand and one geniuses?  It has to do with the no-man's land between the random and the determinate, between the apeiron and the logos.  It is the realm of potentiality.... the realm of the monster and the Mandelbrot.... wherein you may need two mustard seeds of faith.  

Wherein lies the holism of math?  Does it differ from the holism of words?  And what of biology?  

The lowly ellipse provides a jumping-off point for a great deal of esotericism.  Do we know why the simple and the sublime seem so often to be kissing cousins?  Whoever knows is keeping it quiet.  We don't know why e^i*pi = -1.  Yes, there are many easy ways to demonstrate this simple fact, but there is no intuitive sense to it.  How is it not a token of a cosmic conspiracy, for instance?  Each 'simple' proof requires an infinite regression, I believe.



(cont.)

Numbers emerged very late in the evolution of language.

Dan, re: emergence of numbers (and counting) ...

Scientists in Italy have found that baby chickens associate low and high numbers with left and right, respectively - just like humans.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31038256

From: Dan
Date: February 5, 2015 at 2:32:34 PM EST
To: KwF
Cc: Colton, Lauren, Joshua

Subject: Re: Here is the Sufi film I was referring to

Aliyah,

Al-Ghazali (1056-1111) is thought by many to be the most influential Muslim, second only to Muhammad, PBUH, the Messenger.  

Al-Ghazali has, historically, suffered many misinterpretations, mainly in the West.  His early training was in the tradition of 'falsafa'.  Falsafa was a nascent movement amongst Muslim philosophers, borrowing on the works of the Greek philosophers and the Neoplatonists.  Avicenna and Averroes were the leading lights in this movement.  

Al-Ghazali's nearest counterpart in the West would be Thomas Aquinas.  It fell to al-Ghazali to demarcate the bounds between reason and revelation.  He managed this task so successfully that Islam has had a much less traumatic history than did the Christian West.  Yes, western rationalism reigns supreme, but at a very heavy historical price.  

If I can contribute anything to the Kashmir World Foundation's Academia/philosophy section, it would be to help explicate a new synthesis of reason and revelation.  I do this largely on the shoulders of the likes of al-Ghazali.  In particular, I would note the historical fact of his borrowing the notion of the 'best possible world' from Avicenna.  I freely borrowed this notion from Leibniz, not previously being aware of this chain of transmission from east to west.  

The BPW hypothesis is the basis of this attempted synthesis that I have been working on with Colton.

Dan


On Feb 3, 2015, at 11:50 PM, KwF wrote:

https://youtu.be/Zk1rsVCF8N0

Gary,

I can speculate that we have another (universal) form of synaesthesia at work here. Any such forms point to the irreducibility of consciousness.

There is no such thing as "space" in the above context. Sometimes called the "void", it is nothing, yet "it" is not nothing because it does not exist.

Rebuttal: It is a state of mind.
Whose mind?
Nothing does not exist in anyone's mind.

Matter exists including forces etc. which cause relationship.

"Nothing is real" ;-) Ask John Lennon!

Let me take you down, cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

With respect to the above, anything we map (in our minds), including "nothing," is real by definition, since all information requires representation.

Dan, regarding "little chickens" and "chicken little" ;-) -- what of the 'psychokinetic' influence of the chicken masters on the little chicks? One might ask the same regarding certain cats(fish) and the like.

Skai and Gary,

Yes, we have been overwhelmed by a lot of Nothing.  We love to suppose that we are lost in Space.  But why?  

Are we just trying to put a positive spin on our cosmic insignificance?  Are we trying to perfume a planetary dung heap?  

Or, perchance, do we have just a tad of stage fright?  

Does Ron mess with my mind?  Is the pope Catholic?  How far does he get?  Maybe we're about to find out.  I.e., the trip to the Trieste is still being negotiated.  Is Jack the Pope of North Beach?  He certainly is a member of the NB Curia.  Can Ron whisper a sweet Nothing in his ear?  I give him my full confidence.  Am I an easier target than Jack?  Maybe, yes..... maybe, no.

As I've asked on previous occasions..... are we a cancer or a chrysalis?  


9pm-----------

It's easy enough for me to say that atoms are just an abstraction. In many cases they are. But then we have evaporation and condensation. There is nothing very abstract about that. What might be the metaphysics of water vapor?

God may be able to number the hairs on our head, but does she also have to number the water molecules? That could get downright tedious. No?



(cont.)

Dan: God may be able to number the hairs on our head, but does she also have to number the water molecules? That could get downright tedious. No?

I believe the key word is 'fungible'

Being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.

And this, especially in emergent systems?

From: Dan
Date: February 7, 2015 at 2:20:29 PM EST
To: Ron
Cc: Paul
Subject: Re: Draft Agenda for Jack

Ron,

It is mostly my fault that, after 23 years, you can still, with some degree of honesty, plead almost total ignorance wrt the BPWH. Jack is not stupid. He will immediately sense that you are speaking from a position of implied ignorance.

At this juncture, there is no point in my having any conversations with Jack, or with anyone else who is not simply a seeker after truth. Jack has never posed as such.

The BPWH purports to be the closest approach to a coherent truth that has been attempted since the onslaught of Darwinism. I am open only to alterations that purport to bring a greater coherence to this table. Neither you, nor Jack, nor the Pope, nor the President are currently in a position of knowledge whereby you could reasonably be expected to make a coherent contribution to anything that poses as a BPWH.

My only point of meeting with Jack was to have him publicly withdraw his ill-considered opinion as to the implausibility of the BPWH. You, Ron, are the best possible person to make that emphatic request to Jack, to read him the Riot Act, in other words. He would listen to you, in that regard, more readily than he would listen to either a Pope or a President, bless both of their hearts.

Why might Jack listen to you, and not to me or a President? Why have I remained accessible to you for all these years, without our ever having had a substantive discussion of the BPWH?

Please, allow me to explain.........

You may recall the Ron&Dan 'show'. You claim, in public, never to have taken it seriously. I claim the opposite. End of story? Perhaps, but not quite yet, not on my estimation.

It is entirely plausible, Ron, that, from your position of studied ignorance, you have, in fact, seen the last 23 years, in communication with me, as simply being a joke, if not possibly a cosmic joke. So be it. Your ignorance, studied or otherwise, is not my concern, here.

What has only ever concerned me wrt the R&D 'show' is that you have, since we met, allowed your shingle as the potential and semi-official liaison to things extramundane, to be displayed in public, at least by me, if no one else. Jack, if no one else, understands this much about you.

IOW, you are my designated lightning rod. Jack and a few others take that to heart.

I have simply been waiting, with more or less patience, for the lightning to strike. I can only hope that Jack and I will be among the first on your rolodex, in that eventuality.


Dan



On Feb 6, 2015, at 9:53 PM, Ron wrote:

Meeting between Dan Smith and Jack Sarfatti to discuss common grounds on integration of art, science, philosophy, and theology. Dan will present current perspective drawn from his blogs and personal notes. Jack will clarify where, if anywhere, there is agreement, and where there potentially could be agreement with refinement.

Outcome will be clear statements by Jack of concurrence, rejection,or refinement of Dan's perspectives.

From: Dan
Date: February 8, 2015 at 10:48:51 AM EST
To: Ron
Cc: Paul
Subject: Re: Draft Agenda for Jack

Ron,

Jack's position of complete dismissal wrt the BPWH is, superficially, at least, entirely political...... political on two counts.... I am his main rival.... both wrt to his fringe physics audience, and wrt to his purported gov't connections.

OTOH, I don't think Jack is just being stupid or selfish about this. He understands that the BPWH would be a very hard sell, outside of his own limited circle. Years ago, he might well have said, ok, sports fans, let's give 'Danianity' a little bit credence, and just see where it goes.

But, no, Ron, Jack, in public, has been very much like you....... 'Dan is crazy'.... full stop.

IOW, Ron, why should Jack stick his neck out, where you are refusing to stick your neck out? It's like..... after you, Alphonse.

There we have a major road block. I am suggesting to you, Ron, that you could, privately, and without great difficulty, persuade Jack to take the fall for both of you, simply on 'patriotic' grounds. In the process, if necessary, he could, perhaps, point the finger, generically, to other 'sources'.

It would be much better, in the long view, to have Jack be out front on this, instead of you or the President or the Pope. Am I not right about this? This is all in the interest of a continued posture of 'cosmic minimalism', which has been our Prime Directive from the 'git-go', TBMK.

Am I making myself clear, Ron?

Dan


On Feb 7, 2015, at 4:06 PM, Ron wrote:

Apparently my attempt failed at preparing a short description of what will be discussed and the intended outcome. Perhaps Paul can try a second attempt. If the desired outcome of the meeting with Jack is to have him publicly withdraw his ill-considered opinion as to the implausibility of the BPWH, then perhaps the discussion should be about the BPWH and Jack's opinion. To make this work, you will need a paragraph describing the BPWH and Jack's apparent current opinion thereof. __Ron

Gary, above, speaks to 'fungibility' as a work-around for divine 'numerancy'.  

I suppose that this might be coming from his posture of Informationalism or neutral monism.  

A prime obstacle to an immaterial monism are the symmetry/conservation laws of conventional physics.  How might they be implemented or simulated in a metaphysical context, i.e. without granting an absolute indpendence to space and time?  Or, in Gary's phrasing, how may space and time be rendered 'fungible'?  

This has always been the Katechon wrt the BPWH.  

Does informationalism offer any insights in this regard, relative to outright idealism?  

I have tried turning this problem around....... the most dramatic example of space-time symmetry is E = MC^2, which leads directly to nuclear weapons, for example.  

It seems equally difficult to render a neutral monist interpretation of nuclear energy.  

But is it any easier to reinterpret evaporation, for instance?  Where is the loose thread for us to pull on?  


2pm--------

Fungibility makes some sense in biological systems.  The cells themselves are fungible in a microcosmic fashion..... seen one cell, seen them all.  But it seems a long way from biology to Trinity Flats.  How many angels were dancing on the head of that pin?  

Should we try to explain stars before explaining TF?  Is it fire from the sky?  What about lightning?  Do we steal fire from the gods?  

What would al-Ghazali say about the occasionalism of the H-bomb?  Or would we need to invoke 'angels' in a more explicit, dare we say, reproducible, fashion?  


I remember, as a child, having a radium dial alarm clock in my bedroom.  It would glow all night.  One night I put it under a microscope whence I could see the individual flashes.  Occasionalism?  

It could have been a plutonium dial.  I could have combed through a junk yard or two.  Occasionalism on steroids?  The glow-rate would have increased, non-linerarly.  Angels holding hands?  

Where does this cross the line from waterdrops dancing on a hot skillet?  A steam engine exploading?  Where does one draw an ontological line?  


4:30----------

But does the ontological/phenomenological gap not increase as we progress from acid indigestion to Trinity Flats?  Are we not stretching phenomenology and pan-psychism to their breaking point?  

Could the world not end in a nuclear winter?  

Is discontinuity an insurmountable problem?  


6:40----------

Discontinuities abound in nature, both organic an inorganic.

Re: atoms..... I'm tempted to say that the atoms are ok, but the Void has got to go.


(cont.)

A. What is the point of discussing reality?
B. Answer: to create relationships.
C. Is paraorganic ... or any other word smithing
D. What about reality that language is insufficient to engage?

From: Dan
Date: February 9, 2015 at 10:20:01 AM EST
To: Jack
Cc: Paul and Ron
Subject: Moving forward........

Let's try this once again.........

Jack, I know that you know that this is not just about the money. And, yes, as we all know, I did sign an IOU to you for [xxx]. I did that in good faith. If I'm not good to my word, what am I good for?

Also, Jack, you and I agree that the world is in imminent peril. Ron may agree with this, but he is not in a position to say so. Even if he said it to me, privately, I would feel compelled to report it, just to maintain my existing protocol.

The problem here, with both you and Ron, is the 'crazy' talk. I understand why Ron would need to refer to me as crazy. I understand why you like to do the same. But, if we are to move forward, something will have to give.

I'm simply proposing, Jack, that you take the fall for Ron. Yes, this is asking a lot. That is why I am sticking by my offer. Here is the caveat..... Ron will have to agree that this is the best way forward. I'm sure he can figure out how to signal his agreement, and still maintain deniability.

TBMK, Jack, there are two items that trigger your 'crazy' talk...... 'small world' and 'sunfish'. And, yes, I understand that both of these sound crazy. But this is not the point. My only point is that neither one is implausible. Furthermore, I am saying that there can be a world of difference between crazy and implausible.

So, yes, I actually don't mind if you continue to call me crazy, just don't call me implausible.

Yes, both items are implausible scientifically, but not rationally. This is the other critical distinction that I am making..... science, as conventionally understood, is neither the beginning nor the end of rationality. This remains true even if we include your non-unitary, non-linear QM.

On what basis do I place rationality over science? I do so on the basis of Personalism.

As long as you can grant me that Personalism is not implausible, then you will find that neither the 'small world' nor the 'sunfish' hypothesis is implausible, IMHO. But I am willing to take these last two items as my gamble on your good faith.

There is just one item remaining.... that we can agree, in good faith, that, plausibly, Ron could be our best possible person for 'cosmic' interlocution.... that is better than say a pope or a president. To wit: he would be in a better position to interact with 'mj12' and/or handle strange 'phone calls'.

So, yes, Jack, there is an obvious corollary..... You are the best possible person to facilitate the next step, simply by agreeing to distinguish between crazy and implausible. Is this asking too much?

Am I making myself clear? Specific points of clarification?


Dan

Personalism implies God, since personalism implies complete distinction from all and any others. Thus, it being obvius that persons are all related in some way, then therefore, God is that relationship.

If there were no personalism, then there would be no distinction among people, and no relationship to distinguish one from another: Hence no God. But it is obvious that God exists; therefore, relationships exist, and thus unique individual persons. qed

Skai,

As Bill L said the other day, Personalism entails that we are each a slice of the pie.  It also strongly sugests the SWH.  So, yes, it is the essential aspect of the BPWH.  

Skai is emphasizing the personal aspect of Personalism.  Does this imply that God has a personality?  Certainly the j-man did.  That was the whole point.  I have suggested that we are God's multiple personality 'disorder' (MPD).  It is usually supposed that each of us should have a personal relationship with our Maker.  

For the multitudes of you who are hanging on Jack's reponse, suffice it to say that he does not wish to come out and play with me.  His time is much to valuable for such eschatological frivolity.  His paygrade is well above my comfort zone.  Neither Ron, Paul nor Bill is urging me to catch the next westbound flight.  My iou is safe for the time being.  We never know when that time will come around.  It could be tomorrow.  

Me?  I just never seem to tire of playing with my little atoms.  Today I see them as mainly potentialities.  They can hardly wait for us to come along and reify them.  Does the rain not fall on the just and the unjust?  Did it not fall on Mars, back in the day?  Hey, the planets could have all looked like cue balls, yes, even the moon.  There could just have easily have been no planets.  

Nature is fabulous.  We'll likely never get around to naming half the species. Who ordered all that fecundity?  Not I, said the fly.  And remember that God is just our Cheerleader, kinda like 'W' was.  It is mainly about relationalism, as Skai suggests.  Everything in its proper niche.  Nature abhors the void.  No blank spaces are allowed in the pleroma.  Yes, this is Panpsychism, with a vengeance.  

How does P-psy work?  Smartly.  


12:20---------

If nature so despises the void, why did she make so much of it?  

I don't think she did.  She just wanted us to feel expansive.... allow our imaginations to run riot, as in Star Trek.  The free play of imagination is an essential ingredient of the BPW.  That's how will fill out the Liebniz-Feynman sum over histories.  It's our imaginations that allow no nothing. Witness the sensory deprivation tank.



(cont.)

A. There is no void; it's only a figment of the imagination.

B. Persons are not slices of pie; otherwise they'd not be unique personalities. To argue that they are slices of pie is the same logic that the Trinity is three states of water, frozen, liquid, gas ... which logic is limited and therefore falls short of reason.